Playing Gracie Darling Recap ‘Darling Girl’: Two teenage girls go missing, 27 years apart

Spoiler warning: This recap discusses the first episode of Playing Gracie Darling in detail. If you haven’t watched it yet, please head over to Netflix to do so before reading on.

When I look back at a pilot episode I just watched, and realise that the high point for me was hearing Every Time the Sun Comes Up by Sharon Van Effen as the main character drove back to her hometown, that’s a pretty big indicator that the show is probably not for me. I am not not recommending Playing Gracie Darling – there are elements here of a classic small town mystery, and it could very well hit the homerun with the remaining episodes. It is just that its very promise made it a tiny bit frustrating. With some adjustments, the pilot could have gone from ‘it’s okay’ to ‘excellent’. Let’s do a quick runthrough.

‘Darling Girl’ opened in 1997, when a group of teenagers – Joni, Anita, Jay, and Gracie – conducted a seance inside a cabin in the woods, and contacted a spirit they named Levi. Gracie looked like she was possessed, and as her friends panicked, well, the flashback stopped there. We moved to the present day, when Joni was already a child psychologist. Jay, now a police officer, contacted her and told her that another Darling girl was missing, Frankie, Gracie’s niece. 

I understand holding story elements back. In a mystery, that is essential.  But we weren’t even shown that Gracie went missing. We had flashbacks through the episode, but none of them set up what happened to Gracie. It’s an easy fix, a few lines of dialogue, perhaps a quick additional scene or two. The goal is to get people hooked. Sure, there’s a twist at the end of the episode, but if the viewer doesn’t make it that far, especially with the wealth of viewing choices we have now, well, that’s too bad. 

In any case, Joni decided to head to her hometown and talk to Jay and Anita’s daughter Raffy, at Jay’s request. Raffy happened to be Frankie’s best friend. She told Joni that they had been up at the cabin ‘Playing Gracie Darling’, but did not really explain what that was about. It looked like the famous missing person’s case has become some kind of local game. 

Jay and Anita were no longer together, and Anita in particular seemed angry and stressed. She mentioned the wind turbines, which the wealthy Darling family helped push through, had been killing birds because they were built along the usual flight paths. There was a morbid line of dead birds on her porch. Jay looked like he was in a better place emotionally, but he told Joni the Darlings never quite forgave him for Gracie. Joni, on the other hand, seemed to have maintained at least a polite relationship with Gracie’s mother Moira. 

What prompted Joni to speak to the kids at the youth centre (which annoyed the local youth pastor Zac)? After bloody clothing, presumably belonging to Frankie, was found in the woods, a search party was assembled, and Joni joined them. Why was she suddenly alone? These are little things, but they become a bit distracting when there isn’t really anything particularly compelling happening on screen.  

That changed in the last few minutes. Joni found charred remains of a human body in the woods. Whilst Joni was at the Darling house, a quick stop to say goodbye before she left town, Frankie’s mother and Gracie’s sister Ruth was clearly beside herself with worry. Zac was already there, praying with Moira. Jay came over, and though the investigation into the remains was not yet finished, he told them the body had an identifying feature – a broken arm, fully healed at the time of death. It was a double fracture in the left forearm. Moira collapsed to the floor. She knew that the body found in the woods was Gracie’s body, not Frankie’s.

That was a good way to end the first episode, a good hook to watch more. If small town mysteries are your jam, especially ones where a non-police officer does the investigating, I’d say give this a shot. There are shows that don’t necessarily start strong, but eventually find their footing. Playing Gracie Darling has the elements to potentially be one of them. 

Rating: B-

Netflix Streaming Date: December 1, 2025

Episode Title: Darling Girl

Episode Writer: Miranda Nation

Episode Director: Jonathan Brough