By Lucy Ottley 

The fourth season of the crime series The Sinner came out in October 2022 and was the fourth-most popular crime-thriller on Netflix. This series is filled with captivating and unexpected scenes that immediately grab the viewer’s attention. 

The very first scene of the first season, with the Tannetti family on the beach. Photo credit: @JessicaBiel on Twitter.

The first season, which Netflix released in 2017, starts off very graphic and with an impulsive scene by the main character. Cora Tannetti, played by co-producer Jessica Biel, and her husband and their baby are sitting on the beach, and two couples are sitting near them. One of the men starts playing a song, and as soon as the wife hears that song, she gets a knife from her picnic basket and starts stabbing the man, eventually killing him in front of hundreds of people. This scene shocked me, and I needed to know what triggered the mother’s response. Each season of The Sinner starts with a horrible crime, and throughout the season the viewer watches the investigation unfold. 

Bill Pullman as Detective Harry Ambrose. Photo credit: @TheSinnerUSA on Twitter.

The Sinner’s four seasons all have completely different plots; however, the main character, Detective Harry Ambrose (played by Bill Pullman) is the underlying thread tying all of seasons together. The first season is about why Cora stabbed the man on the beach. The second season starts with a boy and his supposed parents in a car who say they are going on a road trip. The family stops at a motel, and as soon as they have a sip of coffee, they die. The little boy confesses to killing them, and Ambrose investigates why. The third season involves a man named Jamie Burns (played by Matt Bomer) who was involved in a car crash with one of his best friends, which immediately Ambrose finds suspicious. Throughout this season, Ambrose becomes extremely close with Jamie, trying to understand what happened. 

The final season involves the life of Ambrose more than the other seasons. Now retired and on a vacation trip, he notices this girl who seems to be possessed, or in a cult, and within the first episode the girl kills herself. This season is about Ambrose figuring out what was really happening with this girl and in their town. This show does an exceptional job capturing the audience’s attention from the very first minutes of each season, which I like, and throughout each episode, the audience is kept guessing as to who really did the crime or what actually happened. 

The preview photo for the fourth season. Photo credit: Netflix.

The producer does an adequate job coming up with complex plot lines, because I have watched many crime and detective shows, and I have never seen one similar. Even though the detective’s life was ongoing throughout each season, it still seemed like a completely different show. Each season has a different crime and antagonist, which may help capture the attention of multiple demographics of viewers, because of the different genders and ages.  

On average, the overall rating for all four seasons of The Sinner on Rotten Tomatoes is around 90% on the Tomatometer by certain critics of the show. Since this score is above 60%, it means that the critics think this show is “fresh.” The average rating for the audience score is 73%, which is surprising to me because of how much I enjoyed the show. Season one got the highest rating for the critics and the audience. Allison Rowat, a Tomatometer-approved critic, says, “The Sinner played the sneaky but satisfying trick of leading the viewer towards what they thought were obvious answers, only to open up a new path at the last minute.” This truly describes every season of The Sinner. Grant C, an audience reviewer, says, “For a crime show, the mystery was well done. The detective wasn’t a likable guy, but he was a sympathetic character – doing the right thing.” I think this show does an excellent job of showing that people’s actions are not always what one would think. Most often there are underlying aspects of one’s life that causes them to act out or act in a certain way.