The Five-Star Weekend Saves Its Biggest Revelation for Last

While a girls’ trip might sound healing in theory, heed caution. Even after all the work of coordinating calendars is complete, a relaxing weekend getaway can quickly become a nightmare if the blend of personalities is not quite…frictionless. Case in point: The Five-Star Weekend, a screen adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand’s popular beach read of the same name.

Streaming on Peacock, the eight-episode series layers the familiar complications of a girls’ weekend with the juicy twists and emotional reveals that have become a signature of Hilderbrand’s intoxicating dramas. Exploring the fragility of adult female friendship à la The White Lotus season 3 while inheriting the coastal visuals of Netflix’s The Perfect Couple (another Hilderbrand adaptation), the series spares no tragedy. Death, grief, infidelity, betrayal, and generational trauma all collide at its center—but under the guidance of creator Bekah Brunstetter (This Is Us and Sirens) and pilot director Minkie Spiro (Downton Abbey), the series refuses to sacrifice its essential humor.

During the pilot episode’s opening scene, we are introduced to Hollis Shaw (Jennifer Garner): home chef, social media personality (@hungrywithhollis), devoted wife, and mother to Caroline (Harlow Jane). Against a backdrop of holiday décor so enchanting it could convert even the most festive-averse, Hollis captures content for her social channels with a seasonal warmth that appears unshakable. That is, until two police officers arrive at her doorstep with news of a fatal car accident involving her husband, Matthew (Josh Hamilton).

Six months after Matthew’s death, publicist Chelsea (Vella Lovell) proposes a healing exercise to a grieving Hollis: Bring together friends from four corners of Hollis’ life for a restorative girls’ weekend. Inspired by the idea, Hollis assembles her unlikely quartet: childhood friend Tatum (Chloë Sevigny), college friend Dru Ann (Regina Hall), mom friend Brooke (D’Arcy Carden), and internet friend Gigi (Gemma Chan). Naturally, Hollis approaches the trip with the same meticulous energy she brings to everything else. The blueprint for even the most Type A among us, she curates an enviably aesthetic itinerary and welcomes the women to her childhood home (recently renovated, of course) in Nantucket for a “weekend of five-star treatment.”

But the hodgepodge crew’s arrival is all but seamless. Tatum barely crosses the threshold before reminding everyone of her status as Hollis’s longest-tenured friend, while Dru Ann confidently defends the significance of her own bond with Hollis. Meanwhile, the highly anxious Brooke grapples with her fear of spending a weekend surrounded by unfamiliar personalities. The college-aged Caroline’s unexpected arrival adds another layer of friction, as the emotional chasm between herself and Hollis widens in the wake of Matthew’s passing.

Despite their differences, these women do share a few uniting threads: a determination to support Hollis in her grief; an investment in Hollis’ss renewed flirtation with her high school-era ex-boyfriend, Jack (Timothy Olyphant); and an apprehension toward Hollis’ most recently acquired internet friend, Gigi. Although Hollis shares that she and Gigi recently bonded through similar experiences with loss, the women remain skeptical of the pair’s (seemingly sudden) closeness. As it turns out, they’re right to be skeptics: At the end of the first episode, Gigi is confirmed to be Matthew’s former mistress.

Revealed gradually to each character throughout the remainder of the series, Gigi’s affair with Matthew represents a crack in Hollis’s carefully maintained reputation among both friends and social followers. As The Five-Star Weekend reaches its finale episode, Hollis’s seemingly unbreakable exterior faces its greatest threat yet, as she is determined to confront Gigi and face the full truth of Matthew’s infidelity.

Mirroring the series premiere, the finale opens with a flashback to the cozy confines of Hollis’s home kitchen. Matthew prepares to leave for what he claims is a work conference as Hollis tends to her holiday desserts. A hobbyist bird watcher, Matthew calls Hollis over to the window when a red cardinal appears outside—but absorbed as she is in her “@hungrywithhollis zone,” she misses the moment before the bird flies away. Husband and wife share a chilly exchange as Hollis confronts Matthew for making her feel guilty for her growing social media popularity, and she questions whether it’s really a work conference he’s leaving for—or whether something (or someone) else is competing for his attention. He brushes off her suspicions, promising to “OD on family Christmas moments” when he returns. Matthew heads out the door, and in the privacy of his car, leaves one final voicemail for Gigi as he drives toward the airport—minutes before the accident that takes his life.

