Lucy Liu to Star in Revenge Drama 'Why Women Kill' for CBS All Access

Lucy Liu
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The 'Elementary' star is teaming up with 'Desperate Housewives' creator Marc Cherry.

Lucy Liu is getting payback. 

The Elementary star will lead Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry's upcoming dark comedic drama, Why Women Kill, for CBS All Access, CBS' streaming service announced Monday.

Why Women Kill, which received a straight-to-series order in September, centers on three women living in three different decades: a housewife in the ‘60s, a socialite in the ‘80s and a lawyer in 2018, each dealing with infidelity in their marriages. The series will examine how the roles of women have changed, but how their reaction to betrayal has not. 

Liu will play the elegant, stylish and effervescent Simone, who is the picture of urbane confidence, and moving through the world as if it were a delightful movie starring herself. Smugly superior, a woman for whom appearances mean everything, she thrives on shopping and throwing parties, seemingly happily married to her indulgent husband, Karl, who thinks she is simply fabulous. However, despite nagging premonitions, Simone is devastated, her world upended when she learns that Karl has been cheating on her.

Liu will be wrapping up her run as Dr. Joan Watson on CBS' Elementary, alongside Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes, after the upcoming seventh season. She has directed a handful of episodes since making her directorial debut in 2014.

The actress recently weighed in on Elizabeth Banks' Charlie's Angels movie remake, with Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska as the new generation Angels. 

"To me, I think it's very exciting," Liu told ET in August. "It's like Sherlock Holmes. The material in itself is a very different type of literature -- and it's not necessarily literature. But it is something that people keep coming back to and they're drawn to. That's something that needs to be explored and if it needs to be explored on all different levels, then it should be. It will only be a more positive result for women."

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