If you gave up on Apples Never Fall after an episode (or five), that is your hard-earned right as a consumer in this economy. And if you still can’t help but wonder what the hell happened to Joy at the end of the new Peacock series, you’ve come to the right place, for I have suffered (watched all seven episodes) so that you might be free.
Some celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by dumping green food coloring into the nearest vat of beer. Peacock celebrated by dumping all seven episodes of Apples Never Fall on its streaming platform. I don’t think it’s controversial to say that the primary audience for both is very white. Based on the novel by Liane Moriarty, author of Big Little Lies and other books with three-word titles, Apples Never Fall stars Annette Bening as a woman who disappears, leaving her husband and adult children to figure out what happened.
And what happened basically amounts to an asexual Saltburn for fans of Activia—which isn’t a knock against women who yogurt, just an acknowledgement of the target audience and general vibe.
Who is Apples Never Fall about?
Apples Never Fall centers on the Delaney family: matriarch Joy (Bening), her husband Stan (Sam Neill), and their adult children Troy (Jake Lacy), Amy (Alison Brie), Logan (Conor Merrigan Turner), and Brooke (Essie Randles). Stan and Joy are former tennis pros who became successful instructors—in addition to training his son Troy, Stan coached a young player named Harry Haddad to multiple victories, earning a nice collection of trophies that Troy, now a venture capitalist (i.e., professional rich person), still feels resentful about.
As for the rest of the clan, Amy is trying to start her career as a spiritual life coach, Logan manages a marina, and Brooke runs her own physical therapy business. It’s a very homogenous group, but the show helps you tell them apart thusly: Amy is your average Whole Foods shopper, whose hair is way too glam for the crunchy vibe she’s trying to cultivate; Logan has a ponytail, which is how you know he’s the sensitive one; Brooke is gay, which is the show’s way of saying that the Delaneys aren’t like regular rich people, they’re cool rich people; and Troy looks and acts like a sentient pair of Dockers (he’s a dick).
What is Apples Never Fall about?
The series opens with the disappearance of Joy, who vanishes in the middle of the day, leaving behind her bicycle—with blood on it. Following the premiere episode, titled “The Delaneys,” each of the next five episodes focuses on a different family member, exploring their point of view and revealing new details. Stan is the primary suspect in the police investigation, obviously, and things aren’t looking good for him when the evidence begins piling up: Joy visited a divorce lawyer before she disappeared, the neighbors found a bloody sweatshirt in their backyard, Stan has a suspicious injury on his face, and he got his car detailed—something he never does. Later in the series, the cops find a recording of an argument between Stan and Joy, which makes it sound like Stan attacked his wife.
We also learn that about a year before Joy disappeared, a young woman named Savannah (Georgia Flood, very good name) showed up on the Delaneys’ doorstep with visible injuries, asking for help to get away from an abusive partner. Since all of Joy’s kids were grown and out of the house, she took Savannah in and let her live at Delaney Mansion indefinitely. The other family members had suspicions about Savannah and worried that she was taking advantage of Joy’s kindness. And they were right. Savannah stole her sob story from a talk show, which Troy confirmed when he tried to bribe her into leaving with $10k. He ended up walking away with his tail between his khakis after paying four times as much because Savannah did her homework and knew all about Troy’s affair with his boss’s wife.
Apples Never Fall divides its suspicions between Stan and Savannah, neither of whom make for particularly compelling villains—though Stan has the edge because Sam Neill can at least throw a little ham on the sandwich when called upon to do so.
What happened to Joy?
The series ends with episode 7, “Joy,” which takes us through the day Joy disappeared, from her point of view. “What happened to Joy?” sounds like an existential question instead of the central mystery in a miniseries adaptation of a beach read, and that’s kind of the problem with the finale: what happened to Joy is hardly scandalous. She’s just a mom who got fed up with being ignored by her own children, so she took a personal day that went awry.
So here’s what really happened: Joy gets in a little bicycle accident and uses the sweatshirt to stop her leg from bleeding. She tries to call her kids, but none of them answer the phone. When she gets back home, Joy throws the soiled sweatshirt in the trash, which is how the neighbors’ dog finds it. Then she gets into an argument with Stan about his former tennis prodigy, Harry Haddad, who sent over a copy of the manuscript for his memoir. Joy confronts Stan after reading it and learning that Harry cheated and Stan not only knew about it, but defended him. The fight escalates and Joy attacks Stan, which is how he gets the gash on his face.
After learning that all four of her kids turned down her brunch invite, Joy throws her phone in a laundry hamper and heads straight for the nearest bar. She uses the phone there to call Savannah, who shows up and attempts to explain herself. “I’m kind of a con artist,” Savannah says. “Nothing big or evil—just to survive. I find people who have big hearts and then I move on.” She explains that Troy paid her to leave but that Joy made her feel special, and that she knows she filled a hole in Joy’s life, too. Joy isn’t buying it, but hops in Savannah’s car anyway. They go to Savannah’s vacation home and spend several days together, during which Savannah continues behaving suspiciously (cutting the phone line, harboring a gun) and Joy bemoans dedicating her life to her fail-children who can’t even answer the damn phone when she calls.
It all comes to a head when Joy figures out who Savannah really is, just as her kids are doing the same back home: Savannah is actually Lindsay Haddad, sister of Harry Haddad, the reason that Stan no longer has a tennis career. The kids talk to Harry, who reveals that he got a protective order against his sister, who was always after him for money. Back at Savannah’s house, Joy finds the protective order and a gun, and learns from a nice neighbor that there’s a hurricane heading straight for her big mansion, so she needs to get the hell out of there.
Joy gets in the car with Savannah/Lindsay, who says Joy is just going to disappear from her life like her real mom did, and then she crashes the car. Joy wakes up in the wrecked car to find Savannah/Lindsay gone. And that’s why Joy was AWOL for several days.
How does it end?
Apples Never Fall ends on an appropriately stupid note. Joy returns home to the surprise of her whole family and seems absolutely shocked that the police took her belongings to get DNA samples. While surveying the damage from the hurricane, Joy delivers the moral of the story, explaining that every time Stan disappeared no one accused her of committing a crime, and that she only left “because I was lonely, and confused, and scared, and Savannah/Lindsay answered the phone, which is more than you all did.” Joy goes on to say that she was hurt by her kids ignoring her and shutting her out, and that she just needed a break.
The TL;DR is literally “you should answer the phone when your mom calls, it’s the least you can do.” And that’s fair, I guess??? Apples Never Fall is just seven hours with a wealthy, privileged family comprised of the most uninteresting people (THEY LOVE TENNIS) with the most unsympathetic problems, AND as it turns out, the worst thing that’s ever happened to them didn’t actually happen. They just had a bit of a fright and now everything is fine, but oh dear, the tennis court is a real mess after the hurricane what ever shall we do?!
(featured image: Peacock)
