Review of Netflix Limited Series Apple Cider Vinegar (2025)

Currently streaming on Netflix is a limited series titled Apple Cider Vinegar. The series was released on February 6, 2025 and has 6 episodes and 2 trailers available for viewing.

The series is inspired by a true story but some fictitious characters were added. I chuckle as I write this disclaimer as it became a running theme throughout the series with various actors stating it’s based on a true story and the real Belle Gibson received no pay for her depiction.

Apple Cider Vinegar follows the lives of a number of women who live in Melbourne Australia but primarily it is centered on the life of Belle Gibson. Connected to Belle’s story are Lucy Guthrie, Milla Blake, and her best friend Chanelle.

Toxic – Netflix Series Apple Cider Vinegar

Episode 1 titled Toxic begins with Belle in tears at a hospital, describing her pain and being given an MRI.

There are a number of timelines explored between 2010-2015 across the lives of Belle, Lucy, Milla, and Chanelle. The story is also told from several locations during this time including Melbourne, Santa Monica, and Bali.

In 2014 in Melbourne, we watch Belle being celebrated as a mother, cancer survivor, entrepreneur, and an author during her book launch. While she is giving her speech, she makes references to Milla being her mentor. At the same time, Chanelle sarcastically laughs and then walks out. She places a call to Milla asking what they should do and Milla says they need to destroy Belle.

Flashback to 2013, Belle is seen in Bali, making a video and stating that she was given six weeks to live. She claims she has a brain tumor, stage four glioblastoma. There are also other flashbacks to 2010 that give us a sense of Belle’s loneliness especially during a baby shower she organized and invited her co-workers. In a later scene from 2015, Belle meets with a crisis counselor named Hex.

The story simultaneously follows Lucy’s life. Lucy meets Justin, they fall in love and get married. They have so many plans but life gets in the way. Lucy is diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer and has to undergo chemo.

In 2009, Milla Blake is living her best life. She moved to Melbourne for her dream job in Journalism and is only 22 years old. She notices some lumps on her arm, which turn out to be pleomorphic sarcoma undifferentiated. The only recommendation from the doctors as the course of treatment was amputation.

Clean Sheets

In Episode 2 titled Clean Sheets, we learn some more information about Belle’s background and childhood. We learn that she struggles with isolation and that she has a need to tell lies.

It also became clear that Bella struggles with fitting in even after having a baby and meeting up with her mommy and baby group. We also get introduced to Belle’s mom Natalie and watch her interaction with Belle’s boyfriend Clive.

We learn that Belle ran way when she was in High School at just 12 years old and has a very weird relationship with her mother. After that visit Belle decides she would build an app for recipes called The Whole Pantry and shut down her Organic Baby website. She and her boyfriend Clive also decide they would try for a baby together.

Belle attends one of Milla’s events and introduces herself. The meeting is awkward as Belle is unable to read the room to understand that Milla is working and interacts with numerous people online daily.

Milla at the time is scene on TV sharing her story about an alternative treatment method she had sought against the advice of her doctors. The way Milla described it, the controversial Hirsch therapy is supposed to starve cancer cells of anything they need to grow and nourish them with anything they need to die. The ‘treatment’ required her to commit to it for 2 years.

Pink Dolphins

In Episode 3 titled Pink Dolphins we meet Julie Gibbs, who is the director of Penguin Lifestyle. Julie or Jules as she is fondly called, helped Belle publish the book referenced in Episode 1.

By 2015, Lucy Guthrie is in treatment and it is really taking a toll on her body. She is told she needs another surgery but Lucy doesn’t want another one, she wants to travel to Peru. Lucy admires Belle and what she represents in terms of alternative treatment and healing yourself but Justin is investigating Belle and thinks she is not being truthful.

Mila and Arlo get engage. Chanelle Mila’s best friend comes back home. Mila’s mom gets an obstruction and is also diagnosed with cancer.

Belle’s story continues as she is pregnant and we learn how she built her app. She also experiences a terrible tragedy.

In a flashback to 2013 in Melbourne, Women in Business Award, Belle and Milla are both nominated. Belle wins for the Whole Pantry. She meets Milla once again but this time, they are on equal footing if you will. She also meets Chanelle through Milla and offers her a job.

Mama Aya

Lucy travels to Peru while Justin stays back to investigate Belle. Belle throws a birthday party for her son. But when she starts feeling pressured by commitment to make a donation, she fakes a seizure for 40 minutes in front of everyone at the birthday party. Clive’s parents tell him to leave Belle.

Milla encourages her mom to explore alternative treatment. While her mom is open to the idea, her father strongly objects. Milla and her mom take a flight so that she can also go to the Hirsh Institute. At the airport, her mom passes out.

As the situation grows more complicated, Milla notices new lumps on her arm but tells no one.

Casserole

Chanelle starts to notice Belle lies but the final straw for her was a casserole she had prepared for the mother of a cancer patient that Belle had kept for herself. She confronts Belle and Belle agrees to come clean. Instead, Belle makes a bigger announcement

A video of Mila resurfaces showing her arm in a gauze. It raises questions about the credibility of the treatments she once recommended.

Mila’s disease spreads further. She comes clean to her dad and later to her followers. Unfortunately she is told she is no longer eligible for the medical treatment that doctors originally recommended.

The Age Newspaper sends Belle a request for information about the donations she has been receiving and asks her to confirm if she truly has brain cancer.