Between February 27, 2022, and April 3, 2022, the series was watched for 227.5million hours on Netflix, globally, according to Netflix top 10s.[2]
Premise
Pieces of Her follows the story of Andy, a 30-year-old woman who is caught in a deadly shooting at a local diner. Moments later, she witnesses her mother, Laura, violently eliminate the threat with ease. As Andy begins to unravel her mother's actions on that day, her perspective on their entire familial relationship takes a new turn. Soon, figures from her mother's past reappear, and she is forced to escape. On the journey, she attempts to find the truth that her mother buried long ago.[3]
Cast and characters
Main
Toni Collette as Laura Oliver, a speech pathologist and breast cancer survivor living in Belle Isle, Georgia, who has a dark past; it is later revealed that her real name is Jane Queller
Bella Heathcote as Andy Oliver, Laura's daughter, who moved back to take care of her mother
Omari Hardwick as Gordon Oliver, Laura's ex-husband and Andy's stepfather
David Wenham as Jasper Queller, the current CEO of Quellcorp
Jessica Barden as Jane Queller, Laura's younger self in the late 1980s, who was daughter of a powerful pharmaceutical CEO
On February 5, 2019, it was announced that Netflix had given the production an 8-episode series order.[4] The series was created by Charlotte Stoudt, who also serves as showrunner and is executive producer, along with Lesli Linka Glatter and Bruna Papandrea. Production companies involved with the series consist of Made Up Stories and Endeavor Content.[5][6][7] Stoudt is also credited as a writer, whilst Minkie Spiro directed all eight episodes.[8] The series premiered on March 4, 2022.[1]
Principal photography for the series was originally expected to begin on March 16, 2020, and conclude on July 17, 2020, in Burnaby, British Columbia.[15] Following an AU$21.58 million investment from the Australian Government, shared with the production of Spiderhead to boost the local economy during the COVID-19 pandemic, the production was lured to Sydney, Australia, where filming took place in early 2021.[16][17][18]
Episodes
No.
Title
Directed by
Written by
Original release date
1
"Episode 1"
Minkie Spiro
Teleplay by : Charlotte Stoudt
March 4, 2022 (2022-03-04)
Briefly shown is a young girl hiding inside of a run down wooden structure.
While Andrea (Andy) and Laura have lunch at a diner, a young man shoots a young woman, her mother, and a random man. Mistaking Andy's 911 uniform for a police uniform, he prepares to shoot her. Laura begs him to shoot her instead, but when he misses his last shot, he embeds a knife through Laura's hand; she waves the hand to slit his throat. Laura tells Andy she is afraid “he” is coming, and asks Andy not to speak to the police. A man at a large estate is seen saying “we’ve got a problem, it’s her” on a phone. Waking up in the middle of the night, Andy sees a man enter into the house. She knocks him unconscious as he tries to suffocate Laura. Laura gives Andy a bag with money, a key card, and a phone. She tells Andy to drive the man's car to a storage unit in Georgia, where she has another car, then drive to Camden, ME and to wait for her call. While rushing to find the attacker's car, Andy notices a rabbit's foot hanging from the rear view of a nearby vehicle, then she drives into the night.
2
"Episode 2"
Minkie Spiro
Anna Fishko
March 4, 2022 (2022-03-04)
After stopping at a gas station and buying supplies, the cashier notices the blood on her hand when handing her the change, she awkwardly rushes out to the truck, and washes the blood off while being watched by the cashier. Arriving in Carrollton Andy uses a library computer to look up directions to the Get-Em-Go and to Camden. On her way out she notices a hooded man peering into the window of the truck, she rushes out the rear fire exit and finds her way to the storage unit while the hooded man heads into the library. Once at the storage unit she find her mother's old wagon, with a gun in the glove box, some supplies in the hatch, and a suitcase of a large amount of cash with several fake IDs and a photo of her mothers youth that shows the cut that formed her mothers scar. Continuing her trip, she checks into a small motel for the night. Meanwhile, her mother reaches out to her ex husband, Gordon, for help, when he arrives she shows him the intruder tied up in a closet. Asking for his help to get them to the intruders meet point hoping to catch a glimpse at who he’s meeting. He reluctantly agrees, though along the way the attacker dies in the car. Gordon sends Laura home in a cab so he can bury the body alone. Racked by questions of her mothers past, Andy goes to a bar across the street where she confides in a stranger the feelings regarding her mother's secrets before asking to teach her to use the gun she found in the car, he reluctantly agrees. Meanwhile, her mother is desperate for a way to reach the man from her past who wants her dead, reaches out to the reporter in the news van outside her home, and agrees to an interview on the Today Show the next morning. After learning to shoot, Andy and the man walk to his truck together where she notices the same rabbit’s foot hanging, panicked, she heads to the motel room, continually checking over her shoulder only to see him watching her the whole way, once inside she quickly reloads the handgun, unsure of what’s next.
3
"Episode 3"
Minkie Spiro
Sharon Hoffman
March 4, 2022 (2022-03-04)
4
"Episode 4"
Minkie Spiro
Dan LeFranc
March 4, 2022 (2022-03-04)
5
"Episode 5"
Minkie Spiro
Jerome Hairston & Sharon Hoffman
March 4, 2022 (2022-03-04)
6
"Episode 6"
Minkie Spiro
Anna Fishko & Dan LeFranc
March 4, 2022 (2022-03-04)
7
"Episode 7"
Minkie Spiro
Michelle Denise Jackson
March 4, 2022 (2022-03-04)
8
"Episode 8"
Minkie Spiro
Charlotte Stoudt
March 4, 2022 (2022-03-04)
Reception
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 50% approval rating with an average rating of 5.7/10, based on 34 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "While Toni Collette heroically tries to bring Pieces of Her together, this lumbering mystery is too bogged down by backstory to satisfyingly cohere."[19]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 52 out of 100 based on 18 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[20]
Angie Han writing for The Hollywood Reporter praised Collette's performance throughout the series as "fascinating to watch". Han also noted that the series eventually "loses steam" after the first three episodes, describing Heathcote's character as merely "a mechanism propelling the narrative forward" with little to no character development.[21]
