Jon Bernthal's 6-Part Crime Thriller With 104M Views Is Worth The Netflix Hype

Published Sep 21, 2026, 4:52 PM EDT

From light-hearted spins on the genre, like the BBC’s upcoming meta Christie show The Detection Club, to dark, gritty serial killer thrillers like Netflix’s 19-episode masterpiece Mindhunter, there is no shortage of fresh and inventive takes on the murder mystery. Between cozy classics like Columbo, Murder She Wrote, and Diagnosis Murder to grounded modern masterpieces like True Detective and Sharp Objects, the murder mystery has changed and evolved throughout the history of TV and streaming, but always remained popular.

As such, perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that 2026’s Alice Feeney novel adaptation, His & Hers, proved to be a hit when the show arrived on Netflix. However, it was still striking to see just how well the show, starring The Bear’s John Bernthal and Thor: Ragnarok’s Tessa Thompson, fared with viewers. Set in small-town Georgia, His & Hers begins with Thompson’s reporter Anna returning to her birthplace to investigate the brutal murders of her former friends.

His & Hers Deserves To Be One of Netflix’s Most-Watched Original Shows of 2026

Anna has a complex relationship with her hometown, as viewers discover when flashbacks gradually reveal what drove her away from home years earlier. She also has a troubled history with the town’s local detective, Bernthal’s Jack Harper, and the fact that their time together ended in tragedy only serves to stoke Jack’s suspicions that Anna is somehow involved in these vicious killings. Thus, the stage is set for a classic murder mystery series.

Indeed, His & Hers delivers on this front, with a satisfying, self-contained mystery whose final twists are perfectly balanced between the campy, far-fetched shocks of a slasher movie and the more grounded, terrible but believable horrors of a psychological thriller. However, even considering how well His & Hers pulls off this tricky tonal blend, it is still surprising to see that the show managed to dethrone the final season of Stranger Things when the series debuted in January 2026.

His & Hers became one of Netflix’s most watched original shows of 2026 at the beginning of the year, swiftly proving that the Feeney adaptation had clearly uncovered a profitable niche in the streaming landscape. While Netflix’s many Harlan Coben adaptations had offered viewers earlier psychological thriller shows, His & Hers is more grounded and bleaker than these fast-paced, more outlandish thrillers.

His & Hers Already Has A Perfect Replacement On The Way

Fortunately for fans of the show, His & Hers is just the first adaptation of Feeney’s work. The British author has plenty of other books for the streaming service to adapt, and an adaptation of Feeney’s 2021 bestseller Rock, Paper, Scissors has already been announced. Since Netflix unwisely canceled The Killing after only four seasons, their upcoming Feeney shows can make up for this misstep with more brutal, small-town murder mysteries for fans of the genre.

Alongside His & Hers and the upcoming Rock, Paper, Scissors, Feeney has a string of other bestsellers that are crying out for a screen adaptation. Sometimes I Lie, I Know Who You Are, Daisy Darker, Good Bad Girl, Beautiful Ugly, and My Husband’s Wife were all huge hits with readers and none of them have made it to the small screen yet.

Thus, Netflix may have found the streaming service’s new Coben replacement with the success of Thompson and Bernthal’s gritty, twisty murder mystery series. That said, the rest of Feeney’s Netflix adaptations will need to be as good as His & Hers to replicate its record-breaking viewership.