The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window – Yes, For Real.

Netflix has done it again. After nearly a decade of creating their own, original content, it seems that the streaming giant has really perfected the craft. 2021 alone saw some of the most success in viewership with hits like Squid Game and Bridgerton, and they it doesn’t look like they’ll be slowing down in 2022.

In January of 2022, Netflix released The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window. No, I’m not joking. That is the actual name of the show. Netflix’s given description is: “Mixing wine, pills, casseroles and an overactive imagination, Anna obsesses over a hunky neighbor across the street and witnesses a murder. Or did she?” Starring Kristen Bell, this parody miniseries is a wild ride.

The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window follows our main character, Anna, as she navigates her life after experiencing extreme grief. Her favorite hobbies include drinking wine, mixing her wine with prescription pills, looking out the window, fearing the rain, and occasionally hallucinating. None of this seems to be too much of an issue until she witnesses a murder across the street. When the police show up at her door claiming no one has been murdered, Anna is left seriously confused. The rest of the series follows her as she tries to figure out what happened, despite no one believing her.

The most important thing to know about this show before starting is that it is a PARODY. For centuries, we’ve had classic mystery thriller stories come out and they seem to follow similar algorithms/plot lines. For instance, “the husband did it,” or “it was her the whole time,” or sometimes the crazy, “she was dead the whole time.” These kind of Agatha Christie-esque plots are fairly normal. This miniseries pokes at those classic plots and ideas into something wildly entertaining.

So, some things to mention: some of the plot lines are so outrageous and unrealistic, they become funny – hence, parody. Everything in this show is done to the absolute extreme. Why drink a glass when she could drink the whole bottle (that she fits into one glass)? The circumstances surrounding her grief are absolutely the wildest, most unrealistic thing in the show. Her handyman has been fixing her mailbox for years. The woman has an obsession with casseroles. It’s. All. Wild.

The title can’t be unmentioned. It seems a lot of works in this genre hold a similar name. For instance, The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware, The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, and I could probably list a hundred more, but you get it. There seems to be a widely accepted concept of using “person + place/thing” for mystery titles, so even the title of The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl Next Door is a joke. It, like the plot and character of the show, is an absolutely extreme representation of the expected.

This miniseries is an absolute must. Kristen Bell is an incredible actress and delivers a fantastic performance. The plot is outlandish and excessive, but in the best way. The show is gripping in a way that will have you watching until you’ve completed all eight episodes. Each episode is around 20 to 25 minutes long, so sitting down to binge it in a night is totally feasible (and something you definitely should do, because it’s so enjoyable). This was a great addition to the Netflix library, and you should check it out.

The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl Next Door is available to stream on Netflix.