Previewing The Last Thing He Told Me 

[Warning: General spoilers ahead.]

Twenty-two years ago this fall, the world was introduced to Sydney Bristow, and Jennifer Garner became a household name. Alias broke Garner into the mainstream as a brainy, badass spy and the intervening decades have seen the actress move more into mom roles. Still brainy and badass but flexing a different muscle.

Apple TV+’s The Last Thing He Told Me, which drops its first two episodes this Friday, merges those personas. Garner’s another mom, but this time she’s tapping into Alias territory, down to reteaming for an episode with Big Daddy Bristow himself, Victor Garber.

In the series, Garner is Hannah, an artisanal woodworker newly, happily married to tech wizard Owen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and, not as happily but working on it, now a stepmother to his 16-year-old daughter Bailey (Aungorie Rice). Their idyllic waterfront life in Northern California is turned on its head when Owen’s company, run by Avett, a sketchy, cagey CEO delightfully played by Todd Stashwick, hits the news in an FBI sting of Enron proportions. Before Hannah can get the story from Owen, he ghosts his wife and daughter, vanishing without a trace, save a cryptic handwritten note, hastily delivered to Hannah, reading simply, “Protect her.”

That directive sets in motion the season’s seven episodes that find Hannah and Bailey on a quest to figure out what happened. Suddenly adrift from the tether of the only parent she’s ever known, Bailey’s not keen to put her trust in Hannah, a woman she’s spent considerable effort walling out because she’s the first person her dad brought into their carefully curated life.

That life and those precious memories are just part of what begins to unravel as the duo chase down the truth, aided by Hannah’s BFF Jules (Aisha Tyler), who Bailey likes and trusts more than Hannah (which is never explained), ex-fiance Jake (Geoff Stults), and Grady (Augusto Aguilera), a US Marshal who lands on their doorstep. Soon the action shifts from California to Austin, where the series filmed on location. We also explore the courtship between Owen and Hannah in a series of flashbacks as reexamines their relationship through the lens of her current situation and tries to gauge what she might have missed earlier.

The Sydney Bristow of it all comes into play as Hannah must quickly think on her feet in a range of situations, and we witness her easy facility with spinning tales and drawing people in with untruths to get the information she needs. It’s a skill that’s also never explained over the course of the season but is immensely entertaining to watch Garner do again as Hannah very deftly deploy it in times of need.

Garner and Rice are excellent together as two women thrown together who have no choice but to trust each other, wherever their path to the past leaves, and whether or not it brings Owen home. And Hannah tries to make sure that whatever happens, Bailey doesn’t experience the same emotional ricochet she did when her own mother repeatedly ghosted her. The saving grace of her childhood was being raised by a loving grandfather who also taught her the skill that became her career.

Anyone who’s spent any time around procedurals will likely figure out the secrety secret before the show tips it, but that mystery is secondary to Hannah and Bailey’s story, which is very compelling and expertly portrayed. The series is the latest addition to Apple TV+ from Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter’s Hello Sunshine shingle.

Olivia Newman, Deniz Gamze Ergüven, Daisy Von Scherler Mayer, and Lila Neugebauer split directing duties of episodes written by Laura Dave, Josh Singer, Isaac Gomez, Erica Tavera, Harris Danow, Jamie Rosengard, and Allegra Caldera based on Dave’s novel.

The Last Thing He Told Me premieres with two episodes Friday, April 14th, at 3:01 am ET with new episodes dropping every week thereafter through May 19th. Here are a couple of sneak peeks.

Photos and videos courtesy of Apple TV+.