WHY WOMEN KILL

Why Women Kill Cast

📺 TV Series 🔪 Dark Comedy/Drama 📅 2019-2021 🔢 2 Seasons

Why Women Kill examines how the roles of women have changed over the decades, but how their reaction to betrayal has not. The first season features three women living in the same Pasadena mansion in different decades: a housewife in the '60s, a socialite in the '80s, and a lawyer in 2019.

Season 1 Main Cast

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Lucy Liu

Simone Grove (1980s)

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Ginnifer Goodwin

Beth Ann Stanton (1960s)

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Kirby Howell-Baptiste

Taylor Harding (2019)

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Jack Davenport

Karl Grove

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Sam Jaeger

Rob Stanton

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Reid Scott

Eli Cohen

Season 2 Main Cast

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Allison Tolman

Alma Fillcot

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Lana Parrilla

Rita Castillo

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B.K. Cannon

Dee Fillcot

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Jordane Christie

Vern Loomis

About Why Women Kill

Why Women Kill is a dark comedy anthology series from Marc Cherry, the creator of Desperate Housewives. Each season follows multiple women living in the same Los Angeles house in different decades, and traces the events that lead each of them to a breaking point.

Anthology structure

The series uses the same property — a single, distinctive house — as a connecting device across eras. Decade-specific costuming, music, and production design separate the storylines visually, while parallel plotting lets the show comment on the way certain dynamics persist across generations.

Casting

The first season's principal cast includes Lucy Liu, Ginnifer Goodwin, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, and Sam Jaeger, with the second season recasting the lead trio for a different decade. Marc Cherry's casting tends to favour established television actors who can carry both broad comedy and pointed dramatic beats.

Tone

The show keeps a sardonic distance from its characters, similar to Desperate Housewives, and treats murder more as the season's structural endpoint than as a procedural focus. Episodes spend most of their time on the rituals of marriage, friendship, and money that lead the leads to their respective decisions.

Where to watch

Why Women Kill is a Paramount+ original. Both seasons remain available on the service in regions where it operates; international distribution is handled through Paramount's local partners.

Related cast pages

Fans of the show often look up the The White Lotus cast, the The Morning Show cast, and the Lessons in Chemistry cast.

How to read this cast page

Cast lists work best as a quick reference rather than a transcript of the credits. The principal cast section above lists the actors most viewers will recognise from marketing and from the first episode or first act. The character each actor plays is shown alongside the name, with short relationship cues where they help.

Recurring versus principal cast

Television in particular distinguishes between “series regulars,” who appear in most episodes, and “recurring” or “guest” performers who appear only in some. Recurring cast can shift between seasons: someone introduced as a guest can be promoted to a regular role if the writers decide the character should stay. When that has happened on this title, we update the cast list rather than leave outdated billing in place.

Why character descriptions stay short

We keep character notes brief and free of spoilers. Late-season twists, deaths, and identity reveals are part of why audiences watch a show or a film, and a cast page that gives them away in the first paragraph is harder to use casually. If something is essential to introducing a character — a job, a family relationship, a faction — we include it; otherwise we leave it out.

Spelling and credits

Names are written here the way the production credits them. Where actors are credited differently in different markets, we use the credit listed in the production's official press notes. Stage names, mononyms, and special characters are preserved.

Suggesting changes

If you spot a name we have wrong, a character description that has gone out of date after a new season, or a credit that is missing, the contact page explains how to reach us. We update individual cast pages rather than rewriting the site, so corrections we receive turn into changes on this page directly.