Money and murder in White Lies and more crime drama series

Crime drama series White Lies is set in Cape Town’s lah-di-dah Bishopscourt neighbourhood, where investigative journalist Edie Hansen (co-executive producer Natalie Dormer, Game of Thrones) is in no way ready for the exposé into her own privileged childhood (and the suffering that made it possible) that awaits after her brother, businessman Andrew McKenzie (Langley Kirkwood), is murdered in his home and his wife Olivia (Caely-Jo Levy) is beaten into a coma.

Edie returns to Cape Town from the UK, where she’s been in self-imposed exile for the past 15 years, and immediately clashes with the case’s investigating officer, disgraced former Hawk Fortune Bell (Brendon Daniels, Spinners) – a man on a mission to drag the rich and powerful to justice – whose previous career downfall can be laid at her feet as a journalist. But their investigation is poised to expose a trail of injustice made all the more bitter by South Africa’s apartheid legacy of inequality.

It’s a classic case of the higher the walls, the darker the secrets. So a certain voyeuristic pleasure awaits viewers who love shows centred on the criminal behaviour of the rich and revolting – at home and abroad. And to help Edie and Fortune to explore the deadly effects of money and power, we’ve picked out five more Chanel, champagne and cyanide series from our evidence files…

Binge White Lies now

Lioness Season 1-2

After committing major fraud totalling over R50 million, and getting his brother Jason (Frank Rautenbach), who’s a lawyer, his CFO Sifiso (Terrence Ngwila), and Hawks officer Anton (Gerald Steyn) to help him cover his tracks and fake his death, Adrian Hugo (Jacques Bessenger) flees the country, leaving his wife Samantha Hugo (Shannon Esra) to take the fall – unaware that his romantically obsessed PA, Yvette Rudolf (Ilana Cilliers), has framed Samantha for his crimes.

It’s goodbye to poolside cocktails and parties, and hello to prison bars for stay-at-home mom Samantha, who then spends eight years behind bars while Jason and his politically influential old money wife Megan (Natasha Sutherland) raise Samantha and Adrian’s three kids. Once she’s released, Samantha struggles to get her kids back from Megan, while Jason, who’s always been obsessed with his brother’s wife, does his best to gaslight and seduce her.

Lioness is a curtain-twitching look inside the homes of rich, white Joburg families, the dynamics between hyper-competitive brothers and spoiled children, and all the law-dodging deals that money can buy.

Is there a body buried in the backyard? Yes!

Legacy Season 1-2

There’s rich, and then there’s trillionaire-rich. In this telenovela, the Price family are living the larney life in one of those massive Johannesburg mansions with expansive grounds, a rose garden, a swimming pool, and what amounts to a luxury car dealership in the driveway. While writing the series, Tshedza’s Phatutshedzo Makwarela and Gwydion Benyon studied the lives of South Africa’s real-life super-rich and politically connected class, and how big business owners influence the country from the shadows, lining their pockets with the personal phone numbers of politicians and presidents.

In the series, the Price sisters and wives also reflect South Africa’s shifting attitudes to wealth – from conservatism, to shame, to those who accept it as their right and barely give it a thought – especially through patriarch Sebastian Price’s (Deon Lotz) latest wife, Dineo (Kgomotso Christopher), the Meghan Markle of the family. And when Sebastian is murdered, the rush to cover up and seize control of his assets, his secrets, and his legacy, exposes his wives and children’s vicious natures under their veneer of sophistication and civilisation.

Is there a body buried in the backyard? Yes!

Yellowstone Season 1-5

This sprawling family epic is spiced with succession drama, cunning political in-fighting and magnificent horses. The Dutton family own Montana’s biggest cattle ranch, Yellowstone, which borders both the Broken Rock Indian Reservation and the protected Yellowstone National Park. They settled on the land around 1883 after James Dillard Dutton fought for the Confederate Army (pro slavery), then joined the great land grab in the West that displaced native Americans. Generations later, Dutton family patriarch John Dutton (Kevin Costner) behaves as if keeping the ranch is a god-given duty.

The Duttons founded the local town, own its major businesses, and swing generational wealth and political influence like a hammer. And when legal steps don’t work, they won’t hesitate to bring out the dynamite. Anything to fight off the likes of oily, smirking land developer Dan Jenkins (Danny Huston), high chief for the Confederated Tribes of Broken Rock Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham), power-hungry petrol station and casino owners Teal (Terry Serpico) and Malcolm Beck (Neal McDonough), and billionaire-run development empire Market Equities.

PS: Yellowstone Season 5B is coming to Showmax in mid-January, 2025.

Is there a body buried in the backyard? Boy, howdy, and then some! Aside from the official family graveyard, the Duttons have buried hundreds of their enemies in a stretch of canyon that they’ve nicknamed the train station.

Emperor of Ocean Park

This crime drama series is based on the first book in Stephen L Carter’s bestselling Elm Harbor novel series (2002-2008), which centres on the rich, Black Garland family.

Ivy League law professor Talcott Garland (Grantham Coleman, Edwin Jones in Lawmen: Bass Reeves and Ronnie Mathis in Power Book III: Raising Kanan Season 3) has to unravel a mystery after his father, politically conservative Judge Oliver Garland (Forest Whitaker, with Omar Miller as the young Oliver Garland), dies of a heart attack (or was it murder?) shortly after failing his bid to join the Supreme Court.

Judge Garland’s success has sheltered his children from the impact of prejudice that poorer Black communities suffer to the point that his daughter Mariah (Tiffany Mack) believes that since his hard work resulted in success, it must mean that unsuccessful Black people just aren’t working hard enough. Unfortunately, though, it seems the judge really built his fortune on keeping secrets, doing favours, and plain old-fashioned grift rather than grit. So Tal will have to weigh up the impact of what he uncovers, not just on his family, but on their community, where Judge Oliver Garland is regarded as an inspiration, and a respected symbol of Black success.

Is there a body buried in the backyard? Well… metaphorically, yes.

The White Lotus Seasons 1-2

For a lighter take on money, privilege and murder, try this satirical mystery series centred on super-rich guests at the White Lotus resorts in Hawaii (Season 1) and Sicily (Season 2), with Golden Globe-winning actress Jennifer Coolidge as the glue holding the two seasons together as absurdly self-centred and oblivious heiress Tanya McQuoid. Each season starts with an unidentified murder victim, and through the season we pick out possible killers, victims and motives until the truth is exposed in the season finale. And wow, we’re spoiled for choice!

The White Lotus brings the class war to cocktail and bikini time – so if you love watching terrible things happen to worse people, seeing how the rich behave when the mask comes off behind closed doors, and what their lackeys and the less well-off say about them behind their backs, this is your show.

Is there a body buried in the backyard? The backyard? Never at a White Lotus resort, sir-ma’am. Floating in the ocean, aboard a yacht or, stabbed in a bathtub, though, yes. We’ll get the cleaning staff right on that. Sorry for the inconvenience. Hope you enjoy your stay.