It’s never a good sign when characters point out flaws in the script they’re reading from. Unfortunately, this seems to be part of Nicky Macintosh’s job on The Better Sister. It’s Nicky who exasperatedly hollers at her sister Chloe to lawyer up, something she should have done before speaking to her first detective — let alone before they started sniffing around her son Ethan as a suspect. It’s Nicky who mocks Chloe’s comparison of her behavior to Jerry Springer, saying something to the effect of 1998 called and it wants its reference back. 

But it’s not Chloe’s fault that the show’s costume department doesn’t seem to have seen a poor person since the Clinton administration and is dressing Nicky accordingly, any more than it’s her fault that she’s being written like the world’s richest, most successful, most politically viable babe in the woods. (Cynical idiots get ahead in life all the time, but idealistic idiots would get eaten alive before rising to her level.) Even so, it falls to Nicky to give voice to complaints we in the audience might have, as if that short-circuits those complaints instead of giving them extra juice. 

The episode revolves around Detectives Guidry and Bowen’s ongoing attempt to pin the murder of Adam Macintosh on his son, Ethan. Certainly it’s not looking good for “that sweet, soft boy,” as Guidry calls him: The items he reported stolen from his room during the obviously staged “break-in” that led to his dad’s death turn up in his own closet, covered in blood. Meanwhile, his drug-dealer buddy blew up his alibi, revealing he was alone for a long stretch on the night of his father’s murder. This leads to a terrific reaction shot from Jessica Biel, Elizabeth Banks, and Gloria Reuben, who plays Ethan’s newly hired lawyer Michelle Sanders. And oh yeah, he once took his dad’s gun to school, though that was all a big misunderstanding I’m sure. Yeah, he could well be our guy.

But I get the impression secrets abound within this crew, and that Ethan is a red herring. There’s Chloe and her mysterious burner phone to consider; it sure looks like she was having an affair with Jake Rodríguez (Gabriel Sloyer), a lawyer at late husband Adam’s firm who the cops can instantly tell hated the guy’s guts. There’s her boss, Bill, and his own mysterious phone call to think of as well: He warns an unknown party that Chloe might get herself killed if she’s not careful. A brief vision of their father on Nicky’s part indicates a dark secret in the family’s past, too, though I have the sinking feeling it’s easy enough to figure out what happened, and to whom. 

And as far as the misogynistic package delivered to their home the day of the murder, the call may be coming from inside the house, so to speak. A cybersecurity expert hired by Chloe (Keone Young, part of the show’s suite of Deadwood veterans, including Kim Dickens as Guidry and Michael “Steve the Drunk” Harney as Chloe’s doorman and occasional driver) has traced some of the most virulent internet chatter about her to her own magazine’s offices.

Keeping in mind that this magazine is the platform from which Chloe is launching a progressive political career, there’s a fundamental disconnect within her character. Simultaneously, we are asked to accept that she is a) an enormously successful and wealthy businesswoman who b) knows less about asking for legal counsel when questioned by cops than anyone who’s seen a couple episodes of Law & Order, and that she c) is making a political name out of advocating for labor rights while d) also being a rich person who trusts the police completely, to the point she’s let them talk to her minor child alone. You just can’t get from here to there, you know?

This despite the fact that Biel is a compelling actor, one of those performers blessed with looks so striking they have to figure out something interesting to do with it lest it swamp their talents. (Think of half the cast of Mad Men, for example.) In Biel’s case, she uses her severe, patrician beauty and gym-toned silhouette to suggest being tightly wound, even brittle. She projects the air of a person whose house of cards is about to come tumbling down just by how she inhabits her wardrobe, her hairstyle, the screen itself. 

This all works particularly well when contrasted with the flashbacks that show her as a looser, less particular version of herself when her relationship with Adam began. And talk about a psychological cocktail there: Chloe and Adam trying to make up for Nicky’s failure by effectively recreating the relationship with a different sister swapped in. But despite this potentially fertile material, there’s simply a limit to what any actor can do with a character who’s less a person and more a contradiction in terms.

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.