Jennifer Garner Carries Apple TV+’s Thin but Engrossing ‘The Last Thing He Told Me’: TV Review
Joshua Alston Jennifer Garner’s star turn came courtesy of “Alias,” the influential J.J. Abrams drama about Sydney Bristow, a grad student moonlighting as a sultry spy. Her agency? A sinister syndicate masquerading as a governmental skunkworks project, as Sydney and her colleagues toil unaware they’ve been working for the bad guys. The pilot opens on Sydney, battered and bloody after being captured and tortured by a rival faction. Then, it hops back in time to show how Sydney’s once-simple life became so treacherous, a journey that reveals to her how little she actually knows about the people closest to her. Perhaps that’s why, some 21 years later, Garner feels so perfectly cast in Apple TV+’s “The Last Thing He Told Me.” (So much so that even Julia Roberts, who dropped out of the role due to scheduling conflicts, suddenly seems mismatched with the material.) Based on the brisk, best-selling novel by Laura Dave, Garner’s new limited series is a much different kind of thriller than “Alias.” But it too revolves around a woman who abruptly learns no one around her is quite who they seem, and becomes determined to find answers even as each revelation places her in greater danger.