The 1984 cast of Season One of Why Women Kill. Beware of spoilers.
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Simone Grove
Played By: Lucy Liu
A dramatic and fashionable socialite who’s been divorced twice before marrying Karl. She later learns of his infidelity and true sexuality when she receives an anonymous envelope containing photos of him kissing another man and starts an affair with her neighbor’s son to get back at him.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Simone and Karl. Even with her finding out he's gay then having an affair, they bond when Karl has AIDS and Simone sticks by him through it all, including selling her belongings to pay his medical bills. In the end, Simone fulfills his wish to kill him and end it before he suffers too much with each confessing the other is "the love of my life."
- The Beard: Simone learns she was unknowingly serving as one to Karl, who's a closeted gay man.
- Character Development: Simone starts the show as a Rich Bitch but decades later, she's become happy with a simpler life and dedicating herself to charity work after Karl's death.
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Crosses the Line Twice: Simone's comments as she calls an ambulance to save her suicidal husband.Simone: You think you can get out of this by dying?! Fuck you! I want to see you suffer in a one-bedroom apartment next to the airport, and you will not deny me that pleasure! - Everyone Has Standards: Simone might be starting an affair with someone who's barely legal, but she draws the line at anything actually illegal and promptly sends Tommy home when he says he'll be 18 "in two days".
- Refuses to go to Amy's wedding when she declares that she doesn't want Karl, who has been Amy's primary father figure, to walk her down the aisle due to the social opprobrium she will face over his HIV/AIDS diagnosis.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: Simone has been through three marriages where none of her husbands were very loving, and hasn't had sex in years. Thus when Tommy shows genuine romantic interest in her, she caves against her own better judgment.
- It's All About Me: Simone is very self-centered early on, to the point where she reacts to Karl attempting suicide by screaming that he won't get away with humiliating her with his infidelity. Over time, though, she grows more selfless.
- Mrs. Robinson: Simone reciprocates Tommy's affections, though he's just eighteen and she's already 40, if not past it. In the epilogue, we see that she also has a personal assistant/masseuse who's also decades younger whom it's heavily implied she also has sex with.
- Nouveau Riche: Simone, who grew up as the daughter of a Chinese-American laundry owner and became a Trophy Wife and Serial Spouse.
- Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: Simone starts out as a demanding diva, only to reform as a person and focus on the needs of others.
- Platonic Life-Partners: As she mercy-kills him, Karl and Simone describe each other as the loves of their lives, despite the fact that he's gay.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Simone starts out as a haughty, shallow woman who's very rude to most people. However, over the course of the series she grows into a much nicer person, and even becomes a philanthropist.
Karl Grove
Played By: Jack Davenport
Simone’s third husband, whose secret homosexuality is revealed by photos of him kissing another man being sent to his wife. He later contracts AIDS.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Even with Simone finding out he's gay then having an affair, they bond when Karl has AIDS and Simone sticks by him through it all, including selling her belongings to pay his medical bills. In the end, Simone fulfills his wish to kill him and end it before he suffers too much with each confessing the other is "the love of my life."
- Deadpan Snarker: He is particularly snarky around Simone and even his beloved stepdaughter Amy. Has his own compilation
. - Forced Out of the Closet: Karl has no choice but to confess his homosexuality to his wife after she finds pictures of him kissing another man.
- Good Stepmother: Gender inverted with Karl, who has been a loving and constant father figure to Simone's daughter Amy.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Karl is gay, but his wife Simone is clearly his best friend. He describes her as the "love of his life" (and she says the same of him) as she euthanizes him.
- Servile Snarker: Even when he's in trouble with Simone over his infidelity, he keeps snarking at her.
- Straight Gay: Karl is a stereotypical cultured, upper class Englishman who it turns out is a closeted gay man.
