Nearly four years after the tearful finale of Derry Girls, Lisa McGee, the acclaimed Irish writer, has returned to the small screen with a brand-new Netflix series that’s already making waves. How To Get To Heaven From Belfast, released on February 15, 2026, is a darkly comedic thriller that fuses the sharp wit and authentic regional flavor McGee is known for with a twisty murder mystery at its core. The show’s arrival has sparked excitement among fans and critics alike, eager to see how McGee would follow up her previous cult hit.
According to Sky News, McGee’s creative journey began long before Derry Girls captured global attention. Growing up in Derry, she would write plays and persuade (sometimes strong-arm) the neighborhood kids into performing them. “So, I was kind of the unofficial babysitter for the whole street. All the mums loved me, but the kids probably didn’t because I was making them learn lines and stuff like that,” McGee recalled with a laugh. Even then, her stories had a darker edge, a reflection of her upbringing in pre-Good Friday Agreement Northern Ireland.
That sense of place and history permeates How To Get To Heaven From Belfast. The series centers on three thirty-something women—Saoirse, Robyn, and Dara—who reconnect in Belfast after the death of their estranged childhood friend, Greta. What starts as a bittersweet reunion quickly spirals into a web of secrets, conspiracies, and old resentments, as the trio finds themselves drawn into a Knives Out-style mystery. As Independent Culture reported, the show explores the nuances of female friendships at a very different stage of life compared to McGee’s previous work, blending the messy, competitive, and often hilarious realities of adulthood with the lingering shadows of the past.
McGee has always been a fan of murder mysteries. “I’ve always loved murder mysteries from when I was a little girl,” she told Sky News. “I was obsessed with Jessica Fletcher and Murder, She Wrote, so it was really like whenever someone gave me the chance to do it, I was going to grab it. But I knew I needed to do it my way. I wanted it to be very female-led, have a big comedy element to it, a bit messy.”
The show’s plot doesn’t dawdle in nostalgia. As Polygon described, the first episode quickly establishes the fractured relationships among the women, but soon pivots to the central mystery: what really happened to Greta, and what are the trio hiding? The humor—sometimes biting, sometimes warm—serves as both a balm and a smokescreen, keeping viewers guessing as the story delves into unresolved guilt and the shifting nature of memory. “The jokes are great, then the story quickly shifts to something more suspicious, like a comment that doesn’t add up or a recounted story that seems possibly rehearsed,” the review noted.
It’s a delicate balance, and much of the credit goes to the cast. Roísín Gallagher, Sinéad Keenan, and Caoilfhionn Dunne form the emotional core of the series, breathing life into characters who are as flawed as they are relatable. Their chemistry, according to interviews with Independent Culture, was instantaneous—helped along by some classic dance tracks behind the scenes. Gallagher, who plays screenwriter Saoirse, is recognizable from roles in The Fall, The Dry, and Lazarus. Keenan, as Robyn, brings experience from dramas like Unforgotten and Being Human. Dunne, meanwhile, has appeared in Industry, Love/Hate, and Andor. The ensemble is rounded out by familiar faces such as Bronagh Gallagher (the show’s main antagonist), Josh Finan, Ardal O’Hanlon, Emmett J. Scanlan, Michelle Fairley, Natasha O’Keeffe, Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Darragh Hand, and Emma Canning—each with their own impressive resumes in Irish and British television and film, as profiled by HuffPost.
The authenticity of the Belfast setting is more than just window dressing. As McGee explained, her upbringing in Derry and later experiences in London made her realize how unique—and underrepresented—her community’s stories were. “I wanted to see myself and my friends on screen, which sounds incredibly simple, but I feel like it doesn’t happen that often and I sometimes feel particularly Irish stories and stories about Irish women, they can be quite tragic and serious, you know?” she said to Sky News. “I really want to keep making stories about where I come from and I feel just so lucky that I can do this now and I’ll keep trying to do it until they tell me to stop.”
How To Get To Heaven From Belfast doesn’t shy away from the complexities of Irish identity or the everyday oddities of growing up in a place marked by conflict. As McGee recounted, “I remember saying to the executive producer of Derry Girls, Liz Lewin, who works on How to Get to Heaven as well, when I was in London: do you know the way, the army would check your car? And she was like, ‘No, no! What are you talking about?’” These lived experiences infuse the show with a sense of truthfulness, even as the plot veers into heightened, sometimes absurd territory.
The series is designed for binge-watching—eight episodes, each roughly 50 minutes. The pacing is brisk, with new revelations in every episode, but there’s still room for the characters to breathe and the comedy to land. For fans of Derry Girls, the DNA is unmistakable: sharp dialogue, an affection for messy friendships, and a love for the quirks of Northern Irish life. But as reviewers have pointed out, the tone here is more adult, the stakes higher, and the laughs often tinged with unease.
McGee is hopeful for a second season, though nothing is set in stone. “I haven’t asked, I have been talking about it and I don’t know if I’m allowed to but I’d love to do it again because I love writing for those three women, I love those actors, they’re just so talented and so funny. I would do it again in a heartbeat, it just depends on who watches it I guess and how many people watch it,” she told Sky News. For now, though, audiences can savor a series that’s equal parts whodunit, character study, and love letter to the complicated, hilarious, and enduring friendships that shape our lives.
With How To Get To Heaven From Belfast, Lisa McGee proves once again that the stories of ordinary people—told with honesty, humor, and a dash of darkness—can be extraordinary television.