By Rebecca Onion

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July 15, 20261:04 PM

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The new Apple TV limited series Lucky is based on a bestselling novel by Marissa Stapley, a story of a father–daughter con-artist pair that was named a Reese’s Book Club selection in 2021. Although the show, which was co-produced by Witherspoon herself and features a stacked cast of name-brand actors including Anya Taylor-Joy, Timothy Olyphant, Annette Bening, and Drew Starkey, is being released week by week after Wednesday’s initial two-episode drop, you could read the whole novel this weekend and barely spoil the show for yourself, so much does Apple depart from the source material. In Stapley’s story, every bit of the action is driven by the heroine—raised a con artist, but now reluctant to practice her father’s dark arts—happening to purchase a winning lottery ticket as she’s on the run from the law. The ticket is worth a lot of money, but in claiming it, Lucky would be turning herself in. The novel is otherwise flimsy, but this lottery-ticket dilemma is a fine premise. Lucky must not only evade the long arm of the law, but also figure out who, of the various people she knows, would be trustworthy enough to help her cash this ticket in. Her utter lack of options becomes its own sad story.

You would think this premise, combined with the cast and Apple’s combination of taste and money, would make for a compelling watch. After all, Apple TV has been on a run lately, giving us a series of memorable, self-assured, and unique shows; Widow’s Bay alone scored 19 Emmy nominations, all of them deserved. But in making Lucky, the streamer took the source material and bafflingly regressed it to the mean, substituting for the lottery-ticket problem a conflict that’s much more forgettably garden-variety. Schemes past and present, involving bad guys who may or may not be in the Mob, have Taylor-Joy’s Lucky Armstrong on the run from both her criminal mother-in-law, Priscilla (Bening), and an obsessed FBI agent (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor). The show begins with Lucky and her husband Cary (Starkey) in Las Vegas, celebrating the culmination of a scam that will allow them to leave the country—and their grifter parents—together. They drink, they dance, and Lucky wakes up alone; Cary took the money, leaving his wife to deal with the cops and the mobsters who are looking for it. Lucky must evade the bad guys, find Cary and the money, and figure out what was behind this betrayal. Taylor-Joy lies, kicks, and schemes her way across a desert landscape, stealing from anyone and everyone. (As Taylor-Joy said of Lucky, in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter: “This is somebody who can’t sit still … And I’m somebody that loves to move.”) Lucky feels bad about taking advantage of people who don’t deserve it, but not bad enough to stop—yet.

These first two episodes offer only glimpses of this show’s saving grace, Olyphant, who plays Lucky’s dad, John. For now, John is in jail, so we hear him on the phone and see him in his cell, reading a Michael Lewis book whose title the camera doesn’t catch. (Liar’s Poker? Moneyball? Many good Lewis choices, for a con man.) John is a charismatic disaster, a smart person who feels not at all guilty about using his gifts for ill. Olyphant, with his silver hair, well-lined face, and easy warmth, is perfect for this role as a dad who’s attentive, protective, and full of advice, but whose original sin in making his daughter into a con artist is frankly unforgivable. Any time Olyphant’s on screen, on the phone with Lucky or Priscilla, you actually believe in the idea that’s supposed to be at the heart of the show: Lucky is a natural at using her charm as a weapon. Who would be better at teaching that lesson than this?

That’s why it’s even more of a mystery that the show skimps so much on the Armstrongs’ backstory, and on everything related to con artistry, preferring to provide the shoot-’em-up gun battles and last-minute double-crosses you’d get from any cops-and-robbers fare. In scattered flashbacks, Olyphant, with the aid of a brown dye job, plays a younger John, giving pep talks and life advice to Lucky (played as a tween by Quinn Aune). But the show should give us more of the con-artist goods, take advantage of its actors’ skill and differentiate itself from other crime series and thrillers. I wanted more scenes of young Lucky and John pulling off a pigeon drop, or collaborating on a romance scam. The execution of the latter plays a big part in the flashback sections in the novel, but is absent here, for reasons that mystify me. You have Timothy Olyphant. Give him his romance scam!

Since we don’t see much of these early cons, Lucky, our anchor character, remains something of a cliché: a pretty girl who spends most of these first episodes on the run, braless, and who’s improbably resourceful at tasks like getting out of the trunk of a vehicle while handcuffed. Lucky Armstrong could be a spy, or an assassin, or a garden-variety criminal, if it weren’t for the stretches of the show when she preys on people’s sympathies to get a ride, a place to hide, a new outfit, or some cash. Taylor-Joy, Furiosa as she is, is great to watch in action scenes, and quite believable as a con artist. A sequence in which she scams her way into and out of a kids’ birthday party at an affluent residence works well, showing how she might use her neotenous face and waifish beauty to elicit a kind of protective regard from her marks. Unlike the television show she finds herself in, we can plainly see that Lucky knows what she’s doing.