Lady in the Lake – Review | Apple TV+ noir thriller series

Too smart for their own good

I’m sure you could say that both Maddie (Portman) and Cleo (Ingram) are too smart for their own good. And they both are, but in very different ways. Maddie has allowed herself to be suppressed and held back for nearly two decades. In fact, she believed she should.

Cleo, on the other hand, is a numbers whiz and works as an accountant for the man who seems to run most of Black Baltimore to provide for her family. Cleo Johnson is obviously extremely intelligent and can outperform most other people by a long shot.

And yes, there was clearly a white Baltimore and a black Baltimore. At the time, it wasn’t even legal for a black and a white person to live together. This detail also comes into play when Maddie moves to Black Baltimore to break free from her marriage.

Separate and yet connected

We see that the two women lead completely different lives, but their encounters briefly intersect in the opening sequence.

Later, Maddie becomes fixated on the mysterious death of the woman in the lake. She wonders, above all, why the newspaper she has earned a place at (as a writer for Miss Helpline, who dreams of becoming an investigative reporter) is not reporting on it.

The consequences of their actions put them both in danger, but Maddie is much slower to realize how dangerous it all is. Cleo knows it from the beginning and just tries to maneuver around her as best she can.

Ultimately, Lady in the Lake is a noir thriller about the price women pay for their dreams.