An open house event for an upscale home already resembles a game of “Clue”: affluent people from various walks of life, gathered together in a large, attractive space. All that’s missing from this ready-made setup is a dead body, a gap easily filled by creator Liz Feldman in the Netflix black comedy “No Good Deed.”
Feldman previously created “Dead to Me” for the streamer, another series about affluent, amoral residents of Southern California. (Christina Applegate’s character was even a real estate broker.) If “No Good Deed” recycles some elements from that earlier project, including the presence of Linda Cardellini as a woman who’s not telling the whole truth about her backstory, the show at least benefits from their dependable nature. In fact, “No Good Deed” features such a solid setup — and such a stacked cast, led by Ray Romano and Lisa Kudrow as a couple looking to sell their Los Angeles villa — that its overreliance on twists can be counterproductive. In the parlance of its central industry, once the eight-episode season settles into its story, one can appreciate the good bones beneath all the unnecessary fixtures.
Paul (Romano), a contractor, and Lydia (Kudrow), a pianist, live in Los Feliz, a hip-yet-cushy neighborhood soon to be renamed The “Nobody Wants This” Zone. As cash-strapped empty nesters, it’s understandable why the pair would want to downsize. (Paul not only did most of the work on the house, he grew up in it. The sale is pure profit!) But when Mikey (Denis Leary), a menacing figure from their past, returns to blackmail them over some long-buried secrets, we learn they may have ulterior motives for letting go of their longtime residence.
Netflix has forbidden me from disclosing either Mikey’s connection to Paul and Lydia or what actually happened in their house around three years ago — not coincidentally, the cutoff for when they’d be legally obligated to disclose a death on the property. It’s true “No Good Deed” withholds these crucial details for several episodes, ginning up suspense with vague, choppy flashbacks. But the answers are important enough that I wished “No Good Deed” had just cut to the heart of its story about a family in grief, the better to illuminate the relationships within it. The marriage of Lydia, psychosomatically blocked from playing her instrument, and Paul, maniacally focused on moving forward, only comes into focus near the close. At first, they operate in a comic register that’s old hat for two sitcom legends, bickering and fumbling their way through an amateur coverup. Once “No Good Deed” stops throat-clearing, Kudrow and Romano finally get to flex their dramatic chops.
At least “No Good Deed” buys time with a bitchy, nimble satire of acquisitive yuppies. Paul and Lydia’s suitors are a motley crew. Newlyweds Dennis (O-T Fagbenle, dropping his insane accent from “Presumed Innocent”), an author, and Carla (Teyonah Parris), now six months pregnant, need more space for their growing family — which may or may not include his overbearing mother, Denise (Anna Maria Horsford). Sarah (Poppy Liu) and Leslie (Abbi Jacobson) have been obsessed with the house for years, but their scrutiny is less-than-welcome: Leslie is a prosecutor, while Sarah’s addicted to Citizen. Even JD (Luke Wilson), the washed-up sitcom actor down the street, is interested, having spent all his earnings on a McMansion designed by his trophy wife Margo (Cardellini). (It is the highest of compliments that, at 49, Cardellini is more than credible as a scheming gold digger getting by on her good looks.) As real estate agent Greg, Matt Rogers makes for a delightful ringmaster of this three-ring circus.
“No Good Deed” avoids the weightier implications of setting a show in the modern real estate market; there’s no mention of a housing crisis, or even a specific price. Instead, Feldman sticks to the broader symbolism of searching for a home, on the buyers’ side, and how a house becomes haunted with decades of memories, on the sellers’. It’s a worthy subject, enough to sustain “No Good Deed” through the distraction of twist after twist — a tendency that affects the entire ensemble, beyond just Paul and Lydia. From finances to family backgrounds, the surprises are uniformly less satisfying than the post-reveal candor. A stable status quo makes for a more nurturing environment than constant upheaval. That’s sort of the point of sinking all your savings into an empty building, isn’t it?
All eight episodes of “No Good Deed” are now streaming on Netflix.
English (US) ·