How "The Keepers" Reimagines True Crime Stories

Quick, think back to the last true crime mystery that you watched or read about. Maybe it was Serial or Making a Murderer or whatever you happened to see on Investigative Discovery last night or maybe even The People v. O.J. Simpson. Do you remember the name of the killer (or accused killer)? So long as the story is still fresh in your mind, I’m betting the likes of Adnan Syed or Steven Avery or O.J. Simpson are in your head. Now next question – do you remember the names of the victims?

Sometimes victims become as unintentionally famous as the people who killed them. Most times they fade into obscurity, unless they become part of the zeitgeist like Nicole Brown Simpson or Hae Min Lee. But whenever we watch movies about them or read stories or listen to podcasts, we almost always lose sight of the victims because we tend to get the story more or less from the perspective of the killer, accused or otherwise. There’s a practical reason for this, of course – dead people are notoriously hard to get on the record whereas accused or convicted killers can be interviewed.  That dynamic creates a skewed view on crime where the victims become cyphers, unable to give us the answers we really want.

So what if you had a crime story where the victim of the murder could still speak? Answer that question, and you’ve got Netflix’s new documentary series The Keepers. The series examines the murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik, a nun and Catholic high school teacher in Baltimore in 1969. And before you get too checked out, this is not a story about ghosts or mediums or mistaken identity or any other trickery. It is, however, about how the victims of a murder (mostly) survived.

Catholicism, man. Amirite?

A quick note: It’s hard to have traditional spoilers in a true crime story, especially one that officially remains unsolved. But The Keepers takes viewers on such an intense ride that if you prefer to experience the story with all the emotional twists and turns that the series intends you to experience, you may want to stop here and go watch the first three episodes before reading any further. The series is full of revelations and I’m only going to review a few of them briefly, but if that’s a concern for you consider this your spoiler warning.

Now that that’s taken care of, let’s explore the facts of the case. In 1969, Sister Cathy Cesnik was a 26-year-old nun living in Baltimore and working as a teacher. Not that much older than the girls she taught, she was popular and well-liked. Several of her students, now women in mostly their late 60s, recount how close they felt to her and inspired by her they were.

Sister Cathy began her teaching at Archbishop Keough High School, an exclusive all-girls Catholic school. She taught English and Drama for several years, but despite a strong tenure at Keough, Sister Cathy nonetheless left the school at the end of the 1968-1969 school year and took a position at a local public school with another young nun in her order. The two nuns even opted to live together in an apartment in West Baltimore. The move was part of an experiment in which nuns would try to live among the world rather than in cloistered lives.

On the evening of November 7, 1969, Sister Cathy left the shared apartment and drove in her car a short distance to a shopping center to buy an engagement present for her sister in Pennsylvania. Along the way, she cashed a paycheck and stopped off at a local bakery. She left around 8:00pm. When she hadn’t returned home around midnight, her roommate Sister Russell called a priest and mutual friend, Rev. Koob who drove to the women’s apartment. At 4:30am, Rev. Koob discovered Sister Cathy’s car parked illegally less than 100 yards from the apartment building. The car was dirty and had twigs and debris inside. (In a weird coincidence, Sister Cathy’s apartment was located near the spot where Hae Min Lee’s body would be found 30 years later. Stay classy, Baltimore.)

Baltimore Policy conducted a basic search, however they reportedly didn’t see any evidence of foul play or violence. Sister Cathy would be officially missing for almost two months until on January 3 when two hunters discovered her partially-clothed body in remote wooded area not far from her home. An autopsy revealed that she had likely died due to a skull fracture caused by a blunt instrument to the back of her head.

From there, the case went cold. It remained largely inactive for almost 25 years when something happened that began to shed new light.

Enter these two jerks

In 1994, a woman in her 40s came forward to say that she had attended school at Archbishop Keough during the late 1960s. She alleged that for three years, from her sophomore year until graduation, she was routinely, systematically, and sometimes violently raped by a member of Archbishop Keough’s staff, Father Joseph Maskell, who served as the school’s counselor. The woman recalled detailed events where Father Maskell would call her into his private office, demean her as a “whore” and a “slut” and then rape her, telling her that only by having sex with him could her soul find forgiveness. What’s more, he routinely arranged for her to be raped by multiple men at the same time, often in his office with the door locked while he watched. Some of these men, the woman later learned, were high-ranking city and police officials.

While the woman’s reports were shocking, what really grabbed public attention was another detail: the woman claimed that not only had Sister Cathy known something about these attacks, but that Father Maskell had taken the woman to see Sister Cathy’s dead body a few days after the nun went missing. And what’s more, she may not have been the only one exposed to all this; there could be others.

Tom Nugent (no relation to Ted), reporter, shows the headline of his 90s era article re-opening the case

And therein lies the detail that separates The Keepers from other true crime series that I’ve seen. Unlike most that focus on the accused, The Keepers has access to the victims and investigates the events surrounding Sister Cathy’s murder and Father Maskell’s alleged conspiracy and sexual assaults through the eyes of people who were witnesses to them because it was happening to them too. Sister Cathy is a victim, to be sure, but the story quickly grows to encompass a number of victims who have spent more than 40 years unable to tell their own stories.

