Even before Saoirse-Monica Jackson makes her mid-season appearance, it's clear that "How to Get to Heaven from Belfast" comes from the same sensibility as "Derry Girls," where Jackson played the anxious teenager Erin Quinn. This dark comedy isn't just streaming on Netflix, where "Derry Girls" became a global sensation after its initial run on the UK's Channel 4; "How to Get to Heaven from Belfast," so far known simply as "Belfast" to reduce the risk of carpal tunnel syndrome, also centers on a tight-knit group of Northern Irish friends prone to nervous babble and rash decisions. But for creator Lisa McGee, who is investing some of her legitimately earned capital in three delightful seasons of "Derry Girls," "Belfast" represents a step up in scale and ambition. ("Belfast" also initially aired on Channel 4 but moved to Netflix due, in part, to rising production costs.) By adding dual timelines, deadly intrigue, and double the runtime to the "Derry Girls" formula, "Belfast" sometimes feels weighed down by all these extra elements, but it never loses the infectious appeal of the platonic chemistry that defines it.
Like McGee herself and the "Derry Girls" who give the series its title, inspired by her upbringing, Saoirse (Roisin Gallagher), Robyn (Sinéad Keenan), and Dara (Caoilfhionn Dunne) are alumnae of a Catholic girls' school that cemented their friendship. (Although the trio is a bit older than Erin and her classmates, having attended high school in the 2000s, after the Good Friday Agreement.
Stars: Roisin Gallagher, Sinéad Keenan, Caoilfhionn Dunne
The Troubles that formed the backdrop of "Derry Girls" are a recent memory, but a memory nonetheless.) But they graduated 20 years ago and are now in their 30s with varying degrees of dissatisfaction. Saoirse is the London-based creator of a hit TV series, an apparent replacement for McGee, aside from the fact that Saoirse hates her low-quality crime drama "Murder Code" and the egocentric actress who stars in it. Dara, a closeted lesbian, uses caring for her elderly mother as an excuse to never build a life of her own; Robyn is a wealthy housewife exhausted by her three unruly children.
The fourth missing member of this quartet is Greta (Natasha O'Keeffe), with whom the other three lost contact after a fateful night 20 years ago. In the present, when Greta dies suddenly after what her family claims was a freak fall down the stairs, the news threatens to resurface secrets the group has kept hidden for a long time. Already nervous as they cross the border into rural County Donegal for Greta's wake, the girls (this is Ireland, where even women nearing 40 are still considered "girls") become increasingly frightened as events unfold. They received an email invitation from Greta's sister-in-law, but her widower, Owen (Emmett J. Scanlan), doesn't even have a sister.
A friendly Englishman at the local pub is the spitting image of Greta's ex, Jason (Josh Finan), whose unexplained disappearance two decades earlier holds the key to what the group is hiding. Finally, Saoirse takes a peek inside the coffin and leaves convinced that the body isn't Greta's. The premiere's final reveal confirms that the screenwriter isn't just making up another story. A group of Irish women bound by a strict code of silence is reminiscent of Sharon Horgan's excellent series—at least in its first season—"Bad Sisters," even down to plot details like the reckless flirting between engaged Saoirse and Liam (Darragh Hand), a local police officer.
(The protagonists are certainly close and bickering enough to pass for siblings.) But McGee's voice, even when it's distributed around the writers' room in another departure from "Derry Girls," is distinctive enough to allow "Belfast" to exist outside the shadow of its predecessor. The tensions between Robyn, Dara, and Saoirse are particularly well-drawn; the women chide each other on Robyn's self-centeredness, Dara's cowardice, and Saoirse's unseemly appetite for excitement, as only old friends can. The performances, too, are each a revelation in their own right. Gallagher's edgy charm, Keenan's shameless swagger, and Dunne's elastic face keep the laughs coming, even though their characters are more jaded and oppressed than the teenagers they once were.
Greta, by design, remains more obscure. Part of this ambiguity is insinuating: Ireland is the kind of place where someone is still known as "the exchange student" two years after starting school, which marks Greta (played in flashbacks by an ethereal Emma Canning) as an outsider even before she gets into trouble. But because "Belfast" spends far less time with her, the last-minute revelations about her past and its consequences don't pack the same punch as the more solid portraits of her classmates.
We understand so little about what Greta has become in the present that she's never focused on as anything more than a projection of the main characters. The ending includes a brief clip of Greta before her disappearance developing photos in a darkroom. She's a photographer, a clever detail that goes unnoticed until it's too late to explore what it says about her adult life. Saoirse and company quickly cross paths with a menacing fixer known as Booker (Bronagh Gallagher), who seems suspicious even before we see Greta tied up in her trunk.
By the end of the season, we're left with a Russian doll of intrigue: who Booker works for, whose body it is if not Greta's, what happened to Greta in the 2020s, what happened between Greta and Jason in the 2000s, what happened to Greta as a child in the 1990s that led her to the Cabin of Our Lady of Sorrows, and what all of this has to do with a creepy symbol the four of them got tattooed on their bodies at Greta's insistence. It's a lot to remember, and to be honest, it didn't grab me half as much as simply watching the actors exchange opinions. When the final shot hinted at a second season, it was them I longed to see more of, more than the resolution of a cliffhanger ending; the conclusion is that now I expect more.
"Belfast" constructs a resolution that relies too heavily on the well-worn conventions of the trauma plot. As clichéd as the ending may be, it is counterbalanced by the specificity and sense of place that McGee builds on both sides of the line that divides Ireland in two. Critical scenes revolve around the use and meaning of the Irish language, Catholicism permeates everything, and the long-standing aftereffects of the Irish conflict and the abortion ban remain, even if the original causes are gone. "Derry Girls" mined comedic gold from everyday life amidst geopolitical turmoil; "Belfast" carries on that tradition in its sequels, tinged with the hindsight and regrets of adulthood.
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