Written by Avani Trivedi
Netflix’s How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, created by Lisa McGee, is a sharp, genre-blending drama that uses mystery as a vehicle to explore female friendship, memory and the quiet weight of the past. While it carries the surface structure of a thriller — a sudden death, unanswered questions and a trail of unsettling clues – the series is less interested in solving a puzzle than in examining how people reconstruct their own histories. Across eight tightly paced episodes, it balances dark humor with emotional reckoning, creating a story that feels distinctly Northern Irish while also universally resonant.
At its core, the show is about reunion. Three women in their thirties are pulled back to their past after the death of a childhood friend. The series carefully avoids nostalgia as comfort. Instead, memory is presented as unstable, selective, distorted and occasionally self-serving. Each character remembers their adolescence differently, and those discrepancies become more revealing than any single “truth.” The show’s central tension emerges not simply from what happened in the past, but from how the characters have chosen to live with it.
One of the most striking elements of the series is its tonal control. McGee, best known for Derry Girls, brings her signature wit, but here the humor is edged with unease. Jokes land in the middle of tense conversations; awkwardness undercuts moments that might otherwise tip into melodrama. This tonal layering serves a thematic purpose. Laughter becomes a coping mechanism, a way to deflect discomfort and postpone emotional confrontation. The show portrays humor as not the opposite of grief but one of its copy mechanisms.
Visually, the series is dreary, intimate and slightly claustrophobic. The series subtly gestures toward generational memory in Northern Ireland without foregrounding political conflict. Instead, it focuses on the aftereffects of the cultural inheritance of caution, loyalty and silence. This context deepens the emotional stakes. Secrets are not just personal failings but social survival strategies.
The performances anchor the series’ shifting tones. The trio at the center embodies different approaches to adulthood: ambition, domesticity and avoidance. Yet none are presented as stable archetypes. As the narrative progresses, carefully curated identities begin to crack. The show’s most compelling moments occur in small exchanges – a look that lingers too long, a joke that falls flat, a memory that fails to align. These understated beats emphasize that the real mystery is not simply about external events but about how well one truly knows the people that were once trusted with everything.
Rather than relying on sensational twists, it builds suspense through withheld information and perspective shifts. Each episode reframes earlier assumptions without resorting to shock for its own sake. The pacing encourages viewers to question not just what happened, but why certain interpretations felt convincing. This technique underscores a broader theme: narrative itself is unstable. Just as the characters revise their memories, the audience is invited to revise its conclusions.
Another key strength lies in the show’s examination of female friendship as something expansive and contradictory. The bond between the three women is neither idealized nor dismissed. It contains loyalty, rivalry, resentment and tenderness in equal measure. The series refuses the trope of friendship as effortless support; instead, it presents it as ongoing negotiation. In this way, the show participates in a growing trend of dramas that center women’s interior lives without framing them primarily through romance or motherhood.
Importantly, the show resists sensationalism. While it contains elements of thriller storytelling, it never becomes gratuitous. Emotional consequences carry more weight than dramatic spectacle. Even at its most tense, the narrative remains character-driven. The climactic episodes prioritize emotional clarity over shock value, reinforcing that the real transformation lies in perspective rather than plot mechanics.
In the end, How to Get to Heaven from Belfast is less about heaven than about return. It examines what it means to go back, geographically and emotionally, and to discover that the past has been waiting. Through its blend of wit, tension and emotional nuance, the series affirms Lisa McGee’s ability to capture the contradictions of Northern Irish identity while expanding into darker terrain.
