A Good Girl's Guide to Murder episode 1 recap

Based on the book series of the same name by Holly Jackson, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder was just released on Netflix around the world on Aug. 1, 2024. The series premiered on BBC iPlayer on July 1 in the UK.

The first episode begins with Pippa Fitz-Amobi, played by Wednesday star Emma Myers, deciding what to do for her school project over the summer holidays. Technically, it’s called an Extended Project Qualification, which is known as an EPQ in the series. American audiences don’t know what an EPQ is, but I looked it up. Basically, it’s a way for a student to earn an extra qualification. 

Pippa doesn’t know what she wants to do for her EPQ, but after witnessing graffiti sprayed on the home of the Singh family, Pippa becomes inspired. She wants to help clear the name of the late Sal Singh (Rahul Pattni), who was believed to be responsible for killing his girlfriend, Andie Bell (India Lilli Davies), and then himself after admitting to the crime. 

Pippa sets the stage and introduces the mystery she’s about to solve. The police story goes like this: Sal killed Andie after a night out at his friend Max Hasting’s (Henry Ashton) house before returning home just after midnight. After Andie went missing, Sal was found in the forest, dead, after taking a bunch of pills of some kind. He confessed to killing Andie via a note. 

That’s where Pip’s case begins. She begins interviewing those closest to Sal who were with him the night he allegedly killed Andie, including Naomi Ward (Yasmin Al-Khudhairi), Pip’s best friend Cara’s (Asha Banks) sister, and Max Hastings. She tries to talk to Sal’s brother, Ravi (Zain Iqbal), in the season premiere, but he asks her to stay out of it. 

Pip interviews Naomi first, but Naomi is unable to make through the interview before her father, Elliot Ward (Mathew Baynton), returns from his tutoring lessons. Right before he walks through the door of their home, Naomi admits that Sal actually had an alibi, but Pip is unable to follow up. 

Later, Pip and Cara are caterers at Max’s parents’ wedding anniversary party. Pip sneaks off and interviews Max, who gives contradictory evidence about the night in question. While making Pip take a shot for every question he answers as part of a quid pro quo, he said that he didn’t remember seeing Naomi. She was doing something else while he and Sal were playing FIFA, the soccer video game. Max also reveals that Sal asked them to cover for him before they changed their story and went to the police. They told the police that Sal left at 10:30 p.m., and it’s been confirmed that he didn’t turn up at home until 12:15 a.m. 

Pip leaves the interview, drunk, and spills the beans to Cara that Naomi might be lying about that night. Cara is furious with Pip because she asked her to leave Naomi, who has been struggling recently, out of the story, but Pip went behind her back and did the interview with Naomi anyway. 

Pip has a flashback to five years ago when Sal was looking for Andie at their school. Andie had just walked past in the hallway and indicated that she didn’t want Sal to find her. Pip, it seems, feels responsible for what happened with Andie and Sal in some way. 

She stops at Ravi and Sal’s home after the party and asks to speak with Ravi when his mom answers. Ravi asks why she thinks Sal didn’t do it, and she tells him that she knew Sal and he was kind to her. She knew he would never kill anyone. 

Ravi throws her a bone, and he lets her look at the texts Sal sent just before he died. He confessed via text, but the grammar is correct. Sal had perfect grades, but he “texted like an illiterate,” according to Ravi. 

They agree that Sal didn't do it. 

Later, Pip reviews Sal’s texts with Andie. There was something that was going on with the two of them, but Pip doesn’t know what happened. 

We see Sal and Andie kissing in the rain after apologizing to each other in a short scene. Then, the episode ends with Pip staring in front of all of the evidence she’s collected in a short time. It’s a lot!