Planning for taking the inheritance of his father, Eric, a young smart and hardworking guy, who does his best to make progress in their fame and marries his love life, struggles against the murder of his wife during the celebration.
Secrets and Lies fails to create much sense of location, or character, or even jeopardy after two hours and oodles of interpersonal conflict. It feels observed, rather than lived in. Enacted, rather than unfolding.
Taking a decidedly soapy approach to the who-killed-the-kid subgenre, Secrets and Lies is by no means revolutionary, but those who give it a chance may easily lose themselves in its titular subject matter.
An arresting performance or two would enliven matters. But Phillippe and Lewis as the two principal characters are not potent enough to get the juices flowing in an unfolding crime tale that's neither terrible nor scintillating.
Those who enjoy mysteries and melodramas will find a lot to like about Secrets & Lies, a show that's as interested in the reaction to the crime as it is to the whodunit.
Since the plot and some of the other performances are sufficiently compelling to pique our interest, Secrets and Lies is worth sampling for a few episodes. But if it doesn't get stronger at its center, viewers are going to drift away.
It's a fairly mundane mystery populated by cardboard characters with poor decision-making skills, starting with Ben, who immediately becomes the prime suspect, and his wife Christy.
The writers will lead you on and mislead you on, deploying false clues and red herrings until you feel as though you've been playing a game of Clue with a serial cheater.