The Keepers is dense, but immensely watchable. As I binge-watched it with a friend, I turned to her after one episode and said out loud, “How are there four more episodes to go? There’s so much information here; how are they going to keep shedding new light on this story?” And yet, with each episode, the creators do.

This is largely thanks to the access they have not only to the still living victims of the crimes committed at Keough High School, but also thanks to the small sorority of women who, nearly 50 years later, are still dedicated to getting to the bottom of the murder of a teacher they loved and respected so much. What this means is that the narrative of the series is almost entirely told through the voices of women, most of them middle-aged or older. The women in this story have been abused, literally and figuratively, by a variety of forces and personages and they’re only now getting to tell their stories. That makes The Keepers a natural expression of the nascent “Nevertheless, She Persisted” notion.

Abbie (r) and Gemma (l), the amateur investigators still trying to piece together the crimes. AKA #Heroes.

As such, the series gives out a measure of justice, but justice is like Schrodinger’s cat – it both exists and doesn’t exist at the same time. These women finally get to tell their stories and be believed, but of course many of the perpetrators of the crimes done to them are long dead, having escaped whatever worldly justice the law could have meted out to them. There’s a sense throughout the series that history has already passed much of this story by, making it even harder to gain any sense of closure about these events. In a timely, though unrelated event, Keough high school, now officially named Seton Keough High School, announced last fall that the school would be closing its doors for good once school lets out this summer.

Crime and punishment are almost always, by their nature, reactionary things. It’s in keeping then that the way we’ve talked about both of those things has been reactionary as well. The Keepers represents an attempt to change that narrative, if only by looking at those concepts from a different perspective. The results are fascinating to watch.

Criminal Tension

It’s fair to say that my usual television habits aren’t exactly light-hearted. I loved Breaking Bad, but generally saw it more as a surrealist family drama. So understand that when I say that American Crime is tense, I mean it’s, like, REALLY tense. This is probably the most uncomfortable show on television. Counting the Republican Debates.  If you can get yourself comfortable with being a little uncomfortable, however, it’s one of the few shows that I’ve seen where I continually think to myself, “How the hell is this show on television?”

So, something light and effervescent tonight then? 

Before I go any further, I should mention that American Crime is not to be confused with American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson. The latter is the latest offering from Ryan Murphy and company, capitalizing on the success of American Horror Story by launching a new anthology franchise that will explore real American history. American Crime is also an anthology series, however this is from writer John Ridley who is most known as the writer of 12 Years a Slave.

As an anthology series, American Crime changes its story each season though retains much of the same cast. The story this season revolved around an elite private high school in Indianapolis and the fallout that occurs at that school and amongst the students, teachers, parents, and community members when it comes out that a student reports the he was raped at a party hosted by the school’s powerhouse basketball team. That set-up alone should tell you most of what you need to know about all the places that this show is unafraid to go: the simmering racial tension that exists in American cities, overt and covert homophobia in a post-Obergefell country, what politicians used to call “class warfare”, and the morally grey area that school administrators inhabit in trying to provide an education in a time when funding is low or non-existent.

American Crime is unflinching in looking at each of these issues. It’s also a testament to how well put together the series is that it never feels overstuffed despite all the issues on its plate. That’s largely because it correctly understands that the uniting strand behind all of these things is a collective fear of “the other”, the person that is different from us. As such, all the racism, homophobia, class tensions, privilege, and cutthroat business actions are accurately interpreted as symptoms of the same ugly disease.  What makes it good television is that the characters are so completely watchable that viewers are far more likely to get wrapped up in the story than feel like they’re attending a political rally.

This scene actually passes for almost "playful" relative to some of the others... 

So what’s it actually about? The action mostly revolves around an elite private school headed by Leslie Graham (Felicity Huffman) and attended largely by the children of Indianapolis’s upper class families.  Working class mother Anne Blaine (Lili Taylor) is an exception, sacrificing all she can to afford the tuition for her 17-year-old son Tyler (Connor Jessup), who previously attended one of the city’s rougher public schools. The story begins when Anne is informed by Leslie that Tyler is set to be expelled from the school after lurid photos showing him drunk and in various stages of undress have surfaced on the internet, a direct violation of the school’s code of conduct. Tyler confesses to his mother that the photos are genuine, however that he was, in fact, drugged and raped by another student while attending a party hosted by the co-captains of the school’s massively successful Basketball team.

Tyler’s claim is the catalyst for significant unrest at the school, currently in the midst of a multi-million dollar fundraising effort that Leslie hopes will catapult her to an even loftier position than Headmaster. At the same time, it shakes the confidence of the school’s basketball coach, played by Timothy Hutton, as he must face uncomfortable questions about the behavior of his players, including whether or not one of them is truly guilty of the crime and if so what that means. Caught up in all of this is the LaCroix family, headed by matriarch Terri, played by Regina King. Terri’s son, Kevin (Trevor Jackson) is one of the two co-captains and Terri worries that these allegations will derail her carefully planned future for her child. As one of the wealthy, she can afford to hire representation to protect Kevin’s interests, even if that means causing harm to victim Tyler or to the other student implicated directly in Tyler’s claims, co-captain Eric (Joey Pollari).

Safe to assume "have conversation about not getting involved in a rape charge" was not initially in her work plan.

