Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | TV | February 23, 2026
I had no real interest in even sampling 56 Days, released last week on Prime Video, but my daughters encouraged me to watch because it stars Dove Cameron, a former Disney star (Descendants, Liv and Maddie). What neither they nor I anticipated, however, is that 56 Days would be an erotic thriller. She stars opposite Avan Jogia, a former Nickelodeon star (Victorious), and I can only assume this was their attempt to be taken seriously as mature actors.
Alas, it’s impossible to take anything about 56 Days seriously because it is one of the worst shows I’ve seen in recent memory. Calling it an “erotic thriller” is basically an attempt to paper over how dreadfully dull it is with three or four spicy scenes over the course of eight long episodes. They’re not particularly spicy, and yet the plot itself is about as riveting as watching press-on nails grow. It would have been unwatchable as a 90-minute movie. At eight hour-long episodes, it’s like pulling teeth. And then trying to jam them back into the bloody sockets.
Here’s the spoiler recap: The series opens with two detectives, Lee (Karla Souza) and Karl (Dorian Missick), discovering a body decomposing so badly in an upscale apartment that the cops can’t even tell if it’s a man or a woman. That’s crucial because the narrative jumps back 56 days to when Ciara (Dove Cameron) and Oliver (Avan Jogia) meet. The audience is basically supposed to believe that it’s one of their bodies in the bathtub. The narrative cuts back and forth between the present day, as the detectives continue to investigate the murder, and the 56 days leading up to it, as Ciara and Oliver’s relationship deepens.
It’s obvious early on that something is up between Ciara and Oliver. They both act sketchy as hell. He’s rich, but his anxiety is so bad that he injects himself with propofol to sleep, and she snoops around his apartment while he’s out, trying to find the combination to his safe.
The sketchy behavior goes on for a full six episodes. The seventh episode is the flashback installment that tells us essentially everything we need to know (honestly, if you skipped episodes two through six, you’d barely miss anything).
So here’s the deal. When Oliver was a teenager, his friend Shane got into a fight with another friend, Paul. Paul nearly killed Shane, but Oliver stepped in to protect him and ultimately ended up drowning Paul on accident. Because Oliver was rich, his dad pulled strings, and they pinned the blame on Shane, who was sentenced to prison.
Meanwhile, wracked with guilt, Oliver began seeing a social worker, Dan (Patch Darragh), who knew the truth and used it to blackmail Oliver’s father into paying him handsomely to act as Oliver’s private therapist. In that role, Dan prevented Oliver from coming clean and psychologically manipulated him. He also manipulated Shane in prison, ultimately pushing him to take his own life.
Ciara was Shane’s sister. She concocted a plan to get revenge on Oliver for her brother’s death by stealing money from him to help her mom avoid eviction. However, in the process, she actually fell in love with Oliver. Oliver also fell in love with Ciara and eventually confessed that he killed Paul while trying to save Shane, that his wealthy father framed Shane, and that Dan manipulated Shane into killing himself.
So the dead body in the bathtub actually belonged to the therapist, Dan. He confronted Oliver; Oliver tried to end their therapist-client relationship; Dan threatened to expose Oliver’s secret; and Ciara clubbed Dan over the head and killed him.
However, Ciara and Oliver escape with Oliver’s wealth to a tropical island, have a baby, and live happily ever after. That’s because the two detectives, who eventually learn that the body belonged to the therapist and that the therapist was a bad guy, pin the murder on a drug dealer with whom one of the detectives had beef (the beef is honestly not worth discussing), which also helps them cover up an ethical breach.
So in the end, Oliver and Ciara get to be together; the terrible therapist is dead; the drug dealer goes to prison; and the two detectives keep their jobs. That’s it. And as boring as all that sounds, it’s actually worse because it takes eight episodes to tell a story that could have easily been told in two.
