Yet another true crime mini-series arrives on a streaming platform, chronicling the story of a serial killer's romantic relationship with a woman who is still scarred by the experience. Oh yeah, and feminism stuff.
Single mother Elizabeth Kendall brought home a very nice man named Ted Bundy after meeting him in a bar one night. He got along great with her daughter, Molly, and would often bring his brother Rich on outings. Elizabeth and Ted become an item, Ted is welcomed into her family, but then he began to change. Young women were being attacked and disappearing around the area, but this dream man couldn't be responsible, could he?
While director Trish Wood directs the hell out of this thing, punctuating the generic talking heads interviews with family photos and shots of a car similar to Bundy's winding around the countryside, a mistake is made from the beginning by lumping partial blame for one of this country's most infamous killers at the feet of Republicans and the patriarchy. Interviews with heartbroken family members and women who somehow survived Bundy's murderous attempts are interspersed with footage and backhanded comments about Bundy's political leanings and the women's liberation movement, all of which have very little to do with the subject at hand. You have the long term girlfriend of Ted Bundy, but you focus on how female reporters and cops had to fight the good-ol'-boys system in order to cover his crimes? Elizabeth and Molly are the rightful focus of the miniseries, the film takes a similar approach to "John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise" by getting important interviews with people besides the usual investigators and lawyers, but oh here's another clip about how hard it was to cover the trial. Can we call a moratorium on reporter interviews in these things?
While I can appreciate what the women in the documentary suffered through, the tangents became distracting. How dare I, a white male, question the focus of this, you might be thinking. As a victim of childhood abuse, and a Broadcasting major in college, I can and do question it. I didn't see liberal progressive politics get blamed for Chicago local Democratic politician John Wayne Gacy's murders. Gacy had his picture taken with the First Lady of the United States, for goodness' sake, but hey remember Watergate? With no irony whatsoever, women defend their "right" to have an abortion yet speak of the loss of these women and what they could have been if this MAN hadn't come along and killed them. Wood doesn't delve too deeply into the more grisly aspects of Bundy's crimes, or his sex life with Kendall, either. Some reporters are seen fawning over the murderer during the trial, but one cop is criticized for the reading of an indictment in front of Bundy and media cameras- a power play that completely worked yet he's still catching grief for it. No fawning reporters were forthcoming with apologies after Bundy was found guilty and eventually executed, they just moved on to the next trial of the century and their personal bias on it. Don't ever think mainstream media is there to disseminate information for the good of the many. They want your eyeballs on their commercials in between show segments, or watching an ad before a story online.
I'm not making light of the impact Bundy had on hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. The fact that we may never know how many people he killed, and how many families will never know closure, is awful. But don't blame "society" or "men" for the actions of one. Casting aspersions like that, without knowing an individual's (like myself) story, only drives people away, not bring them into a community of similar experiences.
Stats:
-Directed by Trish Wood
-Cast: Elizabeth Kendall, Molly Kendall, Rich Bundy, Steve Winn, Ted Bundy
-Media: Streaming on Amazon Prime
-Running Time: 231 minutes
-Rating: (* * 1/2/* * * * *)
-Rated TV-MA, contains gore, profanity, sexual references, strong adult situations
