WE WERE LIARS Episode 1.1

Name: WE WERE LIARS Episode 1.1
Item: WE WERE LIARS Episode 1.1
Author: Review

"Family Secrets Lead to a Summer Mystery"

Family Content: -3 Excessive sex, violence, immorality, and/or worldview problems. (Sometimes excessive content such as violence is in otherwise redemptive movies.)

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

Credits →

What You Need To Know:

The first episode of the first season of WE WERE LIARS, streaming on Prime Video, introduces viewers to Cadence, a young girl trying to unravel the mystery of what happened to her last summer after an accident left her with no memory of it. The Sinclairs spend every summer on their beautiful island in Martha’s Vineyard, and cousins Cadence, Mirren, and Johnny love every minute of their time there. When they meet Gat, the nephew of their aunt Carrie’s boyfriend, he completes their group, which the rest of the family nicknames “The Liars.”

The episode introduces viewers to an intriguing mystery, cleverly telling the story of Cadence and her cousins’ summer together in reverse. The show features beautiful production, and each of the large cast of characters gets a moment to shine. WE WERE LIARS’ debut episode features a mixed worldview. While there is an emphasis on moral themes, like family and friendship (the Sinclairs are very close, and the Liars are devoted to each other), there are also Romantic elements of the Sinclair family’s focus on wealth and status. The episode also features foul language, alcohol and smoking, and some sexual content, including a same-sex kiss. MOVIEGUIDE® advises strong caution for viewers

Content:

(B, Ro, L, V, N, AA, D, Ho, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

A mixed worldview; there are moral elements, like the Sinclairs’ commitment to family and the Liars’ strong friendships, but some Romantic elements as well, like the Sinclairs’ focus on wealth and status;

Foul Language:

Five obscenities, including 3 “f” words and 1 “s” word. There is also a joke about one character performing a sexual act to convince her husband to join them for the summer;

Violence:

in the flash forward scene, Cadence is seen with a bloody gash on her forehead;

Sex:

One sex scene, featuring a married woman and someone who is not her husband. In another scene, Johnny tells the Liars he had a relationship with another boy and later, we see him kiss a boy while on the party boat. Mirren also admits to “sexting” someone from her school and discusses her desire to have sex for the first time with the rest of the Liars;

Nudity:

A few scenes feature upper male nudity, but the characters are at the beach wearing swimsuits;

Alcohol Use:

The adults in the Sinclair family drink wine in many scenes, and the Liars drink alcohol when they sneak onto the party boat ;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

Bess smokes a cigarette; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

During a game, one character admits to stealing a six-pack of beer from a store, the Liars sneak out to the party boat without permission, the Sinclair sisters fight throughout the episode, and in one scene, a character mentions he crashed a golf cart into a local store, but is not facing consequences, as the Sinclair family is rich and powerful.

More Detail:

The Sinclairs spend every summer on their beautiful island in Martha’s Vineyard, and cousins Cadence, Mirren, and Johnny love every minute of their time there. When they meet Gat, the nephew of their aunt Carrie’s boyfriend, he completes their group, which the rest of the family nicknames “The Liars.”

The summer the group is sixteen years old, things start to change — Cadence and Gat begin to develop feelings for each other, which Johnny doesn’t like. Things aren’t going smoothly for the rest of the family, either. Cadence’s mother, Penny, is still dealing with the aftermath of her divorce, while Bess, Mirren’s mother, is struggling to keep her marriage afloat.

Meanwhile, the Liars’ grandfather, Harris, is focused on the party boat that has anchored just off the coast of Sinclair Island. He wants it gone, enlisting Gat’s uncle, Ed, in his fight to find a way to get rid of it.

When Cadence invites Gat to watch a meteor shower with her, the pair’s plans are interrupted by Johnny, who, along with Mirren, wants the Liars to sneak onto the party boat. The group does so, but Cadence, upset with Gat for not keeping their date, leaves and goes home.

Gat jumps off the boat and swims to shore, apologizing to Cadence for not being brave enough to tell Johnny he and Cadence were planning on spending the evening together. However, once again, they are interrupted by Johnny and Mirren, and the group enjoys a night swim together.

A flash forward to two months in the future shows Cadence unconscious on the beach with a gash on her head. As she continues to review the events of that summer, Cadence must figure out what led her to that beach and fill in the missing memories.

The first episode of WE WERE LIARS introduces viewers to an intriguing mystery, cleverly telling the story of Cadence and her cousins’ summer together in reverse. The show features beautiful production, and each of the large cast of characters gets a moment to shine.

WE WERE LIARS’ first episode features a mixed worldview. While there is an emphasis on moral themes, like family and friendship (the Sinclairs are very close, and the Liars are devoted to each other), there are also Romantic elements of the Sinclair family’s focus on wealth and status. The episode also features foul language, alcohol and smoking, and some sexual content, including a same-sex kiss. MOVIEGUIDE® advises strong caution for viewers