In the glossy veneer of suburban bliss, where manicured lawns hide the sharp edges of unspoken resentments and playdates mask a battlefield of judgments, few nightmares feel as viscerally real as a child’s vanishing. Peacock’s upcoming limited series All Her Fault, premiering on November 6, 2025, plunges viewers into this terrifying territory with the precision of a scalpel. Starring Sarah Snook as a mother whose world implodes in an instant, this eight-episode thriller adaptation of Andrea Mara’s 2021 bestseller transforms a simple errand into a labyrinth of suspicion, secrets, and soul-crushing guilt. What starts as a frantic search for a missing four-year-old spirals into a dissection of privilege, parenthood, and the fragile trust binding a community. As trailers tease with shadowy doorsteps and whispered accusations, early buzz positions All Her Fault as the next must-binge obsession—a twist-filled gut-punch that echoes Big Little Lies and The Undoing, but with a raw, unrelenting focus on maternal terror.

The series opens on a deceptively ordinary afternoon in Chicago’s affluent Wicker Park neighborhood, where tree-lined streets and historic brownstones conceal the quiet desperations of high-achieving families. Marissa Irvine (Snook), a sharp-witted real estate lawyer juggling a demanding career and the tender chaos of early motherhood, drops her son Milo off at what she believes is his first playdate since starting preschool. The invitation came from Jenny (Dakota Fanning), a fellow mom she’s chatted with at school gates—polite smiles over coffee cups, the kind that promise budding friendships. Milo, with his mop of curls and boundless curiosity, waves goodbye from the doorstep of 14 Arthur Avenue, clutching a toy truck. Marissa heads back to her office, buoyed by the small victory of her shy boy making a friend.

But when she returns hours later, the door swings open to reveal Esther (Kartiah Vergara), a bewildered widow who stares blankly at Marissa’s expectant face. “Who?” Esther asks, her voice laced with confusion. She’s never heard of Jenny, Jacob, or Milo. No playdate happened here. The house is quiet, the toys untouched. In that heartbeat, Marissa’s reality fractures. Her screams echo down the block as neighbors peer from windows, phones already dialing authorities. What follows is a cascade of horror: police lights bathing the street in blue, frantic door-to-doors, and Marissa’s husband Peter (Jake Lacy), a charming but strained architect, rushing home to hold her as she collapses. Milo is gone—snatched from under the noses of a neighborhood that prides itself on vigilance.

From this gut-wrenching hook, All Her Fault unfurls like a coiled spring, alternating between breakneck investigations and intimate character studies. Created and written by Megan Gallagher—whose credits include the taut Apple TV+ miniseries Suspicion and BBC’s Wolf—the show masterfully adapts Mara’s novel, shifting its Irish suburbia to an American one for broader resonance while preserving the book’s claustrophobic tension. Episodes peel back layers of deception, revealing how one disappearance ripples through a web of lives. Detectives Nola (Sophia Lillis, bringing haunted intensity from I Am Not Okay With This) and Ruiz (Michael Peña, channeling quiet menace from Narcos: Mexico) lead the probe, their skepticism toward Marissa’s story adding fuel to the fire. Is this a genuine abduction, or something more sinister born from the Irvines’ mounting debts and Peter’s hidden indiscretions?

Snook’s Marissa anchors the chaos with a performance that’s equal parts ferocity and fragility. Fresh off her Olivier and Tony-winning turn as the multifaceted Dorian Gray in a one-woman West End sensation, Snook infuses Marissa with the sharp intellect of her Succession Shiv Roy—quick with barbs, armored in professionalism—but stripped bare by grief. We see her in stolen moments: pacing her sleek kitchen at 3 a.m., replaying the drop-off in her mind; confronting the school moms’ clique in a rain-soaked parking lot, their pity curdling into doubt. “You think I made this up?” she hisses at one, voice cracking. Snook captures the paradox of modern motherhood—the exhaustion masked by Instagram filters, the bone-deep fear that one lapse could cost everything. Her chemistry with young Duke McCloud, who plays Milo in flashbacks, is heartbreaking; those early scenes of bath-time giggles and bedtime stories make his absence a void that swallows the screen.

Fanning’s Jenny emerges as a poignant foil, a newcomer to the neighborhood whose own facade of poise begins to crack under scrutiny. Best known for her luminous work in The Alienist and the poignant The Watchers, Fanning lends Jenny a wide-eyed vulnerability laced with steel. As the playdate host who swears she sent Milo to the wrong address by accident, Jenny becomes both ally and suspect. Her home life unravels in tandem: a strained marriage to the affable but distant Richie (Thomas Cocquerel, Divergent), meddling from her imperious mother-in-law Adeline (Abby Elliott, nailing the venomous charm of The Bear‘s Natalie), and the enigmatic presence of her nanny Carrie (Daniel Monks, infusing quiet unease). Jay Ellis (Insecure) rounds out the ensemble as Brian, Marissa’s supportive yet shadowy brother-in-law, whose loyalty frays as old family skeletons tumble out.

