Prime Video’s The Girlfriend, the six-part psychological thriller that premiered September 25, 2025, has hurled viewers into a vortex of family facades and fractured minds, with Olivia Cooke and Robin Wright delivering a “chilling, edge-of-your-seat” descent that’s already racked 28 million hours viewed and a 92% Rotten Tomatoes rapture, outpacing The Fall‘s frenzy. Created by Jack Thorne (His Dark Materials) and directed by Sarah Adina Smith (Lessons in Chemistry), the series – inspired by the 2018 novel The Girlfriend by Sophie Hannah – stars Cooke, 31, as Laura, a young woman who inserts herself into a seemingly idyllic family, only to unleash a storm of deceit, obsession, and “shocking twists” that turn domestic bliss into a battlefield of betrayal. “It’s Line of Duty in a living room – addictive, unnerving, unputdownable,” Thorne tells Variety, his script a scalpel slicing through suburban serenity, with Smith cranking the claustrophobia from dinner tables to diary digs. Filmed January-July 2025 in London’s labyrinthine lots, the “binge in one sitting” beast has spiked socials with 3.2 million #GirlfriendGrip posts: “Slept worse after – pure paranoia!”
The saga’s sinister slide? Spellbinding: Episode 1’s “The Insertion” catapults Laura (Cooke, House of the Dragon‘s Alicent reborn as an “innocent intruder”) into the affluent home of Claire (Wright, House of Cards‘ Claire Underwood with a maternal mask), a widowed mother whose “perfect” life Laura upends with “helpful” hints and hidden horrors. Cooke’s Laura? A “masterclass in menace,” her wide-eyed “well-meaning” a weapon of whispers that warps the household. Wright’s Claire? A “vixen of vulnerability,” her steely spine cracking under the creep of control. Co-stars carve the chaos: Sally Hawkins as the suspicious sister, Tom Burke as the “haunted husband,” and Niamh Algar as the “loyal” lodger with a lethal ledger. Thorne’s quill quivers with quips – “Family’s a fiction we all fake” – but the “brutal” brutality bites: A botched bedtime buries a body, a VVIP viper’s venom turns ally to assassin.
The “explosive” essence? Eternal: Smith’s palette – lush lofts and lurking shadows – pulses with “passion and paranoia,” Thorne’s “faith-forward” flair fusing Gone Girl‘s gaslight with The Undoing‘s unravel. Directors like Adina Smith amp the anarchy with rain-slicked raids and desaturated dread, a score that throbs like a ticking timer. The Guardian gushes the “gripping” gasp of “gruesome authenticity,” EW the “haunting atmosphere” that haunts harder than The Sinner. Filmed in London’s fogged fog and fogged alleys, it’s Prime’s “biggest bet,” per exec Vernon Sanders.
This isn’t thriller tripe; it’s a trauma tango, The Girlfriend‘s descent a dagger to domestic denial—secrets’ slash, obsession’s origin. Laura’s lure? Lethal. Claire’s crack? Cataclysmic. September 25? Not a drop – a delirium. Binge it; the insertions intrigue, the intrusions infest. Cooke’s cunning? Captivating. Wright’s wariness? Wrenching. The obsession? Overnight, inescapable.