Terri is a mass of contradictions and Regina King plays every one of them beautifully; she’s the driven perfectionist career woman who wants to play the boys’ game but is intensely aware of what it means to be an African American woman in that world. She is both controlling and patronizing of her son and at the same time his biggest champion and a doting mother. She represents the curious intersection of being one of the sole minority families at an elite upper class predominately white school and at the same time being one of the wealthiest, affording her son access to the kind of privilege that other characters can’t even dream of. Seeing Regina King walk the fine line of each of these near-contradictions every episode is one of the joys of watching the show.

Likewise, watching Felicity Huffman as Headmaster Leslie Graham is like watching a Venus flytrap getting ready to spring. Leslie is utterly composed and in control, exuding concern about her students while managing the political and administrative duties of her school. All that control belies her ruthlessness, however, as we quickly see when trouble descends and Leslie manipulates, maneuvers, and manages problems away, always with a level voice and the kind of platitudes about leadership and responsibility that have all the genuine emotion of a Successories poster. Her chief concern lies with preserving the school and her record as an administrator, though she’s so darn sensible sounding, even when she explains to a grieving mother that because the mother signed a piece of paper while emotional, the school has no obligation to safeguard the mother’s damaged child. She isn’t cold, per se; she’s tactical.

"Yes. I am fantastic, aren't I?"

What makes the show particularly uncomfortable, aside from the subject matter generally, is watching how each of these characters from their varied perspectives approach the issue. Race is front and center, though handled without the easy shorthand of poor-black-rich-white characterization that many stories fall back on. A significant subplot revolves around the actions at one of the public schools after three Latino students attack a black student for groping a girl. The school’s overtaxed principal, played by Elvis Nolasco, suspends the three Latino students for their frankly violent assault leading to outrage by the Latino community who point out that the black student went unpunished despite attacking a girl. The principal, a black man, must examine how his approach is not only intended but viewed by communities that are already racially divided.

Ugh. Simmering racial tensions in high school. Worse than math homework, amirite?

Homophobia is also an evident theme and, with one particularly terrifying exception, is addressed mostly in the kind of “er, not that there’s anything wrong with that” wishy-washiness that shows that a fair number of people actually believe that there is, in fact, something very wrong with that but just recognize that they can’t say such things. (There are likely a lot of Trump voters in this story.) Tyler’s mother and his girlfriend struggle to find the middle ground between being supportive of him and deeply uncomfortable with his lie-of-omission. Tyler’s sexual orientation becomes a subject of debate as he’s called to justify his own feelings because they have bearing on a criminal case. His own family, one that is deeply loving of him, shows their own flaws when Tyler recounts how one of the surrogate parents who helped raise him, a man who still clearly cares for him as a son, unthinkingly continues to throw words like “faggot” around as insults.

And then there’s the issue that makes everyone uncomfortable: Tyler’s rape. Anyone who has spent any significant time around the issue of rape will recognize all the hallmarks of familiarity here. As the series progresses, the rape takes on a grayer hue reflecting the reality that most rapes aren’t committed by strangers in alleys but by someone we know. When it comes out that Tyler went to the party willingly and, in fact, with the intention of having clandestine sex with his attacker, not only does Tyler have to come clean about his sexual orientation but also the very nature of it and the exploratory nature of sex itself. When his mother angrily demands to know if he intended to have sex, his response is a weak but ultimately exactly correct one: “I didn’t go there intended to be violated.” We logically know that we’re not supposed to blame the victim, but the myriad of ways in which we still manage to are fully on display here, particularly given that the victim is male.

Predictable MRA bullshit misinterpretations to being in 3...2...

When you’re dealing with so many heady issues, it’s inevitable that some of the presentation is going to get a little mucked up. Viewers may find it unsettling that the victim of rape here is male, particularly given that the number of male rape victims, while certainly in existence, is far outweighed by the number of females. It’s not that hard to draw the conclusion that the rape is given its importance only once it becomes something that happens to men. And while there is a female victim of sexual violence among the show’s ensemble cast, her story is given nowhere near the heft or screen time as Tyler’s.

Likewise, the show’s one prominent African American family is wealthy and powerful, particularly in contrast to the other predominantly working class white families. At several times in the season, different white characters seek out Terri LaCroix and her husband to ask for assistance and are unilaterally rebuffed every time. It’s not terribly hard to see a racist form of wish-fulfillment embodied here whereby a viewer, again likely also a Trump voter, would interpret this as yet more evidence of how black people have gotten the upper hand over white people and white people are punished unfairly. While the show clearly takes pains not to sympathize with such a position, it shows just how tricky it is to tackle these issues even given the full breadth of ten hours’ worth of air time.

Which, ultimately, is what leads to the points in American Crime where the writing stumbles. The show is very eager to address big issues that don’t normally get their day on TV aside from a few “very special episodes.”  For all the deftness it manages in raising these big questions, it has a hard time providing any answers to them. In addition to a narrative and thematic gap, it also leads to some plainly uncomfortable dialogue. Characters are tasked from time to time with expressing the themes of the show, leading to dialogue that no human being has ever said independently. It’s so eager to get in the big point that it sometimes tells when it should show. The writing works best when it isn’t trying to underline its own thesis.

