This article was published on 9/14 and republished on 9/16.
It’s a show that is not likely to be on many people’s radar, but at the moment, it’s got a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score, netting a win for Netflix.
The 100%-scoring show is The Dead Girls, a show that has only barely hit the top 10 in Netflix’s list, currently at #10, but has hooked the critics who have seen it. The show is a limited series, a Mexican show based on a book by Jorge Ibargüengoitia. Here’s how it was described by Salman Rushdie:
“This is the first appearance in English of a Mexican novelist of enormous talent. His brilliant novel is based on fact: the discovery in the yard of a small-town brothel of the corpses of six prostitutes. In the laconic tones of a police report, Ibargüengoitia investigates the murders and their motives, the society and the profession – the oldest of all, but no less mysterious for that – which precipitated them. But this is no dry work of sociology or criminology; it is a work of fiction, a black comedy both moving and cruelly funny, a potent and entertaining blend of sex and mayhem…”
On top of that, this is also based on a true story of Las Poquianchis, a family of serial killers back in the 1960s. The show is six episodes, but a lengthy watch given that all of them range from 60 to 80 minutes, meaning this is as much as an investment as some other shows might be if they were 12 episodes, kind of a rarity for Netflix.
This is a limited series, based on a book, based on real events, so no, there is no search for a sequel season going on here in terms of the viewership it may or may not get. I’m not sure if it will move up the top 10 list or drop off, but if it’s this good, word of mouth may spread and it could become a higher-profile foreign show for Netflix, who was wise to scoop this up, it seems. Here’s what some of the critics are saying about it:
- El Universal: “The structure of the series works with such precision that it not only creates the need to keep watching episode after episode, but Estrada also turns each chapter into a genre-bending film.”
- LeisureByte: “The Dead Girls is an engaging but heartbreaking series about two ruthless sisters who reek of desperation and greed.”
Whether The Dead Girls retains its 100% as more reviews come in remains to be seen, but regardless, it’s certainly something to seek out even if it may disappear off Netflix’s list and is not a hugely featured program on the service. Enjoy.
Update (9/16): Heading back to check on The Dead Girls after a few days, and I am not terribly surprised to see that it’s fallen off the Top 10 list entirely. Word of mouth didn’t spread fast enough, it seemed. It’s also not helped by the fact that multiple Emmy winner Adolescence has pushed its way back onto the list after people wanted to check it out after it rained awards on the program this weekend.
That 100% hasn’t changed. The Dead Girls still has that score, albeit more reviews are not coming in. In addition to being ignored by audiences, it’s also largely being ignored by critics. These days there are perilously few TV critics attempting to cover roughly 500 seasons of streaming shows out there, so things like this tend to slip through the cracks, unfortunately.
But I mean, who really cares. The show exists, it’s good, you can watch it if you actually find out about it, which is what this article is meant to spotlight. I mean, this already has a quarter of a million views, so some people at least are being introduced to The Dead Girls through my piece here. I hope you enjoy it if you’ve decided to check it out. It deserves more views, but if it doesn’t get them, oh well, at least it made it to air in the first place.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
