This interview with “Bad Sisters” editors Catherine Creed and Derek Holland first appeared in the Below-the-Line issue of awards magazine TheWrap.
Faithfully based on the Flemish TV series “Clan,” AppleTV+’s “Bad Sisters” transplanted the darkly comic tale of a group of five sisters, a hideous husband, and a possible murder into a dreamlike representation of greater Dublin. But the show’s real narrative hook, and the reason it became such a talking point last summer, is its labyrinthine structure: Just as you’re wrapped up in a story, focus can shift on a dime (via a witty movie). reel effect) and will transport you to another time, often not that far back in chronology, deepening the focus and development of its many characters and creating more intrigue.
The ability to shuffle the timeline, editor Derek Holland said, came about through a series of unfortunate but fortuitous circumstances. “We had a director who had a looming deadline to go to another job and all kinds of COVID delays in the middle of shooting,” he said. “The second block (of episodes) was pushed and ran much longer than anticipated, but it turned out to be a huge advantage because there was a stage where all 10 episodes were in the editing room at the same time and none of them were blocked. . So, especially for someone like (co-creator and star) Sharon Horgan, she was able to see the arcs and moments unfold in Episodes 9 and 10 and filter them back into the decisions in Episode 1 or 2, which was a real treat. ”.
The central mystery of the show finds insurance investigators played by Daryl McCormack and Brian Gleeson investigating the death of John Paul (Claes Bang), nicknamed “The Prick” for his insidious emotional abuse of his wife, Grace (Anne-Marie Duff). ). Editor Catherine Creed worked on the pivotal episodes in the back half, where the mystery ended and each puzzle piece had its own unique setbacks, made more difficult by the timeline jumping back and forth and unable to be delineated. easily. “I remember saying, ‘Jesus, this is going to be hard,’” Creed said. “I’ve done a lot of things with flashbacks, but these are flashbacks from the recent past, right? So you can’t wear a lot of costumes and you can’t do hairstyles. And it is very important not to give away certain aspects. It’s easy to get lost in that when there’s a whole group of you editing because obviously we all get lost in our own episodes.”
Even though “Bad Sisters” tells a pretty self-contained story, fans were overjoyed to learn that a second season has been greenlit. The show left enough teasing threads to build on (so… what about that body discovered in the freezer?), and Creed and Holland aren’t at all surprised that people want more. “’Clan’ was one season and it’s over, and story-wise, ‘Bad Sisters’ is pretty true to that,” Holland said. “But the creators and the actors have created all these characters that audiences want to see, no matter what they’re doing. They could be sitting drinking tea. It’s so nice just spending time with them, whether they’re trying to kill the prick or not.”
Read more of the issue below the line here.
