Every time I’m going through something big in life, I’ve always wanted to gather all my friends under one roof and celebrate. My preschool bestie, the girls I met in middle school who became my sisters, my college gang that felt like home away from home. It sounds like the perfect idea.
But then comes the question that has always stopped me.
Should you mix friend groups? For an hour or two? Sure. But for an entire weekend? Absolutely not.
And I now have Five-Star Weekend to back me up.
The series follows Hollis, played by Jennifer Garner, a famous food creator who is grieving the loss of her husband. Hoping to reconnect with the people she loves, she invites five women from different chapters of her life to her beach house in Nantucket. There’s her childhood best friend, her college friend, her work friend, and, in what has to be the boldest decision ever, someone she met on Instagram.
What starts as a healing getaway quickly spirals into chaos.
While everyone wants Hollis to finally talk about her grief, she does everything except that. Instead, she pours all her energy into making personalised gift baskets for each guest and cooking Michelin star level dinners, hoping that thoughtful gestures can replace difficult conversations.
But what really makes the show work isn’t Hollis. It’s the friendships.
Each woman arrives carrying her own emotional baggage, making the weekend about much more than comforting Hollis. Her childhood best friend Tatum, played by Chloë Sevigny, is still bitter that Hollis left Nantucket behind for a bigger life. She resents how close Hollis has become to Dru-Ann, played by Regina Hall, whose glamorous lifestyle seems worlds apart from her own. Watching years of jealousy, insecurity and unresolved feelings bubble to the surface feels painfully real because friendships aren’t always sunshine and sleepovers. Sometimes they’re messy.
Then there’s Brooke, played by D’Arcy Carden, the lovable but slightly clueless one of the group. In just one weekend, she begins questioning her marriage and even her own sexuality. It’s unexpected, funny and surprisingly heartfelt.
More than anything, Five-Star Weekend is about the quiet ways we disappoint the people we love. Life gets busy, priorities change, and sometimes we don’t even realise we’ve hurt someone until they’re sitting across from us telling us exactly how they feel. Hollis spends the weekend apologising, listening and trying to repair relationships she unknowingly neglected. Alongside that, it explores the grief of losing someone, the questionable decisions we make while trying to heal, and the possibility of opening your heart to love again.
The show made me realise that we all have different friend groups for different reasons. The friend who knew you when you were ten doesn’t know the version of you your work friends do. Your college friends know stories your childhood friends never will. Bringing them all together sounds magical, but it also means bringing together different versions of yourself, along with years of history, expectations and insecurities.
By the end, almost everything falls into place. Almost.
Out of the five women, only four remain.
Why, you ask? Well, for that you’ll have to watch the show.
Until next time!