The finale then returns to the present, where a drunken Gigi is asleep in Hollis’s Nantucket home, her affair with Matthew now exposed to the entire group. As Tatum, Dru Ann, and Brooke hover over Gigi’s bedside debating which prank would best serve as revenge against Gigi’s infidelity, Caroline’s frustration with Hollis reaches its breaking point in the kitchen.

“Are you okay? Why can’t you just talk to me?” Caroline pleads with a stoic Hollis. But in typical Hollis fashion, she avoids the confrontation—and any admission of her own pain—by hurriedly delivering a puke bowl to Gigi’s bedside.

Hollis then heads to the front yard, where she finds Jack atop a ladder, clearing her gutters (sans her request). This act of service seemingly tips Hollis toward vulnerability, as she finally confesses to having recurrent dreams about Jack himself—even while Matthew was still alive. After affirming that Hollis has always been what he’s desired (and after a short allusion to their shared love of boxed-mix brownies), Jack leans in for a kiss, which leads them through the front door and right into Hollis’s bedroom.

The next morning, Hollis wakes up to find Jack missing. So is Gigi. But wait! In peak boy-next-door fashion, Jack is found in the kitchen making Hollis eggs. He gives their night together a “five-star” rating, prompting Hollis to finally embrace a moment of earnestness: “I want to see what this is, but I’m also really tired and sad.” The pair agree to take things slow as Gigi walks in carrying an apologetic expression and a box of morning buns. Jack leaves, and Hollis and Gigi retreat to the laundry room to hash things out in private.

“Why did you pretend to be my friend?” Hollis demands, doing her best attempt at an outside voice. If there were ever a moment when cursing out a friend was justified, this would be it—and Hollis takes advantage. Gigi explains that she originally joined the girls’ weekend trip to seek closure for herself, but she ultimately realized there was something far more important she needed to get off her chest: Matthew intended to choose Hollis.

“He called me from the car when he was on his way to the airport,” Gigi tells Hollis. “He was coming home to you, I swear.”

Hollis then confirms Gigi’s revelation with the motor-vehicle-crash police report: “Matthew was driving west. Back to me.” But to Hollis, this “doesn’t change anything.” She decides to forgive Gigi, but the former tells the latter she never wants to see or hear from her again. But this is Hollis we’re talking about, so she of course gifts Gigi a bag of farewell toffee as she sends her on her way.

Once back in the kitchen with Tatum, Dru Ann, and Brooke, Hollis announces that they’ll be making pancakes next. (It’s on the itinerary, after all.) “Sad-face pancake, because it’s our last day…and my marriage was a lie,” Hollis quips.

After breakfast, the women head to the beach and—in what must be a cathartic exercise for anyone who has ever dated a gym bro—dump the remainder of Matthew’s protein powder into the ocean. This proves liberating enough for Hollis, who breaks through her tough exterior and confesses that she’s “feeling better about not being better.” She emphasizes how central her friends’ roles are in her recovery: “I thought I needed to do this weekend to distract myself, but really, I just needed you guys.”

While Hollis relishes in the transformational nature of the girls’ weekend, we see that she isn’t the only one navigating change. As the women huddle on the beach, Tatum receives a call from a doctor who informs her that the results of her recent biopsy show indications of worrisome cells behind her breast tissue. Caroline, having revealed to Hollis her intention to take a semester off from school, heads back to campus with Matthew’s old camera and a newfound love for photography in tow. Dru Ann receives a call from a colleague…and neglects to answer it in the name of work-life balance. And, hot off a night spent dancing with a female tour guide at the local bar, Brooke alludes to a potential divorce between herself and her husband during a phone call with her sons. In an ode to girl power and her growing emotional strength, she bats away tears with gentle slaps to her face after the call’s end.