The show’s strength lies in its refusal to traffic in cheap shocks. Instead, Gallagher builds dread through the mundane horrors of the aftermath: the viral Facebook posts branding Marissa a “hysterical liar” chasing a book deal; the anonymous tips flooding police lines with rumors of an affair or unpaid debts; the way neighbors cross the street, their whispers like knives. Cinematographer Jessica Lee captures Chicago’s duality—the golden-hour glow of family barbecues clashing with the stark fluorescence of interrogation rooms. Directors Minkie Spiro (The Morning Show) and Kate Dennis helm episodes with a fluid intimacy, using handheld shots to mirror Marissa’s disorientation and wide establishing lenses to underscore the suburb’s isolating sprawl. The score, a brooding pulse of strings and synths by Hildur Guðnadóttir (Joker), amplifies the paranoia, turning a child’s laughter in a park into an omen.

Thematically, All Her Fault dissects the myth of the perfect parent in an age of performative vulnerability. Mara, an Irish marketing exec turned thriller auteur, drew from her own school-gate observations for the novel, which became a word-of-mouth sensation, topping Irish bestseller lists and earning raves for its “relentless grip” from the likes of The Guardian. Her story probes the invisible labor of motherhood— the mental calculus of addresses and allergies—while skewering the judgment machine of mommy bloggers and PTA tyrants. In the adaptation, this evolves into a sharper critique of American excess: Marissa’s law firm overlooks foreclosures on families like Carrie’s, whose backstory of foster care and resentment bubbles up as a motive. Peter’s arc, played with slippery charisma by Lacy (White Lotus), exposes male privilege in crisis—his tears genuine, but his burdens lighter.

As the investigation deepens, alliances shift like sand. Jenny and Marissa bond over shared vilification, only for fractures to appear when Carrie’s alibi crumbles. Ruiz uncovers a pattern of petty thefts tied to the nanny, while Nola digs into the Irvines’ finances, unearthing Peter’s gambling debts and a suspicious life insurance policy. Flashbacks intercut the present, revealing the playdate’s setup: Jenny’s hurried text with the wrong address, Marissa’s distraction by a work call, the nanny’s lingering glance at Milo in the yard. Each revelation twists the knife— was it opportunistic, premeditated, or a tragic confluence of oversights? The series thrives on misdirection, planting red herrings in Adeline’s barbed interventions and Brian’s overeager helpfulness, all while building to a finale that redefines fault lines.

Production buzz has been electric since principal photography wrapped in Melbourne, Australia, in late 2024—a choice Snook praised for its “world-class” crew and eco-conscious sets, reducing carbon footprints without skimping on polish. Universal International Studios, alongside Carnival Films (The Day of the Jackal), assembled a powerhouse team: executive producers including Snook, Gallagher, Spiro, and Andrea Mara herself as associate producer. Filming in Melbourne’s leafy suburbs stood in for Chicago, lending an uncanny authenticity to the brownstones and corner cafes. Snook, in interviews, described the role as “exhilaratingly exposing,” channeling her post-Succession freedom into a character who “fights with everything she’s got.” Fanning echoed this, calling the shoot “intense but sisterly,” with the cast forming a tight-knit support system amid the emotional toll.

Early screenings and trailer reactions have ignited social media firestorms. “This is the parental panic attack I’ve been dreading,” one viewer tweeted after the October 10 trailer drop, which clocks in at two pulse-racing minutes of door knocks, tear-streaked confrontations, and a haunting score swell. Critics previews praise its “surgical suspense,” with Variety hailing Snook’s “career-best rawness” and The Hollywood Reporter noting how it “turns suburbia into a pressure cooker.” On Goodreads, Mara’s novel holds a 3.8-star average from over 50,000 ratings, lauded for its “jaw-dropping switcheroo” ending—fans speculate if the show will tweak it for TV, perhaps amplifying the community’s complicity. Yet, some early takes flag the mid-season pacing as deliberate, a slow simmer before the boil-over.

All Her Fault arrives at a cultural moment primed for its message. Post-pandemic, conversations around childcare burnout and “mommy wars” rage online, while true-crime pods dissect cases like the Madeleine McCann disappearance. The series doesn’t just entertain; it interrogates— who bears the load when systems fail? Marissa’s journey from accused to avenger mirrors real women’s battles against doubt, her triumph hard-won and bittersweet. In a landscape glutted with slashers and heists, this thriller’s true terror is relational: the betrayal of trust in the people we invite into our homes.

As November approaches, Peacock positions All Her Fault as a binge flagship, dropping four episodes on premiere night, then two weekly through November 20. For Snook completists, it’s a seamless pivot from corporate intrigue to domestic dread; for Fanning fans, a showcase of her maturing range. Whether it spawns watercooler debates or sequel teases (Mara’s follow-up No One Saw a Thing hints at shared universes), one thing’s certain: this isn’t just a missing-child story. It’s a mirror to our own vulnerabilities, a reminder that in the quest for fault, we often unearth our own. Stream at your peril— but lock the doors first.