If you ever doubted that the worst secrets are buried just beneath the surface, Grosse Pointe Garden Society’s wickedly twisted finale, “Bad Seeds,” yanks those skeletons up by the roots. The episode is a brilliant, genre-blending mix of suburban satire, psychological unraveling, and just enough emotional weight to keep you invested in these deeply flawed (and at times, criminal) characters. This is Desperate Housewives meets Fargo, with potting soil and designer wine tumblers.
Let’s start where everything started to rot: Keith. His dead body, once buried in the garden in a misguided attempt at “let’s pretend this didn’t happen,” has vanished. Naturally, this sends Alice, Brett, Birdie, and Catherine spiralling. Viewers may have thought the worst had already happened with the wood chipper, but no, that was just compost for the finale’s real madness.
The script flips early with the news that Melissa is going after full custody of the kids and personally serves Brett the papers. It’s humiliating, raw, and very on-brand for a season that’s been about unraveling identities, Brett: the father, the husband, the lover. Melissa’s motivations are grounded in real emotional pain, but her timing is cruel, especially when Brett is already drowning in guilt (and murder).
“Bad Seeds” – GROSSE POINTE GARDEN SOCIETY. Pictured: Ben Rappaport as Brett, Melissa Fumero as Birdie and AnnaSophia Robb as Alice. Photo: Matt Miller/NBC ©2025 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Marilyn’s flashback to the “accidental” killing of Molly is some of the show’s darkest material to date. What was once a quirky character has been peeled back to reveal someone just as capable of manipulation and cruelty as any of the core four. Her power plays with Patty, dating back to a mysterious favour and even darker past dealings, add rich layers to the show’s ongoing theme of women wielding power in shadowy, unspoken ways.
Meanwhile, the private investigator serves as both comic relief and a reminder that secrets in Grosse Pointe never stay buried. His demand for money in exchange for Keith’s body is peak crime drama absurdity, right up until he collapses in the middle of his own scam. That the core four even debate letting him die shows how far gone they are morally. That they save him anyway? A reminder they haven’t completely lost their humanity… yet.
“Bad Seeds” – GROSSE POINTE GARDEN SOCIETY. Pictured: Felix Wolfe as Ford and Melissa Fumero as Birdie. Photo: Matt Miller/NBC ©2025 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Birdie remains the most deliciously unpredictable character in the series. One minute she’s making flippant jokes about murder (“rest in peace, Keith”), the next she’s feeling maternal pangs as her son prepares for college. Her selfie scene with Ford, touching and sincere, contrasts sharply with her later giddy participation in turning Keith into garden mulch. And somehow, it works. That balance of maternal warmth and deranged pragmatism is Birdie in a nutshell.
Catherine, meanwhile, is spiralling under the weight of guilt. Her storyline — a mother, a realtor, a PTA mom, a murderer — reaches emotional depth this episode. The moment she sobs while looking at her real estate slogan “honesty, integrity, heart” was heartbreakingly human. Catherine is the show’s moral center even as she compromises that morality in almost every episode. Her inability to reconcile who she was with who she’s become is the emotional cornerstone of the finale.
As for Alice, she’s the one who makes the boldest move by episode’s end by walking into the police station, finally ready to confess. Or maybe she’s not. When Joel swoops in to handle her interview, it’s clear that corruption in Grosse Pointe isn’t limited to backyard potlucks. Whether Joel’s motivations are love, self-preservation, or something more complicated, remains to be seen.
“Bad Seeds” – GROSSE POINTE GARDEN SOCIETY. Pictured: AnnaSophia Robb as Alice. Photo: Matt Miller/NBC ©2025 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
And let’s not forget Patty, who realizes Keith never made it to the cabin. The reality of his disappearance is about to explode across the whole town. That final flashback to Patty and Marilyn burying Molly’s body, the original “bad seed” in this season-long mess, shows that the corruption of this so-called garden society has been festering for a long, long time.
“Bad Seeds” is a pitch-perfect season finale. Twisted, sharp, and full of the show’s signature dark humour, it delivers on nearly every plot thread while planting enough intrigue to grow something even bigger next season. If NBC has any sense, they’ll renew this chaotic garden club of flawed women and their buried lies. Because let’s face it: this town has a whole lot more fertilizer to spread.
