Amazon's Tell Me Your Secrets wastes Lily Rabe with an overstuffed plot

Indiewire

"There’s a moment right around the midway point of Amazon Prime Video’s new crime drama, Tell Me Your Secrets, where two characters just scream into their phones," says Kristen Lopez. "That’s how you’ll feel throughout the entire 10-episode run of the show —  that what you’re watching is just a lot of screaming and crying with very little to show for it. This is weird, because the series is packed to bursting with storylines, all of which, on their own, could make a better series than the goulash equivalent we’re handed." Lopez adds: "Tell Me Your Secrets has an interesting history; it was originally sold to TNT back in 2017 in the hopes of revitalizing that network’s lineup. The show filmed in 2018 only to have TNT back out of the deal. The series sat until 2020 when Amazon picked it up for release in 2021. It’s unclear why TNT decided to forego airing the series, or if they even saw any of the footage — but this definitely feels like a show that has been sitting somewhere for three years."

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• Tell Me Your Secrets would get more attention if it looked more like The Undoing: "Tell Me Your Secrets has more in common with The Undoing that is immediately evident," says Kimberly Ricci. "And whereas latter was exquisitely shot, casting a seductive sheen over any plot holes that persisted. Whereas the former show kind-of revels in letting those holes all hang out. It’s a seriously messy series — so chaotic and unyielding that one almost admires all of the excessive effort — yet it doesn’t have the A-list selling power of the former series. Both shows swan dive into soap operative excess, but whereas The Undoing was forgiven for most of its sins, Tell Me Your Secrets won’t receive the same deference. And that’s a shame because this show would likely be embraced if its leading trio — played almost too well by Rabe, Hamish Linklater, and Amy Brenneman — could also distract from its (abundant) flaws by, you know, zooming in on Nicole Kidman’s scene-stealing eyeballs to communicate shock and fear in a Hitchcockian way."
• Tell Me Your Secrets is well-made, but just too convoluted: "Television thrillers are complex by definition," says Alexis Nedd. "They have to keep the audience engaged and do so by dazzling them with twists, drama, and shocking revelations that speak to the darkness at the heart of their characters. There is a line, however, and once that line is crossed, those twists, that drama, and the aforementioned darkness become suffocatingly confusing. At that point, the show becomes less of a thriller and more of a pessimistic tableau of all the awful things humanity is capable of, which bogs the show down and dissevers it from its value as entertainment. Tell Me Your Secrets crosses that line. It’s a well made show that is too heavy to even want to finish."
• Lily Rabe trained to be her own stunt double in Tell Me Your Secrets