Two Netflix Recommendations

             With so many streaming services and television networks, keeping up with the never-ending torrent of television shows is impossible. According to research from FX, there were 455 scripted shows that aired in 2016. That was almost three dozen more than the previous record set in 2015. In this new television environment, television critics have become less critics and more gatekeepers. Episode by episode breakdowns are less important than the question of—should you tune in at all? In the past two months or so, Netflix has dumped a bevy of new shows including Mindhunter, Alias Grace, and American Vandal to go along with returning shows like Stranger Things and the upcoming second season of The Crown. So for this week, let’s dive into two of those shows: Alias Grace and American Vandal, two very different takes on the ubiquitous true crime genre.

Alias Grace—Based on a novel by Margaret Atwood—who is having quite the year with the Handmaid’s Tale winning the Emmy as the best drama on television—Alias Grace is the story of Grace Marks, a Canadian woman convicted of murdering her employer and his housekeeper in late 1830s/early 1840s Canada. Based on a true story, Grace’s story is largely told in flashback as she recounts her life as an Irish immigrant in Canada. The series unapologetically and straightforwardly reveals the horrible circumstances that led to Grace’s imprisonment. Relentlessly beaten down on all sides—by her alcoholic father, prison guards, asylum keepers, the handyman who also committed the murders and blamed Grace for putting him up to it, and the double-standards of her time—Grace maintains a calm, dignified presence.

            She’s also an unreliable narrator. A committee of well-meaning Canadians have hired an American doctor to question Grace and hope to win her a pardon. Grace, however, has told so many stories and had so many told about her that it’s hard to know what is true or not. In a voice-over, Grace admits to constructing a narrative of her life that she believes the doctor wants to hear. She’s also become an object of curiosity at the prison where she lives. The warden’s wife has Grace brought over to her house every day to perform household chores. Grace also satisfies the morbid curiosity of the warden’s wife and her social circle, after all who wouldn’t want their afternoon tea served by a convicted murderess?

            Alias Grace is only six episodes, running about 45 minutes each, so the time commitment is minimal and well-worth it.

American Vandal—Netflix has, at least partially, made its name with its true-crime documentaries and serial killer type shows (think Making of a Murderer or Mindhunter). It’s all the more impressive that the network commissioned an eight episode parody series about uncovering who vandalized a bunch of high school teachers’ cars. American Vandal brilliantly mimics the structure, visual style, and documentarian as narrator style that made shows like Serial and The Jinx so popular. The show has it all—talking head interviews with high school students, computer generated reenactments, and attempted recreations of the act of vandalism itself.

            Ultimately though, the show succeeds by making itself about the experience of high school. There’s Dylan, the profoundly dumb student accused of the act of vandalism. The first episode features a list of the reasons Dylan has been given detention. They include “Making whale noises” and “faking diabetes.” There’s Peter, the over-eager documentarian just seeking the truth. There’s the mass of students, willing to condemn and lionize Dylan with ease. There’s the vandalism itself, an act so stupid but taken with such seriousness by everyone involved in the show that it just becomes funnier and funnier as the series progresses. There’s the titles of the episodes, each a play on words about the vandalism. But American Vandal is more than just the sum of its jokes. By the end, it makes you care about Dylan’s fate and wonder, “Who did the dicks?”