The end result of this story is less about a particular bad thing happening than it is about how bad things continue to happen. It illustrates how crime creates a ripple effect. One crime inevitably leads to another and victims can become perpetrators startlingly fast. Episode 8 even inter-cuts the dramatic action with real life interviews with the victims and survivors of school shootings and bullying attacks, showcasing starkly both the victims who chose a better path and the ones who opted for revenge. In the final episode, not every storyline has a clear resolution and the final picture is far murkier than the one that we started out with. Which is to say, unlike a lot of television, American Crime can be just as uncomfortable as real life.

Fall Premieres, Part II

Here we are, well into Fall premiere time and I have barely expressed my opinions on anything. What is going on? Has the world gone mad?

Let's just say that a combination of factors (and I'll be honest, one of them is laziness) have kept me from writing on the blog. These factors also include some unexpected surgery. On my face.

A little hole in the head hasn't stopped me from watching new shows and forming opinions, though. It's just kept me from having the time to tell you about them. But fear not, gentle readers! It's a rainy weekend, I'm stuck inside, so I'm going to give it to your straight. So let's get to it!

Scream Queens: Have you ever seen a Ryan Murphy show? You know, like Glee or American Horror Story? If you have then you know exactly what to expect from Scream Queens. Snappy, too-clever dialogue, characters that are more caricatures, blatant racism, misogyny, and homophobia but it's ok because it's funny and full of social commentary, right? RIGHT? Oh, and lots of gore. Buckets of blood even. So be warned.

Objectively the show is not good and doesn't really make much sense. But that doesn't mean it's not also awesome. It's not as fun as I had hoped, but it's still some fun and I'll keep watching through the end. If nothing to else to observe the shit show and see how things spectacularly fall apart. And if they don't it will be a pleasant surprise! And I admit, I am kind of intrigued as to who the killer is and just how they hell they are pulling off these increasingly ridiculous murders. There's a lot of eye rolling going on in the Maggie Cats household during this show, but there's also a lot of laughing and snorting.

And honestly, Jamie Lee Curtis knocking it out of the park every week is worth the price of admission alone. She's in on the joke and is just having a great time with her character and the circus going on around her. If you want some brainless Halloween-appropriate fun, you could do worse than Scream Queens.

Scream Queens airs Tuesdays at 9:00EST on FOX. 

Rosewood: Morris Chestnut is ridiculously handsome and charismatic. And that is pretty much the only reason to watch this crime procedural drama. It's kind of like House meets Bones meets...I don't know, something about a hot doctor who solves murders. 

So Morris Chestnut is Dr. Beaumont Rosewood, Jr., a private pathologist living and working in Miami who contracts with the local police force to help solve murders. Is a private pathologist actually a thing? Like, you can take the body of your loved one to this guy and he will do a private autopsy? I don't believe this is actually a job. 

Anyway, the two episodes I've seen have had pretty run of the mill murders to solve, though the Miami locale means they are a bit flashier than other similar shows. Dr. Rosewood is surrounded by quirky and clever friends (and lesbians!) and his Mom and is very observant (like House, but slutty). And there is sexual tension with the homicide detective (of course) who has a tragic back story (of course) and so has trust issues (of course). Unless you're a fan of the police procedural drama, you can pretty much skip this one.

Don't look so smug, Morris Chestnut.

Rosewood airs Wednesdays at 8:00PM on FOX.

Quantico: You guys, I really wanted to dislike this one. Some of my favorite bloggers, Tom and Lorenzo, wrote a review where they basically grumped about how the show is a collection of all the worst trends on television right now. The overly pretty people, the season-long flashback plot device, the "nobody is who they seem" mysteries, and the ridiculous plot twists--it's all true. But, dammit, I'm still hooked and will have to keep watching.

The series' protagonist is Alex Parrish (Priyanka Chopra), an overly gorgeous FBI-recruit who is suspected of committing a terrorist attack. Flashbacks tell her story as well as the story of her classmates at the FBI Academy in Quantico.So basically it's How to Get Away with Murder but with terrorism and FBI stuff.

Let's say that I liked it in spite of myself and even against my better judgment. If you're looking for something to fill your conspiracy theory drama slot, you can do a lot worse than this. Well, at least as far as I could tell from the pilot episode. Time will tell if things stay interesting...or devolve into a big stinky mess.

If this is what the FBI recruit-class actually looks like I will literally eat my hat. I'll boil it first, but by Jove, I will eat it.

Quantico airs Sundays at 10:00PM EST on ABC.

Minority Report

There's no way the regular TV Sluts could make it through all these Fall Premieres by ourselves (even we're not THAT talented), so we're calling in all the troops. Here's a guest post from Mac Attack covering the new show, Minority Report, based on the movie of the same name. It's not a remake, but rather a continuation of the story. Is it worth your time? Read on to find out! --Maggie Cats 

 Minority Report: Somewhat aptly named. A show about precognition gives us a vision of a post-racial future. Main character is a woman of color, DC's mayor is a black man married to an Asian woman (who used to play professional football for the... wait for it... Washington Redclouds!). Even the semi-antagonistic office-political rival within the cops is FES from That 70's Show. Minority indeed. The only four white people with significant roles in the episode were all characters from the movie.

As someone who thinks "psychic" is a pretty terrible premise for a show, I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. In part, they down-play the psychic element. The show focuses on Dash, one of the two twin male psychics, and establishes that he was, by far, the weakest of them. For whatever reason, he's the only one still interested in stopping murders; for the other two, their days of future crime are in the past. So, the heroes will have FAR less information than Tom Cruise did.

