Finally, the 'Catch and Release' Reunion We've All Been Waiting For

The Five Star Weekend, now streaming on Peacock, pieces together a fun collection of actresses — Jennifer Garner, Chloë Sevigny, Regina Hall, D’Arcy Carden and Gemma Chan — for a weekend get-together on Nantucket. I probably do not have to tell you that it’s based on an Elin Hilderbrand novel. But I must warn you ahead of time that there is no murder in The Five Star Weekend. Someone does die — the series is set six months after the death of Hollis Shaw’s (Garner) husband — but there is no mystery. No detectives. No clues to be found.

It’s honestly kind of refreshing.

It’s not a heavy series, either, although it’s not totally lightweight. It’s five friends getting together for a weekend of baked goods, shopping, spa treatments, wine drinking, Instagram-ready photos, and trauma bonding. Hollis is trying to cope with the loss of her husband, Matthew (Josh Hamilton), so she invites four friends from different phases of her life to her stylish Nantucket home. There’s her oldest friend, Tatum (Chloë Sevigny), who still lives on the island and is dealing with a medical scare; there’s Dru-Ann Jones (Regina Hall), an old college friend who is now an overworked high-powered agent; Brooke (D’Arcy Carden), a mom friend married to an a-hole (Rob Huebel, naturally); and Gigi (Gemma Chan), a new friend that Hollis met on the Internet after her husband died.

While there is no murder, there is a secret that propels much of the plot: Gigi was having an affair with Matthew, and after his death, she checked in with Hollis and the two inadvertently ended up connecting (Hollis does not know about the affair).

Hollis is the sort of influencer-type who masks her grief (and other problems) with baked goods, and she has drifted from her friends over the years. The Five-Star Weekend is her attempt to reconnect. The various women are territorial about their friendships with Hollis; there’s fighting and bickering; there are a number of awkward moments; tears are shed; wine is drunk; identities are reshaped.

It’s not bad. It’s well-lit, picturesque, breezy summer escapism with likable characters played by likable actresses dealing with largely relatable problems in a very unrelatable setting (unless you are also rich and own a giant, immaculately designed home on Nantucket).

What the series has going for it in particular, however, are two reunions of sorts: Judy Greer reunites with her 13 Going on 30 co-star Jennifer Garner here as the bitchy villain mom, who pops up occasionally to fast-track the drama. But more importantly, The Five Star Weekend reunites Catch and Release co-stars Jennifer Garner and Timothy Olyphant (and yes, also Mother’s Day) and the series is honestly worth watching for Olyphant alone. I think that Olyphant could have decent chemistry with a lamp post, but he and Garner really do have some sort of fascinatingly magical spark. There’s just something about the Type A personality clashing with the more freethinking wiseacre who can fix stuff around the house that just works. It’s like a C-storyline, but those two together are weirdly intoxicating.

Is it going to change your life? No. But it’s July, it’s hot, and sometimes you just want to watch beautiful people cry in a beautiful house on a beautiful island. And if for some reason it doesn’t do it for you, you can always watch Catch and Release again.