Michelle Dockery takes a surprisingly effective turn into noir with Good Behavior

Good Behavior mainly revolves around a single star turn—Michelle Dockery getting as far away from Downton Abbey’s posh Lady Mary as humanly possible. Unlike the already canceled Conviction, Good Behavior surrounds its star with so much deep and heady dramatics; dark, foreboding settings; and an ample and able supporting cast that it might actually last a while.
It helps that there’s little else like this noir on TV right now. Helmed by Wayward Pines creators Chad Hodge and Blake Crouch and based on Crouch’s series of books, Good Behavior is the story of Lettie, a recently released prisoner and drug addict who wants to get back the kid she’s lost custody of. In the meantime, thieving and conning is all she knows how to do, and it’s pretty fun watching Dockery don a variety of wigs and accents, pick any number of pockets, and con her way through lofty social circles that would be off-limits to her if not for her duplicity. Lettie crafts whole backstories for her various personas with so much relish and aplomb that it’s sometimes impossible to sift through and prioritize fact over fiction. It’s hard to think of another actress who could pull this off, making us root for a heroine who is able to create a meth mechanism out of a lightbulb. For all the flickers of frivolity offered by Lettie’s dalliances with the upper crust, Good Behavior doesn’t shy away from the fact that her actual life is extremely bleak. Highlighting Lettie’s awful reality is her self-help app, which fills her with platitudes like “Today I am the best me I can be.” But what if your best you is a pretty bad person?