I do like pre-cog humor, which this episode was unfortunately somewhat light on. Two jokes stood out, and they were good, but not great. And they've already overused the "You're the pre-cog, you tell me" gag. A lot.

I think they knocked the tech out of the park. It was ubiquitous. It was central, or shown in the background, or as an accent, and just all over the place. Sometimes it was a plot point, sometimes it was just to give a sense of place. I worry that it's a breeding ground for 'forgotten phlebotinum'. Will an episode come where a crime could easily be prevented, if someone just used the device some random students are seen using in the background of episode 7?

Hopefully, no. One of the first scenes was... kinda the worst. They tried too hard, I feel, at the first crime scene. Their forensic technology seems impressive, but the woman using it looks like she's playing Dance Dance Revolution, or possibly that scene from the Toxic music video where Britney Spears dances past some laser beams while lip-syncing.

 Don't pretend you don't know what I mean.

I have seen the movie, and I have not read the book. My gut says that you don't have to have seen the movie to understand what's going on, and you definitely don't to enjoy it. They re-cap the salient details of the movie quickly right at the start and let you get into the show. There's one huge detail central to the movie that they leave out for a long time, until it's revealed at a dramatically appropriate moment; I feel like if I hadn't seen the movie, I would have enjoyed that aspect of the episode more. As it was, I spent the whole episode thinking, "But why aren't they mentioning..." and then when they finally did, instead of a big pay-off, I was like, oh well then. Okay.

All in all, I think this was a solid first episode. Better than I expected from a "based on". There are the central characters, who are plucky but seem unaware that they've stumbled upon a much bigger picture. There are at least three side-characters who obviously have their own agendas; are they nefarious, merely self-serving but otherwise decent people, or actually altruistic heroes?

Perhaps Dash could tell you.

Guest post by Mac Attack. Minority Report can be seen on Fox Mondays at 9e/8c, or on Hulu the following day

"I Killed Them All"

If you’re like me and 60 million other people, you spent most of last fall listening and re-listing to Serial, the podcast from This American Life that examined the 1999 murder of high schooler Hae Min Lee and the subsequent trial and conviction of her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed. The story was riveting, despite being unabashedly reflective of real life police work (an entire episode was devoted to cell phone towers and how they work), eschewing the fancy Hollywood noir for journalistic investigation. And while we’re still waiting for Serial’s second season to come out, apparently sometime this fall, HBO has created a miniseries that may fill the Sarah Koenig-sized hole in your heart while waiting for the next installment. The miniseries, The Jinx, was released this spring and, much in the same vein as Serial, re-examined a long cold murder case with a fresh eye to the potential killer.

Just a guy sitting in a dark movie theatre alone. Nope, nothing creepy here.

The Jinx focuses on Robert Durst, the son of an extremely successful and powerful Manhattan real estate developer, Durst was in line to inherit the empire his family built, but the head position ultimately went to his brother instead.  In 1982, Durst’s wife Kathie vanished after a weekend at the couple’s home in Connecticut. She has not been seen or heard from since and is still missing to this day. Durst was a suspect in her murder and The Jinx follows Durst through the investigation into her death. But just when you assume this is a simple cut-and-dried case of spousal murder, that’s when the other bodies start to appear.

The Jinx benefits from the cooperation of Durst himself. He speaks freely about his past, the investigations he’s been at the core of, his thoughts and opinions of his family and Kathie’s friends. Durst became interested in the project after seeing the 2010 movie All Good Things, a fictitious account of Kathie’s murder starring Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst. Impressed by the lack of sensationalism in the movie, Durst approached that film’s director to see if he was interested in “finding the real story.” The result is the six episode miniseries you see here.

Hollywood turned its unflinching eye on reality and bravely cast this Robert Durst lookalike as the lead. 

So what is “the real story”? The facts, as they say, are these: Sometime over the weekend of January 31, 1982, Kathie Durst went missing around Newtown, Connecticut.  Robert Durst told police that they were in Connecticut at their weekend home and that he had put Kathie on a train back to New York City the night of the 31^st because she had to be back to attend classes she was taking the next day.  Robert said he called their Manhattan apartment and talked to her that evening to verify she made it home before returning to the city himself a few days later.

Kathie never showed up for her classes the next morning, however staff at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine where she was a student told police that she called them that morning to say that she was ill and wouldn’t be in class today.  And that’s when Kathie disappears off the face of the earth. Robert reports her missing on February 6, almost a full week after he says he saw her the last time. He claims the delay is due to her busy schedule as a final year medical student, saying that he would often go several days without seeing her.

I'd say there's some eerie foreshadowing in their wedding picture, but to be honest that's pretty much how all the early 80s looked.

Worth noting that is that in the weeks prior to her disappearance, Kathie told friends that Robert beat her and even sought medical attention for wounds. She claims that he forced her to have an abortion and that she considered divorce but felt hamstrung by a prenuptial agreement. The night of January 31^st, Kathie had been a friend’s party when she left suddenly after receiving an angry phone call from Robert. Kathie reportedly told her friend, “If something happens to me, check it out. I’m afraid of what Bobby will do.”

