Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Three Women’ On Starz, Where A Journalist Reflects On Women She Met Who Reclaimed Their Lives

Three Women is a show with an interesting history. Showtime produced the show then passed on it in 2022 after all ten episodes were completed. Then, in January 2023, Starz picked it up. However, the service sat on it for close to two years before finally showing it in the US in September 2024. Why did they sit on it for so long? The first episode might give us a clue why.

THREE WOMEN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A long disclaimer is displayed, explaining that in one of the stories is based on Maggie Wilken’s testimony about an inappropriate relationship she had with a teacher when she was a student, and the teacher denies it happened. “There are many sides to all stories. This one is Maggie’s.” Then we see the feet of a woman walking along a New York street.

The Gist: The journalist, Gia Lombardi (Shailene Woodley) is writing a book about sex in America; when her publisher essentially told her to do the manuscript over, she sought counsel from Gay Talese (James Naughton), one of her journalistic heroes. He advised her to travel the country and “fuck married men.” She decides to do the first part, to get the non-coastal perspective, but not the second. And in her travels, she met three women who reclaimed their lives, both sexually and emotionally.

Lina Parish (Betty Gilpin) lives in Indiana, and while she has an almost teenage-like desire to be in love, her husband doesn’t even want her to touch him. She seems to be in constant pain, wearing gloves to keep the joints in her hands warm. She’s referred to Dr. Henry (Ravi Patel), who has a Southern accent and calls her “darling;” he doesn’t think her pain is all in her head, and he thinks he can help her be more in tune with herself, especially sexually.

Sloane Ford (DeWanda Wise) lives in Massachusetts; she is gorgeous to the point where she engenders jealously amongst her friends, and she and her husband Richard (Blair Underwood) run a very successful event business. But they also have an open marriage, at least open to the point where they watch each other have sex with other people. After a party they hosted, she brings someone she met there to bed, with Richard watching, only to have the session interrupted by Sloane getting sick from a dodgy oyster. But when she meets a sexy oyster farmer named Will (Blair Redford), she realizes that her philosophy of having Richard watch her have sex with lesser men isn’t working for her.

Maggie Wilkin (Gabrielle Creevy) is a waitress at a Perkins in North Dakota. She dropped out of college, lives with her parents (Brían F. O’Byrne, Heather Goldenhersh) and generally feels aimless. She then finds out that Aaron Knodel (Jason Ralph), the teacher she had a relationship when she was in high school, is getting an award, and it triggers her memories of those days. She’s convinced by friends, though, that Knodel took advantage of her, and she decides that it’s time to call him out on the fact that they had such an inappropriate relationship.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Created by Lisa Taddeo based on her nonfiction book of the same name, Three Women has a bit of the same feel as the first season of Love Life. (Laura Eason and Emmy Rossum are among the executive producers).

Our Take: There’s something disjointed about Three Women that’s makes it feel even more disorganized than the structure of the story might suggest. Woodley’s character, a stand-in for Taddeo herself, is the through-line, having met all three women during the research for her book. But in the first episode we only see her in the other women’s worlds briefly, in just one of the three stories. The rest of the time, she’s narrating and/or grooving to Bruce Springsteen in her car.

Having the journalist’s travels as a framing device might work for a nonfiction book, but — at least so far — it seems pointless for a TV show. Taddeo could have just told the tales of the three women and gone back and forth to each of them without needing Woodley’s presence or narration to tie them together.

The stories themselves have the potential to be compelling, and Gilpin, DeWise and Creevy all do a great job in their respective roles, but we don’t know if we want to take a ten-episode ride with all of them. Essentially, the three of them are taking their lives back, emotionally and sexually, but the stakes for two of the three stories are pretty low.

Maggie’s story is the one with the highest stakes, as the disclaimer shown before the first episode would indicate. But in the other two? They’re certainly journeys, but are they ones viewers will want to take for ten hours? The stunning Sloane wants to have sex with a stunning man in front of her stunning husband? Lena’s sexually awakened after years of being ignored by the man she loves? Are these really the basis of compelling television drama?

Perhaps that will become evident during the first season, but from what we’ve seen so far, it feels like we’re going to be enduring three disconnected stories that — at least in two cases — won’t have a particularly interesting dramatic arc.

Sex and Skin: There is some nudity and simulated sex, and a condom-donning moment that made us wonder just what the purpose was of showing it actually happening. We also see Lina sit on her toilet and clip her pubic hair.

Parting Shot: We see evidence that Knodel got the email from Maggie saying that she wants answers about their relationship.

Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Blair Underwood because the man has been on our screens for over 30 years and he looks like he hasn’t aged a day since LA Law.

Most Pilot-y Line: The extended sequence where Gia is in her car, grooving to “Human Touch” by The Boss, seemed more pointless than the journalist’s presence in the show to begin with.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Three Women might have worked better as an anthology, but in its current format, it has too many superfluous elements and not enough actual drama.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.