How to Get to Heaven from Belfast review — a frenzied, female-led caper you can't miss
How to Get to Heaven from Belfast arrives as a deliciously combustible blend of sharp comedy and pulpy mystery. Lisa McGee takes the tonal DNA that made her earlier work a cultural touchstone and reconfigures it into a female-driven whodunnit that crackles from its first tense flashback to its last, satisfying unspooling.
A pitch-perfect blend of comedy, suspense and heart
The series opens with a shock: the funeral of Greta, the fourth member of a teenage gang whose lives were bound by a shared, traumatic night in the woods. Three surviving friends — Saoirse, Dara and Robyn — reunite and quickly realise the body in the coffin may not be the woman they once knew. That single observation propels a tightly plotted, high-energy investigation that never quite fits into any one genre box.
McGee wears her influences on her sleeve — think classic cozy-mystery beats turned sideways — but she refuses to replicate familiar templates. Instead, she layers domestic friction, Irish-specific absurdities and a streak of moral unease into the caper, so that the laughs and shocks feel earned rather than gratuitous. The series moves at a gallop: it’s thorny, often hilarious and, crucially, emotionally real. Moments of comic set piece are counterbalanced by brief, powerful glimpses into what it means to reconcile with the past.
Standout performances fuel the frenzy
The cast is a major reason the concept works. The three leads form a believable, lived-in sisterhood: Saoirse is the restless crime writer whose instincts kick off the investigation; Robyn is the exhausted mother balancing fear and fierce loyalty; Dara carries the quiet weight of long-buried secrets. Their chemistry is immediate, and they sell both the small domestic beats and the larger, more cinematic confrontations.
Supporting players escalate the stakes. A brooding police chief who is linked by marriage to the deceased injects a palpable menace into proceedings, while the deceased’s mother offers a volatile, grief-soaked presence that keeps viewers off balance. The result is a cast that can pivot between slapstick and menace without missing a beat, which is essential for a series that relishes tonal shifts.
Why this show lands now
There’s a confidence to the storytelling that elevates what could have been a simple reunion-mystery into something more resonant. McGee uses the mystery as a vehicle to explore midlife anxieties, female friendship, and the compromises people make. The show also rejects tired stereotyping; it feels contemporary and attentive to the messy realities of its setting rather than leaning on easy caricature.
At times the pace is relentless — viewers may wish for the occasional pause to breathe — but that breathlessness is part of the appeal. The writing rarely allows the audience to settle into complacency, and the tonal shifts keep every episode feeling freshly dangerous and alarmingly funny.
For those who loved the creator’s earlier work, this series will feel familiarly sharp but ambitiously new. For newcomers, it’s an infectious introduction: a murder mystery that insists on being playful without losing its emotional core. If you’re compiling a shortlist of must-see television this year, How to Get to Heaven from Belfast is a strong contender.
