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Shining Girls is a very bizarre tale, indeed.
Starting in 1964, Harper (Jamie Bell) sits down in front of who I assume is a young Elisabeth Moss’ character (although I could be wrong, given how this plays out), and rather hinders a bee by removing its wings (obviously, a CGI bee, in this day and age), thus scaring the girl.
Zoom forward to 1992 and we see Kirby (Elisabeth Moss) as a young woman, and very much an introvert, working as an admin assistant for the Chicago Sun Times, and after going out for lunch, she gets back to the office and… finds a man working at her computer. She asks if his own machine is broken, and he tells her (a bit Shining-like… yes, THAT Shining), that this has always been his computer, and points in the direction of her desk. It’s all a bit too weird for her.
Meanwhile, city workers have found a body in an underground pipe ofs a young woman, Julia Madrigal (Karen Rodriguez). Before long, Kirby realises there’s similarities between Julia’s murder and her own asault, from six years ago, following which a cop asks her to identify the assailant from mugshots, but she struggles to pick them out for reasons you’ll discover.
For her home life, Kirby lives with mum Rachel (Amy Brenneman), but is about to move to Orlando to live with her cousin, so her mum will rent out her room. Meanwhile, at work, reporter Dan (Wagner Moura) will help her figure out who struck both her and Julia. He initially suspects a man called Pawel Banuk, but Kirby has other leads.
However, that’s about a normal as things get in this, as in another scene, Harper assumes a young woman called Jinny (Phillipa Soo) recognises him, but she doesn’t, and he says “Not today“. Is he a time traveller?
Elsewhere, one minute, a woman called Iris is examining Kirby for her injuries, and the next, it’s a man called Howard. Is Kirby jumping around in time, or going through alternate realities?
Well, we end up as confused as she is, with her ever-changing environment. Is it a time-travel thing, or is she going all ‘Quantum Leap‘? What’s real and what is Memorex? And will you care? Either way, so far, Shining Girls is very all over the place.
After watching the first two episodes so far (out of 3 available on day one, and 8 in total for the series), to me, this is just the start of the gibberish. Yep, I’m not convinced. I’m done. Maybe the novel made sense?
Shining Girls is on Apple TV+ from Friday April 1st, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. Two episodes are available at launch, and then the rest are added weekly.
Check out the trailer below:
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 45-60 per episode (3 at first, then weekly)
Release date: April 29th 2022
Studio: Apple TV+
Format: 2.00:1
Series Directors: Michelle MacLaren, Elisabeth Moss, Daina Reid
Producers: Joshua Levey, Silka Luisa
Novel: Lauren Beukes
Writer: Silka Luisa
Music: Claudia Sarne
Cast:
Kirby: Elisabeth Moss
Rachel: Amy Brenneman
Jin-Sook: Phillipa Soo
Harper: Jamie Bell
Dan: Wagner Moura
Leo Jenkins: Christopher Denham
Sheila: Deanna Reed-Foster
Howard: Marc Grapey
Patron: Bridget Beasley
Marcus: Chris Chalk
Officer Leslie: Andy McDermott
Koki Bar Goer: Giota Trakas
Detective Samuels: Brian Boland
Julia Madrigal: Karen Rodriguez
Iris Laskaris: Hanna Dworkin
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.