Warning: this article contains multiple spoilers for Apple TV+’s Bad Sisters.

Imagine if watching attempted murder made you giddy with adrenaline instead of filling you with misery. Now imagine if you went online and realised hundreds of people on Twitter are hoping to see the same man “sliced and diced” pronto. Such is the simmering capital H Hate that Apple TV+’s ongoing series Bad Sisters evokes for its primary villain John Paul Williams. From tweets such as “John Paul is the new Joffrey” to others about the need to take deep breaths to soothe the rage his character elicits, the show unites its audience in collectively loathing one man.

Based on the Flemish TV show Clan and created by the brilliant Sharon Horgan – who also stars in the show – Bad Sisters is a wickedly hilarious thriller where the “whodunnit” is easily replaced by “thank goodness someone finally did it”. The first episode opens with the funeral of John Paul (JP or, less fondly, The Prick), the disgusting and villainous husband of Grace Garvey, one among five supremely close sisters living in Dublin. 

While Grace and her pre-teen daughter, Blanaid, mourn the dead, her four sisters, led by the fiercely protective Eva (Horgan), slump around the wake (not so) quietly celebrating and drinking. After their parents’ sudden and untimely death, the sisters become each other’s safe haven, and John Paul threatens this with every breath. The 10-episode dark comedy unfolds as the Claffin brothers, JP’s insurance agents, launch an amateur investigation into his death to avoid paying the $875,000 owed to the widow.

Five episodes in, viewers understand and honestly even support the malicious intent that could motivate the Garvey sisters against their brother-in-law. Every botched attempt at murder truly feels like a missed opportunity. John Paul is racist, homophobic, blindly misogynistic and stinks of an insatiable God complex. But that is the core of every villain, right? You’re meant to despise them. Still, what makes John Paul special is how the series exposes the rot that permeates every layer of his character. 

As the scenes build to a crescendo, viewers try to hold on to the hope that there is some saving grace to John Paul. When he enters the room with a present for Blanaid before her confirmation, our interest peaks, only to watch the man gift her a pin with foetus feet, the international symbol against abortion. When his floaty mother, Minna, brings out his childhood albums, the audience once again holds its breath waiting for a sliver of redemption. Instead, Minna says: “I think they dipped him in vinegar before they handed him over,” adding that as a child JP loved to drown frogs for fun.

He emotionally and physically abuses his wife and sugarcoats it as love. Every time JP manipulates Grace into devoting her energy to further his agenda, he adds saccharine statements of her being the only true woman among her sisters – an unequivocal red flag. He even has an absolutely repulsive nickname for her, Mammy, that further restricts her identity within the home. 

With every episode, the creators reveal a different facet of his vile behaviour. Threatened by Eva’s success, JP continually paints her as a careless drunk in front of their boss, even mocking her infertility. He strings along Becka (Eve Hewson), the youngest of the sisters, promising to fund her massage studio only to pull out at the final minute, leaving her in mounds of debt. To make things worse, he makes Grace deliver the news and insists Becka misunderstood in act of textbook mansplaining.

When John Paul discovers Ursula (Eva Birthistle), the third sister, is having an affair, he doesn’t expose it dramatically like a typical villain might. Instead, he slides into her phone, swaps her lover’s number for his own and tricks her into sharing a nude with him. We repeat, stratospheric capital H Hate. But the worst is yet to come, it turns out, as JP is also responsible for Bibi’s (Sarah Greene) lost eye. Not only did he drive irresponsibly fast to trigger the trauma of their parents’ death and end up in another accident, but he also refused to accept any responsibility and even claimed insurance from Bibi. 

It’s certainly a masterful performance by Claes Bang, to whom credit must be given for crafting such a horrendous character. 

In an interview with The New York Times, Horgan further explained the research that went into creating JP. Unlike its Belgian iteration where the antagonist is unkempt, JP was made debonair and attractive to change how he navigates the world. Inspired by cult characters like Mad Men’s Don Draper and Big Little Lies’ Perry, JP looked too sexy to scare on the outside. “These men get away with what they get away with because it’s often happening behind closed doors – they’re not walking around with signs on their head exuding danger. It’s always a shock, isn’t it?” said Horgan.

The creators also consciously made John Paul a strident Roman Catholic, possessing the most toxic traits the church propagates including homophobia and anti-abortion. While he thinks of himself as a “soldier against sin”, he rarely looks inward for criticism. John Paul doesn’t show a modicum of remorse for framing his neighbour as a paedophile or blaming his wife for the death of the cat he killed. Horgan also cites the Republican party and Boris Johnson as a reference for JP’s character. She draws parallels between the two because of how the former prime minister “gets away with so much by playing the buffoon”.

The anger viewers hold against John Paul is undoubtedly fuelled by the reality we’re experiencing today. In the face of a serious cost of living crisis that disproportionately affects women and the continued attack on reproductive rights in the US, watching the sisters in this show band together to take their revenge on a dreadful misogynist provides the perfect, cathartic conduit for female rage right now. Through this, we can take heart that there’s power in vocalising women’s mistreatment, that coming together makes us stronger and that ultimately we don’t have to accept the status quo.

Images: Apple TV+