Kathie’s case grows cold for lack of evidence. Robert’s claims are dubious; he says he called Kathie from a payphone, but no payphone was close to their home; A doorman at their Manhattan apartment recalled seeing Kathie arrive home but admits that he only saw her from the back and it could have been someone else. In the end, there is no body so Kathie is officially a missing person. Durst recedes from attention, selling his home (and many of Kathie’s possessions) and fading from view.

It’s not until a seemingly unrelated murder in Los Angeles happens on Christmas Eve, 2000, a full 18 years later, that the case begins to find life again. Susan Berman, daughter of a mobster and longtime friend of none other than Robert Durst, is found murdered execution-style in her apartment.  And it doesn’t end there. In September of 2001, a family fishing in Galveston, Texas, finds a grotesquely dismembered torso floating off the beach surrounded by the severed body parts. Police are able to identify the body as that of an elderly man named Morris Black. Take one guess as to who happens to be living in the apartment above him. Robert Durst? Actually, a mute woman named Dorothy Ciner, someone Robert went to high school with. Confused? It only gets crazier.

The Jinx dives deeply into this story, one that spans multiple decades and the length of the United States. Durst himself comes off as unsettling at best. His voice is odd, his facial tics like something that an actor would create in order to appear mentally unbalanced. Durst has a way with words that  is unpolished and strangely refreshing, particularly for someone who has been through so much media and legal questioning. When asked, for example, why he told police that he had talked to Kathie when she arrived back in New York the night she was last seen given that there was no other evidence of her ever even making it on the train back to the city, he says, “I was hoping that would just make everything go away.” An odd sentiment for a man whose wife has just gone missing.

Definitely not a murderer. Can't even see how you could go there.

For all it traffics in the hugeness of the story, The Jinx strives to approach Durst with objectivity as well. It explores his childhood, humanizing him without apologizing for him. Durst tells a story about being woken in the middle of the night when he was seven years old by his father and brought to a window in their mansion. Durst's father told him to look to the roof where he saw his mother in her nightgown standing by herself. Durst says his father made him watch as his mother fell or was pushed to her death. The series establishes the myriad ways in which Robert was made to understand himself as not like his other brothers, the ones who had earned their father’s favor. To say that the Durst family dynamics were complicated is, obviously, an understatement.

In the end, The Jinx makes its biggest splash when it uncovers evidence not previously found in the original police investigations. The day before the final episode aired in March on HBO, police made a high-profile arrest based largely on evidence that the filmmakers uncovered. The filmmakers made clear after the fact that they turned over all evidence to the police upon finding it. The arrest was certainly well-timed from a ratings perspective, but unrelated to the production schedule of the show.

In that sense, The Jinx manages to do what Serial did not – figure out what really happened. And while that’s no detriment to Serial’s production, it does give The Jinx the kind of closure that you may find yourself craving after all this true crime hullabaloo. The Jinx manages to come off as a more interesting 20/20.  It doesn’t sex up the effects or take any questionable licenses with the topic, but it is engaging, fascinating storytelling. It’s the perfect thing to take up your time until the world’s most favorite podcast comes back. Get on it, Koenig! 

Sympathy Butters No Parsnips

I was going to put a post about Downton Abbey here but my cable box punked out on me again and I can't really access anything that is on it, including four or so episodes of Downton, several episodes of Million Dollar American Princesses, and the U.S. National Championships of Figure Skating, featuring a VERY SPARKLY Johnny Weir. Clearly the universe hates me something fierce.

So I decided to turn my attentions to Netflix instead of calling Time Warner to come fix it/replace it because the latter would require motivation and the former only requires my bathrobe and me new slippers.And upon the Netflixes there did appear to me some MUHDUH mysteries! Yay!! And the people did rejoice! There was singing and dancing and a sacrificial goat.

Okay. Maybe not a goat.

Maybe it was a llama.

Hinterland/Y Gwyll

Do you like beautiful and unforgiving landscapes that are also bleak and terrifying?

Then you should visit scenic and desolate Wales.

Visit lovely Wales! Come for the scenery. Stay for the sheep.

Do you guys remember that Friday I spent watching the entire series of Broadchurch on Netflix? I found myself completely lost after I finished Broadchurch, and I went searching the Netflixosphere for something in a similar vein. I eventually lighted upon Hinterland/Y Gwyll. Why does it have two names, you ask? Because the BAMFs who created this show filmed it TWO TIMES: Once in Welsh, and another in English. I am all over this like that Welsh chick in the Henriad was all over that one guy. 

Hinterland (as I shall henceforth refer to it here since I watched the English version, because you  know, 'Muricka and whatnot), follows the exploits of the popo department in Aberystwyth (say that five times fast), Wales. Detective Chief Inspector Tom Mathias is the main protagonist, and DCI Tom Mathias' life sucks. How much does DCI Tom Mathias' life suck? DCI Tom Mathias lives in a trailer in Wales.

I live in a trailer in Wales.

Chickens, this show is DARK. If you are not a fan of grisly murders and people wandering around in overcast landscapes looking for seriously unhinged killers, this show is not for you. But if you like all that crap, and people being moody, and having their romantic aspirations thwarted in the worst of ways, then get on the train to Cardiff. 

Mathias is estranged from his wife and children for some unknown reason, thus the trailer living. He has a female partner, DI Mared Rhys, and I wouldn't say there is a whole lot of interest between the two of them, although Detective Sargent Sâin Owens has taken a fancy to him. Mathias doesn't really notice her and more or less treats everyone like crap while he obsesses over his latest murder. So, you're looking for a romantic side to go with your MUHDUH like on Castle, you won't find it here. 

