Peacock’s limited series All Her Fault taps into one of parenting’s most primal fears. We have one wrong address and a missing child. Suddenly, a seemingly perfect family is under a microscope. And how!Led by the iconic Sarah Snook, the eight-episode thriller had viewers asking a familiar question: Did this really happen? The simple answer is no.But read on for more details. Is All Her Fault based on a true story?Well, no, not exactly, but it is rooted in something real. View this post on Instagram Instagram PostAll Her Fault is adapted from Andrea Mara’s 2021 novel of the same name. While the story itself is fictional, Mara has been open about the fact that the book was inspired by a real-life scare from her own experience as a parent.According to the author, the story came from a moment when she went to collect her daughter from a playdate and found herself outside an empty house. For a brief but terrifying window of time, she believed her child might be gone. The panic ended when a neighbor explained that the family had moved. She just had the old address.However, that what-if spiral drives All Her Fault. The series stretches it into a nightmare, imagining what might happen if reassurance never came. In that sense, the show isn’t adapting a true crime case so much as a universally relatable parental dread. From there, it veers into far darker territory.How does the series expand on the OG themes?While Mara’s novel already leaned into tension, Peacock pushes more, be it narratively or thematically. View this post on Instagram Instagram PostMegan Gallagher created the All Her Fault show, which centers on Marissa Irvine (Snook). She is a successful wealth manager whose life implodes after her 5-year-old son Milo vanishes after what should have been a typical playdate pickup.Marissa and her husband Peter (Jake Lacy) then begin to search for answers with help from a fellow mother, Jenny (Dakota Fanning). But as Detective Alcaraz (Michael Peña) steps in, the mystery deepens. And this disappearance becomes less about where Milo is and more about who everyone is!The series uses its central crime to look at the otherwise uncomfortable ideas of maternal guilt and the way blame always gravitates toward working mothers. We also question Marissa’s choices or her schedule, but similar scrutiny rarely lands on Peter. Meanwhile, Jenny is seen as lazy for outsourcing childcare at all. Oh, how easily society judges mothers for anything non-traditional. So rather than presenting a real case, All Her Fault mirrors how modern scandals can unfold in real time. Police procedure and community gossip are only escalating the crisis. Facts are scarce, but somehow everyone is certain.Critically speaking, we don't see the show arguing that its characters are innocent. It examines how quickly mistakes become moral indictments and how comforting it can be for outsiders to decide who deserves blame. We thus get a domestic thriller that feels believable without pretending to be real. All eight episodes of All Her Fault are streaming on Peacock.NEXT UP: Every character in Peacock's All Her Fault, ranked from best to worst