Halfway through Netflix Not a good deedLydia Morgan (Lisa Kudrow), a former concert pianist now embroiled in the madness of trying to sell her house, reflects on an ever-intensified situation, sighs and says, “I’m so sorry and I can’t believe that this will happen again.”

I can’t believe this is happening again could have been a good title for Liz Feldmans Dead to mea dark comedy about female friendship and murder that managed to take a flimsy premise and extend it over three seasons using wild and sometimes illogical twists, plus the truly exceptional work of stars Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini. It was an exhaustingly fast-paced show, and there was also an emotional crisis with the series finale. But if you had the patience for Feldman’s persistent approach, it was worth it.

That makes Not a good deed more aptly titled I can’t believe this is happening again. Although it tries a relentlessness that makes Dead to me Look as leisurely as Someone Somewhere, The eight-part series feels like a companion piece – one that reaffirms Liz Feldman’s brand, in which secrets kept for no reason and shockingly abrupt twists are as much a part of the comic rhythm as eye-gouging was once for the Three Stooges.

How Dead to me, Not a good deed is far too pleased with his own skill at storytelling for any good. If everything is supposed to be shocking, it is impossible for anything to be shocking.

But also gladly Dead to me, Not a good deed uses the dramatic underpinnings of its central situation to deliver juicy, emotionally varied material to an ensemble of actors who make the most of every predictable, outrageous zig and zag. Get past the contrivances and the comedy contains some astute observations about how grief and secrets can affect a relationship, as well as some very astute commentary on the sorry state of the Los Angeles real estate market.

Lydia is married to Paul of Ray Romano and they are selling their 1920s Spanish-style home in Los Feliz. The property, which was also Paul’s childhood home, was where they raised their own children and is full of memories, both happy and very sad.

The property is listed with excited real estate agent Greg (Matt Rogers), who dreams of a quick sale and a hefty commission. There is a healthy market for this, made up entirely of couples who are harboring potentially relationship-destroying secrets.

Leslie (Abbi Jacobson) and Sarah (Poppy Liu), a lawyer and a doctor, respectively, are looking for a place to expand their life together after several failed rounds of IVF. Carla (Teyonah Parris) and Dennis (OT Fagbenle) have only known each other for a year but are suddenly married and expecting a child, and they need a place that can accommodate his doting mother (Anna Marie Horsford’s Denise). Former soap star JD (Luke Wilson) and his temperamental and desperate model wife Margo (Linda Cardellini) live across the street and also have their eye on the house, although she doesn’t know how bad his job situation is, nor does he don’t know either. I don’t know that she’s having an affair.

The information above is information gathered fairly early in the premiere – no spoilers to speak of. To tell you something Not a good deed What this actually means is that I have to reveal information that will be revealed by the end of this first chapter (at the latest). So skip the next paragraph if you want to remain completely unaffected.

The main spoiler at the start is that Paul and Lydia are still wracked with grief over the murder of their teenage son three years ago. In the house. As far as the world knows, this was an unsolved crime tied to a series of recent burglaries in the neighborhood. Only Paul, Lydia and Paul’s good-for-nothing brother Mikey (Denis Leary) know otherwise. Soon – “immediately” actually – Paul and Lydia must reopen the case and reopen the wounds as they and every other couple learn valuable lessons about the importance of honesty and not murder for a healthy relationship.

So it’s half whodunnit and half whoboughtit. Personally, I would have called it that A murder by EscrowBut Not a good deed isn’t terrible either because that’s what the show is like (again). Dead to me) about the ugly steps good people are sometimes willing to take to stay alive or get a turnkey house with a citrus orchard, decorative arches and purloined crime scene evidence in East Los Angeles.

Not a good deed is both mysterious and kind of crazy – as if You are the worst, House hunter and Alfred Hitchcock had a baby. There’s sudden violence, people rising from the dead, crazy misunderstandings, complete mishaps, and a lot of speculation about how much overcharging is required to get a murder house in this economy.

The whole thing is supported by the aggressive music of Siddhartha Khosla (Just murders in the building, Elsbeth), who has made “crazy mystery” his own personal brand, and through the aggressive direction of Silver Tree and (for two mid-season episodes) Feldman, who roam the central residence as if exploring every dark corner and every undocumented one Knowing eccentricities on their floor would plan. In several typical POV shots they even show us the plumbing and electrical installations.

Not all pieces are the same. The mystery is the show’s weak link, as it takes a long time to decide what actually needs to be solved. Too many of the revelations defy even rudimentary logic, and there isn’t enough effective tension to cover the gaps in the plot. The resolution is unsatisfying, but not in the “maybe things will be made clear in a second season” sense. After the finale, there may be a storyline left open, and I don’t think that would be enough to justify another season. But Netflix doesn’t call it a “limited series” like it feels like it does.

What’s entirely satisfying is the agonizing tension in Paul and Lydia’s marriage and the way their distance is played out by Kudrow and Romano’s performances. Feldman had a perfect cast Dead to me and once again her lead actors have been expertly chosen. Kudrow and Romano have built their post-sitcom supernova careers on playing characters who have been desperate for so long that their despair defines them.

Paul and Lydia are estranged but completely dependent on each other, and I spent much of the premiere wondering whether the biggest twist would be that they were ghosts haunting a property they literally couldn’t leave . Instead, they’re just shells of people haunting a property they can’t bear to leave, and Romano’s hangdog weariness and Kudrow’s fragility are both put to good use. They need each other, but sometimes they have to hurt each other. When the two characters pull it off, the TV-honed comic professionalism of all the stars gives way to raw, raw nerves.

Of the two, Kudrow stands out because she meshes well with the rest of the cast. Romano has a very funny, very unbelievable and very forgettable subplot with Rogers. But Kudrow gets hilarious scenes with Cardellini, in which he’s at full speed throughout, and some good material with Leary, who isn’t so much miscast as his character is amazingly underpinned, and with Chloe East as the couple’s daughter.

There’s good material in the secondary storylines with each of the potential buyers, but their material consists of a lot of little oddities and very few big wins, which adds more to the overall chaos than anything that’s truly cathartic.

The Leslie/Sarah storyline comes closest to feeling like it could be self-contained, as Jacobson and Liu have good romantic warmth and helpfully move the mystery along. The chemistry between Cardellini and Wilson doesn’t have to be right, since their marriage is a disaster (and their own apartment is an expensive modernist nightmare), so they get a lot of laughs – he with laconic Los Angeles/Hollywood satire and she with one Character whose sexual appetite borders on predatory. Although both Parris and Fagbenle are fine, neither has a character whose voice is clear enough to give their relationship the nuance it needs to fit into this mystery.

Not a good deed Episodes three and six are probably the easiest to enjoy. The bold twists are entertaining and ridiculous, the dialogue crackles, and there’s enough unspoken fear and resignation in Kudrow and Romano’s performances to keep everything grounded.

Through the final chapters, like Not a good deed realizes that things need to be connected, and even the characters seem to recognize the silliness.

As Wilson’s JD puts it: “Oh Lord. Revelations keep coming. And not the good kind.” I tend to agree, and not in the way he meant it – although it’s impossible to be bored and it’s hard not to have fun.