A bloody dress, a missing girl, and a man dressed as a mailbox peeing on the side of a building. There’s a lot to unwrap in the first episode of Lady in the Lake, but it helps that the overall package is quite neatly put together.

 

Maddie (Natalie Portman) and Cleo (Moses Ingrid) are two women living in 1960s Baltimore who come from very different backgrounds, and yet they both find themselves the only ones to speak up in their respective communities. The two girls’ stories cross paths only once in the first episode; Cleo models a dress at a department store and Maddie buys it right off her back. The bulk of this episode centers around the two women in their established lives, although we discover the ultimate fate of one of them in the very first minute.

 

I honestly wouldn’t want to say too much more about the pilot episode, because whether the plot interests you or not, the performances alone are worth the price of admission. Moses Ingrid is mesmerizing. She was my favorite part of the 2020 Netflix series The Queen's Gambit. Natalie Portman could play a paper bag and still win an Oscar for it. Both actresses drive the story forward in a way that just engages you with its world. The limited series is now streaming in its entirety on Apple TV+.