Although, if I do say so myself, I am hot in a depressed way.

Also, the Chief Super is SHADY and has it in for Mathias, and I expect that to be addressed further in the planned series that has been scheduled to air this year. There are four episodes in the first series, and each are about an hour and a half to two hours in length, so it should keep you occupied for an afternoon or so. 

Pardon me while I brood in this field.

Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries

Okay, I have to admit that I have dropped the ball here. I cannot believe it has taken me this long to watch Miss Fisher.  It kept coming up in my Netflix suggestions and I kept ignoring it because it's Australian and they talk funny. Also from my anthropological research through watching teevee through the internet, I've discovered that they appear to be stuck in the 1920s. Poor dears. We really ought to drop some freedom bombs on them so they figure out how to 2015 and talk American.  

Although I applaud their use of proper headbanding.

This show is awesome. It makes me happy in my murder place. Miss Fisher takes place in Melbourne in the late 1920s. We don't get a lot of Australian series (read: none) stateside, so this show is a bit different than the usual fare that is to be had. 

This ain't your mama's Downton Abbey.

I spent about two weeks watching all of the episodes that are available on Netflix, and I finished them the other day and now I feel a deep and existential void. I am really not sure what to do with myself now that I am out of Miss Fisher. Fortunately, the good people in Australia are planning a third series.

Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries is based on the book series by Kerry Greenwood. The Hon. Phryne Fisher (pronounced fry-nee) is the daughter of a lesser English nobleman, who inherited an estate in the UK after the intended heirs were all killed off in the Great War. Phryne is a FLAPPER who carries a PISTOL and DRIVES A CAR and KEEPS COMPANY WITH MEN AT ALL HOURS. Fortunately, Phryne's Aunt Prudence is around to disapprove of all of Phryne's scandalous activities. 

Oh, deary me. Oh, deary, deary me.

In addition to Phryne's escandelo lifestyle, she often finds herself present when there has been a MUHDUH in need of some serious solving. Phryne's day job is as a private Lady Detective, and she has insinuated herself into the Melbourne Police Department and caught the attentions of the very married DI Jack Robinson, who is hawt. Jack finds himself interested in Phryne in spite of his initial disapproval of her interference in police work, and he finds himself conflicted over the fact that Phryne flaunts the gentleman callers to her boudoir under Jack's nose. Anyway, they are adorable and make me squee. 

It's complicated. 

In other squee news, Phryne has a housekeeper/cook/sleuthing companion that she rescued during her first case: Dot, who is a Nice Catholic Girl. 

"Miss Fisher is corrupting me. And I'm afraid of telephones."

As a result of their Cagney & Laceying it up, Dot meets Lt. Hugh Collins, and they fall in the lovez. But alas! He is a Protestant! 

"Darling, let's go to hell together!"

Phryne's entourage also includes Cec and Bert, general handymen and communist sympathizers, and her butler, Mr. Butler, who is ex British intelligence and who keeps a handy collection of machine guns in the upstairs broom closet. Phryne also adopts an orphan.  Miss Fisher actually kind of reminds of Castle before Castle before they got together and it got all jumped-the-sharky. My only suggestion is this show needs moar koalas. MOAR KOALAS. MOAR. 

Koalas: Nature's original tree-hugging stoner.

If Hinterland is noir and meditative, Miss Fisher is zany and fun. If you find the untimely deaths of random people to be zany and fun. Which I obviously do. 

Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries and Hinterland/Y Gwyll are available on Netflix streaming. Both are slated for new episodes this year. 

Love me, Jack Robinson. Love all the wacky and life-threatening situations I will get you into.

Murder Ball

I took one for the team and watched Fox's American incarnation of the British murder mystery series, Gracepoint.

Look eeento my eeeeyyesss.

As I said before, I have not seen the British original, Broadchurch, so I am basing my overall thoughts on solely my viewing of Gracepoint. I read that the show has not been renewed for a second season (why would there be a need for a second season?), but I just wanted to state my thoughts and final impressions.

UPDATED TO ADD. I FOUND OUT THAT BROADCHURCH IS STREAMING ON NETFLIX. I MAINLINED IT. YOU GUYS. YOU GUYS. HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS. 

So I come to you now fully informed.

The series finale aired December 11, and while it was fun guessing who the culprit may have been, the final reveal was rather...underwhelming. The overall ending of Gracepoint is like Broadchurch, but they did add a twist to the end that differed from the Broadchurch ending.

If you haven't seen either Broadchurch or Gracepoint, I suggest you stop reading this now. 

It didn't really take a genius to figure out that Det. Ellie Miller's family was involved in the death of Danny Solano in some way. The writers kept dropping CONSTANT hints that Ellie's son knew something, and they dropped CONSTANT hints that since she was working all the time, she had no idea what was actually going on at home. (A win for feminism!) 

However, they heightened the creeper factor in a way that I didn't think needed to be heightened. Finding out that her husband Joe (Josh Hamilton, of American Horror Story) was a pedophile and wanted to get into Danny's 12-year-old knickers definitely upped the ewww quotient, but in this day and age of Law & Order SVU, a pedophile dad is pretty tame for prime time TV. Even cliche. They'd been dropping a lot of hints during the run of the show that Someone in Gracepoint was a sexual predator, so the fact that it was revealed to be Ellie's husband just made me kind of shrug. They advertised this as the "ultimate twist" but it wasn't really the biggest twist I could have imagined, honestly. So, I think they lost a bit of points in the creativity department.

