[Warning: General spoilers ahead.]
Alongside the flip from Hallmark Movies Now to Hallmark+, the rebranded streamer is debuting a host of new programming (more on that here), including its first episodic drama series, The Chicken Sisters. Adapted by Annie Mebane from the Reese’s Book Club pick of the same name by KJ Dell’Antonia and directed by Kimmy Gatewood, the series set in small-town Merinac unpacks generational trauma and wealth against the backdrop of a reality TV competition that’s a catalyst for upending a longstanding, multigenerational feud between the two families who own competing fried chicken restaurants.
With narration throughout by Margo Martindale, the story begins in the present from the POV of Amanda (Schuyler Fisk), daughter of Gus Moore (Wendie Malick), who fractured her relationship with her mother, who runs Mimi’s, years earlier when she married the son of Nancy Hillier (Lea Thompson), who ran Frannie’s with her husband, Frank. The estrangement didn’t stop there when her older sister, Mae (Genevieve Adelson), left town as soon as she could — and walked out on the wedding, and has since found a little fame with a reality TV makeover show while also disavowing her family and her history.
While Amanda and her mother-in-law, the now widowed Nancy, did then and still do love each other madly, Amanda’s marriage to Frank Jr. (James Kot), who’s become a functioning alcoholic with a mean streak, has cooled, as has her relationship with her teenage daughter, Frankie (Cassandra Sawtell). When she catches a social media solicitation for entries to “Kitchen Clash,” a competitive cooking show that pits restaurants against each other, she emails the producer and host, Sabrina (Rukiya Bernard), about “Merinac’s Chicken War,” and is shocked when they’re selected.
What started as a moment of radical self-care spirals when Amanda has the not-insignificant task of getting Gus on board. Gus is an immediate no until Amanda mentions the $100,000 prize, and then gives her a conditional yes if she can get Mae to come home and do it with her. That goes as well as you think it will, until Mae has a setback. Then she returns to Merinac, a world and life and people she left behind and never looked back on, which includes long-go BFF, Kenneth (Ride‘s Jake Foy), who returned to town with his husband while she was away.
Ever the peace-keeper, Amanda tries to use the show as an opportunity to help the families maybe mend fences and share the winnings, but her husband makes another move. On the brighter side, Nancy finds her spark and backbone when Sabrina arrives, and Amanda makes an ally (who I’m guessing is being seeded as a potential sweetheart) in Sergio (Ektor Rivera), the first man Gus has ever let into her kitchen to cook.
It’s a very Southern-friend, Southern-steeped tale with strong–and once-strong–women finding their way as they try to put their shared, fractured pasts to some kind of positive use for their futures. I think Nancy will turn out to be the heart of the story, with an arc shaped by the expectation and heavy weight that she would always be the good girl. We see early on that Gus is working on herself, too, recognizing that she needs her girls, which means putting to rest a rivalry she and they paid a steep price for inheriting.
While the series is the first Hallmark foray for Fisk and Angelson, Thompson was a Hallmark staple for years before Sleuthers were even a thing with one of the first mystery franchises, Jane Doe, and Malick has appeared periodically over the years, including in one of my favorites that I expected to be a series of films, After All These Years.
The first episode drops at 3:01 am ET/2:01c Tuesday on Hallmark+ with the second episode dropping Thursday and subsequent episodes dropping every Thursday.
Updated 4/3/25 — S1 is airing linearly on Hallmark Channel on Sundays at 9 pm/8c, beginning March 30th. And today, Hallmark announced the series will return for Season 2.]
Here are a few sneak peeks.
