A Shining Review

Last week, I purchased a new iPhone and discovered that with that purchase came along three free months of Apple TV. Seeing as me or my parents were not willing to pay for yet another streaming service, I jumped at this opportunity to cram all the shows I had missed into three months. While I was initially hoping to watch more renowned and mainstream shows such as Big Little Lies, The Morning Show, and Black Bird, my sights soon became set on the show Shining Girls after I saw a tik tok with clips of the show featuring an actor whose other show I had just finished and really enjoyed. 

Shining Girls immediately became my obsession of the week as I binged one episode after the next. It’s classified as a thriller as there is a man running around the streets of Chicago stalking and murdering women. The protagonist of the show, Kirby, is one of his victims and the only one that survived her attack. The show follows Kirby, who does clerical work for a newspaper, as she works to identify her attacker and bring him to justice. She partners with journalist Dan, who has been assigned to investigate and write an article about one of the killer’s victims who was found in an underground water pipe. What makes this show different from your typical mystery/crime thriller is that there is a supernatural component to the plot that impacts both the protagonist and the killer. A lot of the clues and pieces of evidence in the show can be very confusing until this supernatural feature is revealed and explained. While I don’t want to give this sci-fi element away, I will say that throughout the entire show Kirby’s reality seems to shift around her to an alternate reality. How this happens or if this is really happening as opposed to just something in Kirby’s head is answered farther along into the show. 

I have to say this has been one of the best television shows I’ve watched in a long time in terms of entertainment and meaningfulness. I personally watch a lot of soapy TV dramas that serve as distractions from my everyday life. Shining Girls is incredibly entertaining as it intrigues the watcher to make sense of this mystery alongside Kirby, but its storyline also allows for the viewer to gain exposure to how victims deal with their trauma as well as female power and rage. I enjoyed this show so much that I was prompted to learn more about it via the Internet. In my online search I discovered that this show was actually based on the book The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes. I honestly should have guessed this as the best movies and tv shows tend to be based on books. While I haven’t read the book yet, it has been added to my list. My online research revealed that the book actually shifts the protagonist’s perspective amongst the killer and multiple of his victims as opposed to just Kirby. I read that the show’s creator Silka Luisa chose to center on Kirby as her journey and emotions resonated the most with her and would do so with the audience as well. I definitely agree with this choice as the surroundings and time appear to shift around Kirby, so I think the story would become too confusing if the protagonist changed as well. Another fact I learned online, was that the book and show are titled Shining Girls to describe the women the killer targets. All the women he killed had incredible potential and talent that they were using to advance their careers and lives. 

Part of my research was also motivated by my own curiosity as to if there would be a second season created for this show. I couldn’t really find a definitive answer of yes or no but I reluctantly believe there will not be another season. Season one captures the book in its entirety and the author did not write a sequel. A second season would most likely follow Kirby as she gains control over her own life and possibly explore a romantic relationship between her and her investigative partner, Dan. It was actually a deliberate choice made by the creators of the show to leave out the hints of romance between the two that is featured in the book to stay true to Kirby’s character. I think Kirby is much too distraught over her own trauma and catching her attacker to even think about Dan in a romantic way. 

Unless an entirely new killer is created that Kirby begins chasing as a journalist, I don’t think the second season would have the same intrigue as the first without the mystery and fantastical component. I believe the author and TV show creators have too much respect for the story and its characters to force them into a second plot and season that does not fit into the development and meaning behind the original novel.