My bestie betrayed me review

The setup

Emma spends most of episode 1 searching for her boyfriend Ryan, calling for him and growing more sure of where he must be. She finds him. He is not alone: her best friend Mia is with him, and the scene says the rest without explaining. Ryan reaches for the oldest line in the book and insists she has misread the situation. Mia's contribution is a single, unbothered oops. That is the whole episode: a search, a discovery and one very bad excuse.

Episode 2

Someone asks Emma who hurt her as episode 2 begins, and the morning after only gets worse. Ryan runs the full defense: Mia had been drinking, Mia made the move, none of it meant a thing. Mia shows up with fake concern about how rattled Emma looked, before dropping the act and warning her that nobody will take her side. Emma ends it with a clean exit line, handing Ryan to Mia like a consolation prize she has fully earned.

Who's who

• Emma: the betrayed girlfriend, quiet through the shock and cutting once she finds her voice
• Ryan: the boyfriend, armed with every excuse in the cheater's handbook and none that work
• Mia: the best friend, who goes from caught to smug in record time

Verdict: 3.9 out of 10

This plays like the cold open of a soap opera. Episode 1 is nearly wordless, a search that ends on a discovery, and leans on the images to do the talking. Episode 2 is sharper, mainly because Mia's switch from sweet to menacing gives Emma a real enemy. As a romance there is nothing here yet. As the start of a betrayal saga it is competent, and the paid episodes will appeal mostly to viewers who want to see Mia get what is coming to her.

Episode guide