Together, they drive to the ferry dock, and as the ladies prepare to depart, Hollis distributes additional bags of farewell toffee to the remaining gaggle. She proposes: “Same time next year?” It’s unanimous. But where should they go? Someplace warm? Hollis swears to start work on the itinerary. There’s already so much to do—they need to figure out a name for their incoming group chat! While Dru Ann and Brooke give their goodbyes, Tatum and Hollis share a cigarette for old times’ sake. Hollis promises they won’t drift apart this time, while Tatum confirms: “I’m here.”

Back at home, Hollis returns to her natural habitat: the kitchen. She’s baking an enviable number of elaborate treats when the sound of a car pulling into the driveway interrupts. It’s Caroline, standing outside in tears. “I think I just need my mom,” she tells Hollis.

On the open-air ferry, Brooke is in equally downtrodden spirits as she loses her floppy hat to the ocean breeze. But suddenly, she’s approached by the same tour guide, Sunny (Roberta Colindrez), whom she danced with during the group’s GNO! After Sunny offers to fetch Brooke’s floppy hat from the ocean, they share a kiss—only to be interrupted by the approaching footsteps of Brooke’s old enemy, Electra (Judy Greer). Electra makes an attempted dig at Brooke, but even an unexpected run-in with an adversary can’t get her down when she’s hand in hand with her new flame. She continues to make out with Sunny as tranquil Nantucket views roll past, and Electra retreats with her tail between her legs.

Back at Hollis’ house, Hollis gushes over Caroline’s photos from the weekend as they finally have the heart-to-heart they’ve been circling all weekend. “When you keep stuff from me, it makes it really hard to be close to you,” Caroline confesses. “And you’re all I have.”

Chelsea calls, offering Hollis a spot on Good Morning Boston. In an act of self-care, Hollis turns down the opportunity in favor of staying on Nantucket with her daughter.

Afterwards, Hollis returns to Instagram. Posting a photo dump from the girls’ trip, she is earnest: “It wasn’t perfect. I burnt the tart; we overslept. But it was exactly what I needed. I thought I’d lost myself, but my friends helped me find my way back.” The caption is a bit reductive, sure, but I guess there’s something to be said for not oversharing on the internet.

After pressing “post,” Hollis and Caroline set out on a wholesome beach walk. Mid-saunter, Jack spontaneously appears in frame (as he’s been prone to do for the past eight episodes.) “I realized we didn’t have each other’s numbers,” Jack craftily confesses. “I figured we should, just in case either of us felt like overthinking things.” In response, Hollis invites Jack over for dinner (as casually as your most Type-A friend can.) The series closes with a heartwarming drone shot of the pair walking off the beach. After a season rife with scandal, betrayal, infidelity, and protein powder-related rage, this feels like a fairly neat, satisfying ending.

Although the weekend slipped off the itinerary in more ways than one, The Five-Star Weekend clearly aims to serve as a testament to the healing properties of female friendship. On the phone with her sons during the final episode, Brooke compares her post-Nantucket feelings to how much more “themselves” her sons used to feel after returning home from sleepaway camp. As such, the girls’ trip had a halo effect. While not necessarily the spa-like retreat Hollis initially may have imagined, the friends left the island with a renewed sense of self-empowerment. While the titular five-star weekend wasn’t without turmoil (see: Tatum’s competitiveness for Hollis’s attention; the constant inbound phone calls from Dru Ann’s colleagues; Brooke’s tumultuous marriage; Caroline’s secret plan for a gap semester, to name a few), the series at least takes pains to end on a note of kinship.

As for Jack? At best, he feels tangential to Hollis’s story—though I wish him and Hollis the best. I would be hesitant to turn down someone who cleans my gutters without expectation of compensation, too.

Although the Peacock series remains within the confines of tried-and-true drama formats (think: Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers, and Bad Sisters), it still serves as a refreshing invitation into the vacation home of your favorite wine mom. And while I’ll pass on the betrayal, I’m always up for a “pajama dance party.”