"Playing Gracie Darling” is the kind of show that makes you question every choice you made as a teenager, especially the ones involving candles, dark basements, and friends who insisted that summoning the dead was a team-building activity. Watching it, I kept thinking, “Ah, yes, adolescence: the time when doing something deeply stupid felt like the only way to bond.” The series leans into that painful nostalgia with the confidence of someone who knows exactly the kind of awkward, traumatic, slightly feral energy teenage girls radiate. And honestly? It works.
The show begins with adult Joni Grey, a child psychologist who clearly needs therapy more urgently than her clients, being dragged back to the small town she escaped years ago. Another girl has gone missing, and locals fear that history is repeating itself. Decades earlier, Joni’s best friend, Gracie Darling, vanished in the middle of a séance led by a teenage Joni who was definitely not qualified to lead anything other than a group project. This long-buried trauma forms the emotional backbone of the series, and it's handled with surprising restraint. As someone who’s watched countless thrillers that treat trauma like a piñata full of jump scares, I appreciate the quieter approach here.
The pacing starts slow, the kind of slow where you think, “Am I supposed to feel uneasy, or did the editor simply take a long lunch?” But once the mystery kicks in, the show finds its rhythm. The constant blurring of reality and Joni’s memories gives the story a hazy, slightly unreliable feel, which I actually enjoyed. It’s like the writers want you to doubt every flashback, every whispered conversation, every conveniently flickering lamp. At times, I felt like I was solving a puzzle while mildly sleep-deprived — confusing but engaging.
The performances carry the show more than anything else. Morgana O’Reilly gives Joni this brittle, haunted, and often darkly funny edge that makes her instantly compelling. She’s constantly stuck between being the competent professional she wants the world to think she is and the terrified teenager she used to be. It’s a messy combination, but O’Reilly plays it with such honesty that even when Joni makes absolutely terrible decisions — like following creepy sounds alone or reading old séance notes at night because apparently she hates herself — you still root for her.
The supporting cast is equally strong. Rudi Dharmalingam’s detective brings weary skepticism, Celia Pacquola adds some much-needed tonal levity, and the teenage cast is excellent at portraying that special breed of modern adolescent who can run a summoning ritual and still worry about their battery percentage. The writing gives each of them at least one moment of emotional truth, which helps the story feel layered rather than just eerie for its own sake.
Cinematography is where the show really shines. The whole aesthetic screams “beautiful but unsettling,” with dusky streets, fog-soaked forests, and dimly lit interiors that make even harmless objects look cursed. If the set designers told me they imported fog from a haunted swamp for authenticity, I’d believe them. The handheld shots during Joni’s spirals, the wide frames for town secrets, the way shadows cling to corners — it all builds an atmosphere that’s almost a character itself.
Now, as much as I enjoyed the series, let me get to the roast portion of this program, because I have notes. First: the show sometimes tries so hard to be mysterious that it ends up telling you nothing while pretending it told you everything. There are scenes where characters deliver ominous lines like “You know what happened,” and I’m sitting there yelling, “Actually, I do not. That’s why I’m here! Explain it to me!” Some reveals also land a bit too late, long after I stopped caring about the breadcrumb trail and started judging the characters’ common sense instead.
There’s also the occasional overuse of supernatural ambiguity. The series wants to keep you guessing about what’s real, which is great, but sometimes it crosses into “Did the writers forget to pick a lane?” territory. A few plot threads deserved tighter resolution or at least a hint that they weren’t just forgotten in the fog machine haze. Still, despite these hiccups, the emotional arc holds steady, and that’s what ultimately anchors the series.
One of my favorite aspects is how the show treats girlhood — not with sugar-coated nostalgia, but as something intense, electric, and sometimes frightening. The connection between Joni and Gracie is depicted with a kind of raw honesty that makes the loss sting even in flashbacks. The depiction of trauma, repressed guilt, and the way communities silently carry old stories adds depth that elevates the narrative beyond surface-level thrills.
When the final episode arrives, the payoff is satisfying enough that I forgave some of the earlier wandering. The resolution isn’t neat — which fits the tone — but it acknowledges the emotional messiness the show has been building. Joni’s final confrontation with her past brings a sense of earned closure without tying everything in a perfect bow. It left me thinking about how memories distort, how fear lingers, and how sometimes the scariest ghosts are the ones we create ourselves. And yes, I fully hear how dramatic that sounds, but the show earns it.
Overall, Playing Gracie Darling is atmospheric, well-acted, emotionally grounded, and confidently crafted. Sure, it occasionally tries to look clever instead of just being clear, but even at its most confusing, it’s never boring. If you like slow-burn mysteries, psychological spirals, or stories about how teenage mistakes haunt adult lives in the most literal way possible, this one is worth your time. And if you ever participated in a teenage séance, I hope this series brings you peace — or at least explains why your adult life feels slightly cursed.
Final Score- [7/10]
Reviewed by - Anjali Sharma
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Publisher at Midgard Times