Toni Collette

Toni Collette's new series, "Pieces of Her," brings up question of American gun laws after intense diner sequence.

“There [is] a moment where Laura put[s] her hand over Andy’s face when they’re lying on the ground, and she [is] shielding her,” said Stoudt. “It’s not a scene about violence. It’s a scene about love…protect[ing] her daughter trumps any number of bullets that are being shot.” Everyone was bit nervous about it because it’s pretty intense and has to be done in a realistic way,” she said. And I was really wrong,” Collette said with a laugh. Laura’s actions in the diner set off a chain of events that her daughter could never have foreseen. “As Minkie [Spiro, the series director] always sa[id], if we didn’t nail that scene the show wasn’t gonna work,” said Stoudt. For the Oscar-nominated Collette, it was a “weird surprise” to see how intense the show was, especially as the moment at the diner culminates with her taking a knife through the hand and slitting a man’s throat.

A shooting at a diner soon reveals to Andy that her mum has a secret life – unleashing a thoroughly entertaining torrent of twists, turns, murder and ...

The video that is – of course – taken of events in the diner by a bystander goes viral. When a shooter opens fire on the people at a nearby table, Laura takes charge, revealing the kind of ease and skill with various forms of weaponry – and a willingness to apply them fatally – that suggests Mommy might not be just the cuddly worrywart she appears. Such is the tasty question posed by Pieces of Her, a new Netflix thriller based on the 2018 Karin Slaughter bestseller.

New 8-part series on Netflix starring Toni Collette and Bella Heathcote, jumping to the second place of Netflix's Top 10 Shows, a day after its release in ...

Collette and Heathcote perfectly capture the complex relationship the mother and daughter have, further complicated by what Andy discovers about her mother's past. Her past is portrayed as fraught with overbearing male figures—first her possessive father (played by Terry O'Quinn), then the charismatic leader of an anarchist group, named Nick Harp (played by Joe Dempsie). The series reveals Laura's past bit by bit, as Andy is discovering everything, the full picture of which is only truly complete with the very last few minutes of the entire series. But when her mother tells her to flee with a precise itinerary to follow, Andy is left wondering who her mother truly is. At its core, this is a story about a relationship between a mother and her daughter. Based on Karin Slaughter's 2018 novel, Pieces of Her is an eight-part series adaptation about a mother-daughter relationship and the secrets we keep from those closest to us. While Laura, a speech therapist, and Andy, an insecure 911 police dispatcher, are out for lunch, the diner is attacked by a crazy young man who begins by shooting his ex-girlfriend and her mother before turning to the rest of the patrons.