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- McGee expands her playground: from teen sitcom to suspenseful dramedy
- Four women, three friends and one missing past
- The wake that sets the mystery in motion
- Interlocking timelines and puzzles
- Characters and performances that carry the series
- Where the mystery falters: an underwritten central figure
- Crime hooks, cultural markers and thematic weight
- Supporting cast and the rising threat
- How to watch and what to expect next
Lisa McGee’s new series, How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, arrives as a darker, wider follow-up to the hit Derry Girls. It blends sharp comedy with a knotty mystery and places old friendships at the center of a story about secrets, regret and the uneasy calm after Northern Ireland’s Troubles. The show lands on Netflix with ambition: bigger locations, dual timelines and a plot that pulls the friends back into a past they thought they’d buried.
McGee expands her playground: from teen sitcom to suspenseful dramedy
Where Derry Girls mined laughs from history and adolescence, this series aims higher in scope. McGee keeps her comic instincts but layers the narrative with suspense elements. Production shifted from Channel 4 to Netflix as the budget grew, and the result feels more cinematic.
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The tone is blackly comic yet frequently tense. Episodes are longer than Derry Girls’ beats, and the writing alternates between flashbacks and present-day action. That format gives the mystery room to breathe — and sometimes to creak under its own weight.
Four women, three friends and one missing past
The story follows a quartet forged by Catholic school ties. Two decades after graduation, they are not teenagers anymore.
- Saoirse — a London-based TV creator who despises her own glossy crime show.
- Robyn — a well-off mother, exhausted by family life.
- Dara — caring for her mother and hiding her true feelings.
- Greta — the enigmatic fourth friend who vanished from their lives years ago.
These women are in their late 30s and still bound by the rituals and slang of their youth. When Greta’s reported death forces them to reunite, the surface camaraderie frays and old wounds reappear.
The wake that sets the mystery in motion
A supposed fall down a staircase brings the friends into rural County Donegal. Small oddities escalate fast.
- An email invitation from a woman who may not exist.
- A widower who claims he has no sister.
- A pub patron who resembles Greta’s long-gone boyfriend.
- An opened coffin that makes Saoirse doubt the corpse’s identity.
Those moments kick off a series of revelations and paranoid discoveries. The border between Northern Ireland and the Republic becomes a literal and symbolic crossing point.
Interlocking timelines and puzzles
The show layers events from the 1990s, the 2000s and the 2020s. Each era supplies a piece of the puzzle but also raises new questions.
- Childhood incidents that pushed Greta into isolation.
- 2000s-era disappearances tied to an ex named Jason.
- The recent life Greta led before she reappeared — or didn’t.
Tattoos, family lore and a recurring symbol act as narrative anchors. The series leans into the slow reveal, asking viewers to track motives across decades.
Characters and performances that carry the series
Where the thriller threads sometimes slow, the cast’s chemistry propels the drama. Dialogue crackles when the three remaining friends trade barbs and confessions.
- Roisin Gallagher’s flustered energy makes Saoirse compelling.
- Sinéad Keenan gives Robyn a brittle, self-centered truthfulness.
- Caoilfhionn Dunne finds quiet humor in Dara’s contradictions.
The friendship dynamics are the show’s strongest asset. Watching the actors riff off each other is often more gripping than the conspiracy at the plot’s center.
Where the mystery falters: an underwritten central figure
Greta remains oddly distant. That ambiguity serves the story in part, but it also creates missed opportunities.
We see glimpses of the younger Greta — a transfer student, a darkroom hobbyist — but the adult woman at the heart of the plot never fully emerges. Late revelations about her past land, yet fail to transform her into a fully realized presence.
Crime hooks, cultural markers and thematic weight
McGee weaves local color through the plot. The Irish language, Catholic rituals and the lingering social scars of the Troubles and abortion restrictions are woven into scenes.
At times the show leans on familiar trauma-driven tropes. Still, those elements are balanced by the series’ grounded sense of place and the authenticity of long-term friendships.
Supporting cast and the rising threat
Secondary figures intensify the suspense. A menacing fixer named Booker appears early and raises stakes. A lookalike in a pub stirs old guilt. A missing boyfriend and a dubious coffin push the women into dangerous territory.
As questions multiply, the roster of suspects and shady connections grows. The plot becomes a series of nested revelations rather than a single mystery.
How to watch and what to expect next
All eight episodes of How to Get to Heaven from Belfast are streaming now on Netflix. The series plants seeds for further seasons and leaves several narrative strands unresolved.
