The toxic boy mom is an online trope that pops up on TikToks and Reddit threads. The Girlfriend provides anyone who falls into that archetype their patron saint in Laura Sanderson (Robin Wright). She’s an art dealer who you just know calls her son Daniel (Laurie Davidson) “one of my best friends,” when he’s not around to object. Unfortunately for Laura’s stranglehold on the boy, he’s met Cherry Laine (Olivia Cooke). She’s the child of a butcher working as a real estate agent and decidedly of a different class. More importantly, she is more than ready to compete for the attention of mommy’s precious man’s.

This is no mere “let’s spend the holidays together instead of schlepping out to your parents’ house for dinner” dustup, though. Laura takes an immediate dislike to Cherry and seeks to justify that through a number of increasingly invasive and ill-advised tactics. Cherry, for her part, isn’t exactly pure of heart or behavior. As their tête-à-tête escalates, it becomes clear this isn’t the kind of in-law situation where cordiality will keep everyone in their corners.

The best weapon in The Girlfriend’s storytelling arsenal is its split narrative. Each episode unfolds first from one of the two women’s perspectives, then doubles back to give the audience the other point of view. At first, this demonstrates how mixed signals, bad timing, and unexplained events can cause conflict where none is needed. A character accidentally puts something in their pocket. Before they can return it, the other character finds it, though, making it seem as though it was an intentional theft.

However, as the story progresses, it becomes clear that both sides are unreliable narrators. Dialogue in scenes presented in both parts differs wildly, making one a cowed victim in their own version and a raging profanity-spewing threat in the other. What was an embarrassing accident becomes a provocative over-the-top expression of sexuality and so on. What once seemed like a device to let the audience in on what each woman does and doesn’t know about each other curdles into yet another way to convince themselves they’re in the right and the other woman in the wrong.

Wright and Andrea Harkin, directing in collaboration with cinematographers Paul Morris and Mattias Nyberg, do an excellent job of demonstrating how easily honest mistakes can happen. They then capture how, once they first impressions form, they escalate and outstrip honest mistakes, leaving only an endless confirmation loop.

That Cooke and Wright are so good at capturing different versions—but not so different they don’t feel related—of their characters is a tremendous asset. Additionally, both are quite willing to be the bad guy. Yes, Cherry is being unfairly judged by a jealous and overprotective older woman. However, she is also the type to sabotage an ex’s wedding with a (literally) bloody prank and encourage her boyfriend to skip out on commitments with his family. Laura has good reasons for skepticism when it comes to Cherry, but the lengths she goes to drive her son’s girlfriend away are (delightfully) over the top.

What hurts The Girlfriend is the man at the center of their battle. As played by Davidson, Daniel is bland when not sparked by his mom’s coddling or his girlfriend’s sexual heat. Like Teri Polo in Meet the Parents before him, Daniel is a baffling, unworthy fulcrum of parent-lover battle. Thankfully, The Girlfriend is so much more of a kick than Parents. Still, audiences will likely find themselves gesturing to the TV saying, “For him?!” with increasing incredulity.

The second problem is how the series frequently feints towards having bigger thoughts on its mind than just two women losing utter control of themselves to prove they aren’t the crazy one here. For instance, there are a few moments that suggest Laura isn’t actually the success she seems. That, perhaps, she’s a paper tiger of the art world propped up by her even wealthier husband. This points towards multiple avenues to explore: class, the nature of meritocracy, how we confuse the appearance of success with the reality of it, the idea of success as confirmation of a person’s worth, and so on.

Sadly, The Girlfriend largely doesn’t pursue any of these avenues. It counts on animosity towards the rich to fill in the blanks. And while anger towards the rich these days is pretty well justified, the show needs to do better than draft off real-life affluent monsters. It is as though the creators fear tipping the scales too much in Cherry’s favor. So they don’t explore notions, only acknowledge them.

Of course, this is applying a lens to the show that perhaps doesn’t make much sense. The Girlfriend is trash TV at its prettiest and most unhinged. It would be nice if it were about SOMETHING too. But maybe this once it is ok to just enjoy the wild, dumb, sexy ride.

The Girlfriend is making eye contact with you while kissing your kid on Prime Video starting September 10.

The Girlfriend Trailer: