Grosse Pointe Garden Society, on NBC

Apparently, in this tony Detroit suburb, the high school reunions are funnier than the garden parties. Many viewers previously only knew the small, well-to-do community as the setting of Grosse Pointe Blank, but plenty of Fords have lived there—as in the Fords. They can afford swanky gardens, but someone has to get their hands dirty. Usually, that just involves soil, but there will also be bloodstains in co-creator-showrunners Jenna Bans & Bill Krebs’ who-was-it-done-to, Grosse Point Garden Society, which premieres this Sunday on NBC.

Prepare yourself for a constant stream of flashbacks and flashforwards. Four members of the garden club share a guilty secret. For whatever reason, they buried a body in one of their flowerbeds. They all have their share of enemies who had it in for them, so it could be any number of people.

Obviously, Alice is the nice one. That is why Brett carries a torch for her, even though she is married to Doug. Nevertheless, someone shot her beloved dog at point blank range. She suspects the wealthy parents of the student whom she gave a “D” for plagiarism.

Not surprisingly, Brett and Doug do not get on so well, but he really despises his ex-wife’s wealthy new husband, who is definitely wants to replace him as his son’s father. Unfortunately, Brett finds it hard to compete with him on his salary from the nursery.

Catherine has fidelity issues. First, she was unfaithful to her husband, but her lover, also her boss, was unfaithful to her, with an awful lot of women. One of those secret lovers was Birdie, but it probably meant even less to her than it did to him.

The new Grosse Pointe resident has made a name for herself as a scandalous author and influencer, but her hard-partying ways immediately get her in trouble. That is why she comes to the garden society—to complete her community service. She would also like to do right by Ford, the son she never met after giving him up for adoption. However, he is surprisingly surly and his adoptive father Joel is the town’s top cop. Weirdly, she and Joel get along far better than his wife would prefer.

So, who is the body the four club-members planted? That is the show’s central who-killed-J.R. question. Based on the first four episodes provided for review, it looks like Bans and Krebs regularly end each episode in a way that points to one suspect as the victim, only to walk it back at the start of the next installment. In this case, the coyness instills a feeling of being played in viewers.

This one-step-forward-one-step-back strategy also robs the early episodes of momentum. The movement is all lateral and the constant time-shifts require more attention than a lot of viewers are willing to give prime-time dinner-hour television.

However, AnnaSophia Robb, Aja Naomi King, and Melissa Fumero all play off each other quite nicely, as the nice one, the passive one looking to assertive herself, and the boozy Ab-Fab one, respectively. The way they learn to draw on each other’ strengths is shaping up to be the best aspect of the show.

Ironically, Ben Rappaport’s portrayal of Brett arguably suffers from bad timing. His single parent issues and resentment of his son’s richer step-father largely mirrors that of Theo James’ good twin in The Monkey. Oddly, both fathers even find themselves helping their sons complete a family tree homework assignment. When measured head-to-head, James has Rappoport beat in the battle of dads with inferiority complexes.

Still, Matthew Davis generates a lot of heat with Fumero, as Officer Joel. Plus, action fans will be rather surprised to see Ron Yuan appear as Alice’s father-in-law Keith. So far, he has had no opportunities to show off his martial arts chops, but we can always hope.

At this point, Grosse Pointe Garden Society is not sufficiently intriguing or special to recommend, but there might be enough catty one-liners might to earn the series second and third looks from hopeful viewers. Ultimately, this exclusive neighborhood is simply too familiar. Not recommended, Grosse Pointe Garden Society starts airing Sunday (2/23) on NBC (and streams the next day on Peacock).