* Potential Spoilers *
Josie and I did it again. We spent our last day of the 2015-16 Holiday season tearing through a television series like pros. If television binge watching would have an equivalent in sports, it would be competitive hot dog eating or something so I had a great time doing it although it's not something I'm terribly proud of. Making a Murderer is the new hot thing in television: it's fresh, it's different and it's freakin' real. It is the spiritual successor of investigative podcast Serial. The show made me angry, hopeless, yet it enthralled me only to make me feel a little bit queasy at the end.
Bear with me, I'm going to try not to spoil too much.
- Making a Murderer is the story of Sephen Avery, who spent 18 years behind bars for a rape he didn't commit because local police refused to investigate someone else, based on very shady motives. Two years after being exonerated by DNA evidence and in the midst of a 36 million dollars lawsuit against his county, he is suddenly arrested for the murder of a young photographer nobody seems to have heard about. Making a Murderer is more or less the story of Stephen Avery's trial for the second crime, and it's as infuriatingly shoddy as the first. Perhaps even worse.
- I was an avid fan of Serial's first season and wrote about the show at length on this blog. The idea was seducing: the journalistic approach at the service of social justice. Enlightening the masses with the facts. Entertaining them by helping them form their own opinion on the quiet tragedies of the justice system. Making a Murderer seems to follow the same philosophy, except for one crucial part: it leaves important parts of the prosecution out, like the parts that usually get someone condemned for murder.
- There is a petition going around the internet right now, asking for the pardon (and the release) of Stephen Avery. Pardon my French, but this blows my fucking mind. Who the fuck do we think we are, going after the judicial system after watching a freakin' documentary? If you look at the case from anywhere outside the confines of the doc, the prosecution of Stephen Avery is still terrible, but it becomes easy to poke hole in the presentation of Making a Murderer. I'm not so sure anymore social justice can be brought up properly anymore. There's too much room for dishonesty.
- Don't get me wrong, there is a profound injustice to the fate of Stephen Avery. I am not debating that he needs to be given a fair trial. The two directors of the series agree with me on this one. Same for his nephew Brendan Dassey. The entire prosecution relied on a visibly coerced confession from a slow and trouble kid, who later claimed it was inspired by James Patterson's novel Kiss the Girls. I mean, Theresa Halbach was indeed murdered, but I will never get why anyone would think a teenager with a learning disability under police duress was a reliable source of information. There's a good chance Stephen Avery is the murderer, but I'm pretty certain it did not happen the way it was portrayed in the trial.
- There are a handful of fascinating issues with Stephen Avery's trial that complicate everything and that should've made him legally not guilty. First of all, the police conspiracy angle lies in the fact Avery sued the county for 36 million dollars and their insurance company turned them down. So, the police had incentive to find a reason to lock him up. The fact that Theresa Halbach's body was burned to pieces also causes problem as it's impossible to prove what was done to her. Stephen Avery was condemned for rape - which is a horrible crime in itself - but legally speaking, what evidence was there of that? Don't get me started on how the evidence contradicted Brendan Dassey's testimony, too.
- My two favorite "characters" in Making a Murderer were Lieutenant Jim Lenk and Sergeant Andrew Colborn. What a bunch of rotten fuckers. It's like they rose up from a page of a James Ellroy novel like zombies and suddenly became real people. Life-sized versions of Dudley Smith and Buzz Meeks. If I am 100% certain of one thing in this entire fiasco is that these two morons planted a shitload of evidence, including that fucking key. So yeah, Stephen Avery deserves a new trial (and so does Brendan Dassey) and I'm ready to accept whatever a fair trial's verdict will be. The only problem is that the Manitowoc County police bungled the evidence so bad, I don't know how it's possible to convict him anymore.
