The problem with talking about E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars is that it’s impossible to tell the uninitiated why it’s SFF without ruining the whole thing. But it is, promise. The tale of the wealthy Sinclair sisters, who spend every summer on their private island, it’s told by an unreliable narrator and is, well, an unreliable story. And a very good, very heartbreaking one, too.
Casting announcements have been trickling in since March: First, the power trio of Mamie Gummer (Mr. Robot), Caitlin FitzGerald (Succession), and Candice King (The Vampire Diaries), playing three Sinclair sisters: Carrie, Penny, and Bess. Asher Ali then joined as Ed, Carrie Sinclair’s partner. He was followed by Wendy Crewson (October Faction) as Tipper Sinclair, the family matriarch. Somewhere along the line, David Morse (Hack) signed on Harris Sinclair, the family’s media-mogul patriarch.
And now, at last, the liars themselves are assembled. Emily Alyn Lind (Doctor Sleep, pictured above), Shubham Maheshwari, Esther MacGregor, and Joseph Zada have been cast as the story’s central quartet—Lind as Penny’s daughter, Cadence; Maheshwari as Gat, Ed’s nephew; MacGregor as artsy cousin Mirren; and Zada as cousin Johnny. On Instagram, Prime shared a perfect group photo of the gang.
It’s a lot to keep track of, yes, but the book makes it easy, and the series likely will too: showrunners Julie Plec and Carina Adly MacKenzie have wrangled more characters during their time on The Vampire Diaries and The Originals.
Prime Video describes We Were Liars as “a tragic love story and an amnesia thriller,” which is true and also vague. The story follows Cadence, who has been struggling ever since Summer Fifteen, the liars’ fifteenth summer on the island. Now it’s Summer Seventeen, and everything on the island is strange. The house is different. Her grandfather has changed. And the liars are acting weird.
No premiere date has been announced for the show, but while you wait, you can always read Lockhart’s novel if you want to know what the deal it. But fair warning: it’s … upsetting.
