Three Women Review: Starz's Sexy Adaptation Has Nothing New to Say About Womanhood

It's not necessarily the fault of Three Women, Starz's adaptation of Lisa Taddeo's 2019 nonfiction book of the same name, that it feels dated. Toward the tail end of the series, one of the women monologues about the ways women criticize other women, attributing it to their own oppression ("They'll call you fat, they'll call you a whore, a bad mom, because it's been done to them"), shortly after another takes a man to task after being called a slut ("I am not a slut. Nobody is. That word means absolutely nothing"). These observations, while not incorrect, don't feel like the fresh, urgent conclusions you hope for at the end of 10 episodes. These were the types of conversations women were having in the late 2010s, at the height of the #MeToo movement — which makes sense, considering that was when Taddeo published the source material. Therein lies the problem with Three Women the series: Something that might have had its finger on the pulse in 2019 ends up falling flat in 2024.

In the interest of accuracy, Three Women is actually about four women: Lina (Betty Gilpin), an unsatisfied housewife and mother with chronic pain who is desperate for her husband to desire her; Sloane (DeWanda Wise), a successful businesswoman in an open marriage; Maggie (Gabrielle Creevy), a teen who had a sexual relationship with her teacher; and Gia (Shailene Woodley), Taddeo's proxy, a journalist haunted by her own traumatic past who is speaking to them for her next book. Over the course of its first season (the series ends pretty definitively, but Taddeo has said she has ideas for a second season), the drama leans heavily into the various ways all four women explore their sexuality. Lina engages in an affair with Aidan (Austin Stowell), the high school boyfriend she idealizes as the one that got away, while Sloane breaks the carefully outlined rules of her arrangement with her husband Richard (Blair Underwood) after meeting Will (Blair Redford), who she can't seem to stay away from. Maggie thinks she's in control throughout her relationship with her teacher (Jason Ralph), only realizing what he took from her after it's over. Gia falls into a relationship with the loving and understanding Jack (John Patrick Amedori), but is too bogged down by a long history of loss to actually get close to him.

5.5

Three Women

at Starz

Like

• Betty Gilpin and DeWanda Wise are great
• Maggie's story is treated with care
• The sex scenes feel legitimately daring

Dislike

• It's dated
• We've seen all of this done better elsewhere
• The ending rings hollow

There are plenty of interesting threads here. While Gia's story consistently stands out as the least compelling, Maggie's shines at the most nuanced. It helps that the real Maggie Wilken is the only one of the women Taddeo interviewed who allowed her real name and identity to be revealed, and the series treats her with respect and sensitivity. Maggie's story thoughtfully maps how someone like her, a 17-year-old who believes herself to be more mature than she is and has a history of seeking affection from older men, would come to trust and later be drawn in by a slimy, subtly controlling figure. The series follows her relationship with her teacher and sets it against the ensuing court case that takes place years later, after she publicly accuses him of sexual misconduct. Here, the show allows itself to ask its most interesting questions about power dynamics, who is actually capable of giving consent, and how we reframe events from our past as we age. Compared to what Three Women does with Maggie, the plots of Lina and Sloane pale in comparison and meander aimlessly throughout, hard as the always excellent Gilpin and Wise try to spin gold out of the flat writing they're given.

Three Women's most singular quality is how unflinchingly it depicts sex and women's bodies. It runs the gamut: An early moment shows Lina trimming her pubic hair, while a later scene shows a character lying naked on the bathroom floor as she experiences the messy, agonizing pain of a miscarriage. The sex scenes, focal points of the series, are frequent, lengthy, and detailed; a standout scene toward the beginning finds Lina and Aidan hooking up while Lina is on her period. Through Lina's eyes, the blood on the sheets afterward becomes a euphoric reward. Three Women's most of-the-moment quality is that it arrives at a time when the discourse surrounding sex scenes in TV and film is louder than ever, making it feel sincerely refreshing to see a show about sex that actually allows its characters to have sex. It's in this area that the show makes a bold commitment. You're left wishing the rest of the series would match it.

For every audacious sex scene comes a corny piece of dialogue where Lina is unsubtly slut shamed by her women's group, or one where Sloane outright blames her mother for her inability to find satisfaction in her marriage. The stilted dialogue could perhaps be forgiven if the themes the show is interested in hadn't all been done better elsewhere; the series calls to mind everything from the frank and powerful first season of HBO's Big Little Lies to Netflix's fearless Unbelievable. Sometimes Three Women just feels like one long depiction of America Ferrera's toothless monologue from Barbie. And though the series portrays Lina, Sloane, and Maggie's stories as disparate, connected only by Gia's interviews, it all culminates in a hollow girl power ending as the show clumsily brings the women together in a dreamily unsatisfying conclusion. There's a version of Three Women that trusts itself and its audience enough to tie the characters' stories together in a way that isn't quite so literal. Maybe someday we'll get it.

Premieres: Friday, Sept. 13 at 10/9c on Starz
Who's in it: Shailene Woodley, Betty Gilpin, DeWanda Wise, Gabrielle Creevy, Blair Underwood
Who's behind it: Creator Lisa Taddeo, writers Tori Sampson, Laura Eason, and Chisa Hutchinson 
For fans of: Sex scenes, Betty Gilpin
How many episodes we watched: 10 of 10