The first thing you need to know about Pippa Fitz-Amobi (Emma Myers) is that she has a bob. The second is that she almost always wears overalls. And the third is that, unlike her party-animal friends — who drink booze and go on hot dates — Pip is a huge fan of … school. Homework. The grind. These three characteristics (the bob, the overalls, the education dedication) should tell you everything you need to know about Pippa Fitz-Amobi, our leading lady in A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. She is bookish, clever, and, most important, Not Like the Other Girls™. Instead of a senior year spent throwing parties and slacking off, 17-year-old Pip has set her sights on a convoluted capstone: solving the disappearance of Andie Bell (India Lillie Davies).
This is not the first time we’ve met Pip, who comes from Holly Jackson’s 2019 novel of the same name. It is, however, the first time we’re seeing Pippa in the flesh, and Myers perfectly embodies headstrong Pip. As we’ll soon learn, it’s fun to be a little irritated with Pippa while we simultaneously root for her to crack the case. She and that damn bob and those overalls go too far; we shake our heads and insist she’d be better off quitting while she’s ahead, but we keep watching because we’ve all gone too far with a little gossip, haven’t we?
It’s been five years since the scandal surrounding golden girl Andie Bell and her boyfriend, Sal Singh (Rahul Pattni), rocked Pippa’s hometown, an English village so quaint that it’s named Little Kilton. On April 19, 2019, Andie disappeared in the middle of the night. Just a couple of days later, police found Sal dead in the woods, overdosed on painkillers. Without an alibi for the night of Andie’s disappearance, Sal was ruled her killer posthumously. There wasn’t even a trial — police immediately claimed he died by suicide, riddled with grief after allegedly killing Andie. Sal did send a text to his father confessing to the crime hours before he died. Andie was never found.
So, case … closed?
No. Now, it’s 2024, and Pip isn’t satisfied with this conclusion. Pippa could research the case in her spare time, but where’s the fun in that? She is going to prove Sal innocent for her Extended Project Qualification — get ready to hear the acronym EPQ endlessly — which is the British way to describe a senior-year thesis mixed with a college application essay. While you maybe wrote something about being on the debate team for your college essay, and I wrote about being in theater, Pippa solved a whole damn murder case.
Apart from school, there’s another reason why Pippa is doing this; frankly, it’s a little flimsy. Pippa believes Sal to be innocent because he was kind to her as a kid. “Good guys don’t kill people,” Pippa tells her best friend, Cara Ward (Asha Banks). Important to note: Cara is the younger sister of Sal’s friend Naomi (Yasmin Al-Khudhairi), meaning Pip grew up around sweet Sal. Plus, if Sal didn’t do it, that also means that the killer is still lurking around Little Kilton. But, c’mon … good guys do kill people, Pippa. It’s the oldest plot twist in the book.
There are a lot of timestamps, receipts, and case-related history the first episode has to get across, and for the most part, the show seamlessly integrates this into Pippa’s conversations. Sometimes, though, we get a clunky exposition moment — like when we’re forced to watch Pip build a crime-scene wall in her room, circling her Persons of Interest in red ink and writing zingers like “WHERE WAS SAL?” on her timeline. Well, Pippa, that’s the question, isn’t it? No need to emulate John Krasinki’s whiteboard in A Quiet Place here; we got the gist before you literally spelled it out for us.
Pippa begins with an obvious, if amateur, plan. Armed with a tin of homemade muffins, Pip bribes Ravi Singh (Zain Iqbal), the cute younger brother of Sal, to talk to her. These two really kick it off. The pheromones are pheremoning as the pair chat literature, homework, and school. But Pippa soon swings in with a big confession: These muffins were actually baked to convince Ravi to spill the deets about his dead brother.
Ravi, peeved that Pip pulled a bait and switch, tells her to leave him alone. He has every right to be wary about Pippa. Not only did Ravi lose his older brother, townsfolk have been traumatizing the Singh family ever since Sal’s death. I am firmly planted in the “Protect Ravi at All Costs” camp. Get a job! Stay away from him!