- Tragic Aids Story: Karl contracts AIDS in 1984, when there was huge stigma toward sufferers (especially gay men like him) and a death sentence for most due to limited treatments. We see him visit a man dying from AIDS who he knows too. He decides to kill himself rather than suffer until the end. Later Simone euthanizes him at his request.
Tommy Harte
Played By: Leo Howard
Simone’s neighbor, her best friend’s eighteen-year-old son, whom she starts an affair with.
- Character Development: Starts off hostile towards Karl due to the hurt and embarrassment he caused Simone, and sees him as an obstacle. Over time, he warms up to Simone's husband and shows compassion towards him after his HIV/AIDS diagnosis.
- Disowned Parent: Tommy disowns his single mother, Naomi, after she tries to ruin Simone and Karl's life and tries to kill Simone.
- Diving Save: Tommy dives on Simone when Naomi tries to kill her, pushing her out of the way of the car.
- Hidden Depths: Is a very talented artist, even as a teenager.
- Likes Older Women: Turns 18 between episodes 1 and 2 and begins an affair with Simone, who is in her late 40s to early 50s.
- Nice Guy: Genuinely cares for Simone and doesn't pressure her to say she loves him back. He also doesn't shun Karl after his HIV/AIDS diagnosis becomes common knowledge, and expresses care and concern for him by asking about his health and offering to forego his post-graduation trip to Europe to support Simone who by now is serving Karl's primary caretaker. He even tries to assuage Karl's body insecurity before a date.
Naomi Harte
Played By: Katie Finneran
Simone’s next-door neighbor and best friend, and Tommy’s mother.
- Disowned Parent: Tommy disowns her for trying to ruin Karl and Simone's lives.
- False Rape Accusation: Tells the receptionist at the hospital where Tommy stays after his car accident that Simone has been mostly molesting Tommy since he was a child.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Her eighteen-year-old son spends $10,000 on a piece of jewelry, crashes his car while driving drunk, and gets Simone's face tattooed on his body. She has plenty of valid reasons to disapprove and be concerned about his relationship with Simone, she just goes overboard in her response.
- May–December Romance: Naomi (who is hinted to be a Gold Digger) and her deceased husband Edmund (who died at 57 prior to the series); there is a family photo of a grade-school aged Tommy with the youthful and blonde Naomi with a graying and older man. Zigzagged when the elder Harte revealed in a post mortem voiceover that his marriage with Naomi wasn't a happy one.
- My Beloved Smother: Naomi worries that her son Tommy is doing drugs and she coddles him. She almost goes so far as to kill Simone, only failing due to Tommy pushing her out of the way and Naomi getting injured. Naomi even tries to rip open his diary, only to be stopped by Simone, and later goes full Karen.
- Never My Fault: Naomi tries to kill Simone due to blaming her for Tommy’s disownment of her as his mother. The reason Tommy disowns her is because of how far she's been going to destroy Simone and Karl's lives in revenge for Tommy and Simone's affair.
- Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: Naomi who tries to intrude on her son's personal space and spreads rumors about Karl's health condition and sexuality, and also falsely says Simone has been molesting Tommy since he was a child (not true). These get Simone banned from the hospital and both the Groves banned from the country club they frequented.
Amy Lin
Played By: Li Jun Li
Simone’s daughter from her first marriage.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Amy is likely in her late teens or early twenties since she says she's hardly older than Tommy (who's eighteen).
- Shadow Archetype: What distinguishes Amy from her mother Simone. She has a chance to show Karl how much she loves him when she finds out that he has AIDS, but instead she tells him not to come to her wedding so that more people won't cancel. Simone is horrified by Amy's selfishness.
- Spoiled Brat: Like her mother Simone, Amy is spoiled, immature, demanding, and very loud.
Brad Jenkins
Played By: Charlie LePew
Amy’s fiancé.
Hector
Played By: Phillip Anthony-Rodriquez
Simone’s former hairdresser, who stopped taking her out of guilt when he started seeing Karl behind her back.