  I'm not a creepy perv. I only play one on TV. 

I mean, everyone in this town HAD A SECRET or SOMETHING TO HIDE and the fact that we learned, yet again, that someone in Gracepoint was HIDING SOMETHING, just made me kinda go, "Ok, yeah. We get it. Everyone in this town is messed up and weird. Who cares who killed Danny Solano because honestly? These people are screwed."

Original filmed ending of Broadchurch.

I think it would actually have been a lot more tragic if Danny and Tom Miller had been out messing around and being boys, and Tom had accidentally killed Danny, and went to his father about it, and his father helped cover it up. Or if Tom had accidentally killed Danny, then spent the rest of the night freaking out and dragging his body down to the beach, then hastily trying to make it look like he fell. But yeah, point being. It was completely obvious, from the first episode showing Tom deleting text messages, to him trying to break apart his hard drive, that Tom was involved in Danny's death somehow. Also, his completely nonplussed reaction to Ellie telling Tom that Danny had died was a big clue. Having to wait nine more episodes to have my suspicion confirmed that he killed him on accident didn't really bother me so much as I think that they should have tried to make it a little less obvious from the get-go.

We've gathered some evidence and it seems to point to you being a terrible mother.

Another change they made was in the character of Paul Coates. In Broadchurch, Coates is harmless and adorable and RORY and is into the local hotelier lady. In Gracepoint, he is just downright creepy. So creepy, in fact, he was many of the fans' prime suspect for a while. Gracepoint Paul Coats is in love with Beth Solano, and is creepy and pervy and generally the cause of many an irk. I'm not sure why they made this change for the American version. As if that town didn't already have enough creepers.  I preferred the Rory version, because he wasn't weird, and he also developed a relationship bonding with the slutty hotel lady. I guess they had to try to do something with the Coates character because he was supposed to be a priest but, um, guys? There are Episcopalian ministers in the States, too. Just sayin'. He didn't have to be Catholic. I'm just throwing that out there.

DT: You a priest this time?

AD: Yeah. You?

DT: I'm a foul-tempered, lonely, bitter, jaded inspector trying to save these people from themselves.

AD: Way to play against type.

Overall, Gracepoint was not a point-for-point copy of Broadchurch beyond the first episode. Watching Broadchurch over this last weekend showed that while Gracepoint hit all of the main plot points and for certain scenes, the dialogue was verbatim, but other episodes and scenes things went off in an entirely different direction. The last scene of Gracepoint showed a Detective Carver (Tennant) calling Ellie, who was in a hotel with Tom, and had figured out through her super sleuthing skills that he had killed Danny, and Ellie ignored his call. So, they left the door open for a second season, but Fox chose to renew the series. That was definitely altered from the original. 

So...This blows.

That leads us to the manner of death. While on Broadchurch, Joe Miller strangled Danny Latimer in an act of desperation, and Broadchurch Joe was sad and pathetic and clearly mentally disturbed, Gracepoint Joe was totally predatory and a bit freaky. On Broadchurch, Tom Miller is a bit of a red herring, but on Gracepoint, Ellie figures out that Joe is covering for Tom. Gracepoint Tom follows Gracepoint Joe and as Danny is running away, Tom confronts his father and seems to be trying to protect Danny, and accidentally hits him in the back of the head with an oar. Then Joe tells Tom to go home, and proceeds to try to cover up the murder. 

One other change they made was in the character of the lady journalist, Renee Clemons (Jessica Lucas).  I dislike her character in Gracepoint, and I don't care for her on Broadchurch, either. She is the epitome of a bad journalist, making accusations about Jack without getting the (easily available) public records and back stories about his conviction. Just a crappy, crappy journalist, but a pretty good indictment of the laziness and sensationalism that our media can become prey to. They kind of redeemed her character on Broadchurch, but on Gracepoint her arc ended at Horrible Human Being. 

I'm going to work for cable news. You yokels aren't getting in my way.

My overall take is that Gracepoint, while being a very close copy of Broadchurch, is not an exact carbon copy of the British murder mystery. It was good, but not great, but it did create a bit of an addictive factor. However, there was something special about Broadchurch that I don't think the American version was quite able to capture.  One minor detail that I observed about the British version is that they definitely showed the change in seasons. I think setting this in NoCal (*coughcoughBritishColumbiacoughcough*) was a poor choice. It's scenically quite similar to the cliffs of Wessex, but it looked like it was cold and rainy ALL THE DAMN TIME. So, I didn't get the same sense of a passage of time between Danny being found dead and Joe's confessions. On Broadchurch, Danny died in summer, and Joe was caught in late fall. Again, a minor detail, but it made a lot of difference in terms of gauging how long this case was dragging on.

What time of the year is it? Dreary O'clock.

Gracepoint is still pretty engrossing, and it is stylish, sophisticated, and moody. It is definitely worth a watch if you like murder mysteries and horrible people. 

However, I do feel the American make-up team did a better job of making David Tennant look like shit. 

There was also this.

Buuuurrrrp.