Pippa carries out yet another ill-advised plan. Later, while hanging out with Cara, Pip uses her as a way to further wedge herself into the case. Pip wants to interview Naomi for her EPQ. Cara brushes her off; Naomi is too depressed about the Sal case to get involved. But Pippa ignores her friend’s request, sneaks out of the room, and tiptoes downstairs to find Naomi, who is mumbling something about missing jammy dodgers. Pip immediately uses that as a way in: Speaking of missing, does Naomi remember where she was on April 19, 2019, the night Andie Bell disappeared?
Naomi hesitantly recalls the night. Before Andie went missing, Sal was kicking it at Max Hastings’s (Henry Ashton) house with Naomi. They were playing Super Mario Party, which is important for two reasons. First, the exact game will later be contested. Second, Mario Party is the best game, and it’s inconceivable that anyone playing it could be a killer. Pip should factor this key detail into her EPQ. Sal left at 10:30 p.m., and was only seen later at 12:50 a.m. by his dad when he returned home.
Pip wants more info on some alibi Naomi mentioned. Well, wouldn’t you know it! Pip’s mom (Anna Maxwell Martin) just so happens to be in a book club with Ms. Hastings, who is just so happening looking for waitresses to work a big Hastings family party this weekend. Thus, Max becomes Pippa’s next target. Pip drags Cara along with her to serve Champagne at the event, as if betraying her and interviewing Naomi weren’t enough.
To make matters worse, Pippa abandons bottle-girl duty, stalking Max down to the basement. Poor Cara! But Pip gets what’s coming to her: Max is a scumbag. Pippa demands answers about Sal’s alibi, but Max wants a “quid pro quo” deal where he gets something out of the conversation, too. For every question he answers, Pippa must take a shot. That’s what you get for treating sweet Cara like trash.
Pippa starts downing shots and Max finally offers some long-awaited insight. Shot: What is this alibi Naomi mentioned? Chaser: Sal asked Max and his friends to lie to the police and say he actually left at 12:50 a.m., which he didn’t. Sal’s friends told the police the truth. Shot: What were they doing that night? Chaser: They were playing FIFA, not Mario Party. Shot: What did Max know about Sal’s new girlfriend? Chaser: Max “literally never spoke” to Andie.
Max is an untrustworthy douchebag. FIFA and not Super Mario Party? Bail, Pippa.
While exiting the party, a drunken Pip confesses to Cara that she also interviewed Naomi. They have a screaming match, Cara continues to be far too good a friend for Pip, and both leave the party in tears. Perhaps it’s time for Pip to hit pause on this EPQ and research, I don’t know, literally anything else? But, again: This is Pippa Fitz-Amobi we’re talking about. She may not be sporting her overalls — unless they’re on underneath her glitzy waitress costume — but that bob is going to keep bobbing.
Pip rolls up to the Singh household after the party, tears clinging to her eyes. Ravi tells her to go away again, but she rambles on about how important this is to her. Finally, he cracks. Ravi has something he’s been dying to show someone, anyone, for the past five years: Sal’s phone. On it, two messages could prove Sal’s innocence.
The first, on April 19: “Goin 2 Max house after school 2nite will be bak late”
The second, on April 22: “It was me. I did it. I’m so sorry.”
Sal never typed out any punctuation. He simplified “to” to “2.” Why, then, would his confession be so perfectly written? There’s only one answer here, Pip and Ravi agree: Someone else sent the confession. Now that Pip’s persistence has finally won her a singular ally — who, lucky for her, is a key witness in the case — there’s actually a solid reason for her to continue the investigation.
Ring a Bell?
• Pippa reads Jane Eyre at the corner store while her friends steal booze. (Again: Not Like the Other Girls ™.) Cute factoid: Charlotte Brontë wrote the novel under the pen name Currer Bell. Andie Bell, Currer Bell. Related? Side note: Couldn’t Pippa have done her EPQ on, say, bildungsroman novels?
• Pip’s friend Lauren (Yali Topol Margalith), a tertiary character in this saga, is also at the Hastings party, on a date with a guy named Ant (Monty Eliot). (Ant?!?) Pip hates Ant because he says “pacifically” instead of “specifically.” This show is really great at a realistic characterization of teens — there were at least three of these guys in my high school.
• Some guy at the Hastings party tells Pippa to stop being so nosy and plays the old “Got your nose!” trick on her. “Dark forces are at work here,” Pippa whispers to Cara. “A good-looking man just tried to steal my nose.”
