Stop Faking Me Out
Based on a True Story would actually be based on a true story if it were about me being the most gullible girl around
On a recent hot, sticky summer day, I set out to grab the only meal that makes sense in that type of heat: a huge, greasy Italian beef sandwich that will make your hands oily for three business days.
At Mr. Beef on N. Orleans St in Chicago — where The Bear was filmed — I was all set to order when one of the guys behind the counter turned around. I gasped. It was THE Jeremy Allen White, stopping by to do some method acting (somewhere out there Brian Cox is cursing about this particularly American disease).
“What can I get you?” he asked. “And would you like to be my date to the Emmys?”
… and then I woke up.
Are you mad? Do you feel lied to? It’s not fun to be told such an excellent story just for it to be rendered utterly meaningless in the same breath, is it? Okay, well now you know how I felt watching Based on A True Story, the new Peacock original thriller comedy. (No this essay is not about The Bear, you have one more week to get through season two before next week’s issue.)
The premise of Based on A True Story is that wife Ava (real estate agent) and husband Nathan (former tennis pro who once beat Federer, which he’ll constantly remind you of, as any man would) are having marriage and money troubles until a very attractive plumber named Matt comes into their lives. Fair warning before I get blasted that some may consider this a spoiler, but it’s also like the whole point of the show and revealed in episode one: Ava and Nathan discover that said hot plumber is the West Side Ripper, a serial killer going after young, pretty women in LA. Yes, they could turn him in. But instead, they strike a deal to launch a podcast in which they interview him about being a murderer. Don’t worry, they made him promise not to kill anyone else, and when he agrees they basically say “hmmm checks out” and move on.
When I first started watching, I assumed I would write a newsletter about how much I loved this show. I actually cackled when a high-profile celebrity tried to cancel them and their podcast and they decided the solution may be to highlight the voices of underrepresented and BIPOC serial killers. When Ava became genuinely concerned she may not be attractive enough for Matt to kill, I laughed and sympathized. Who among us brunette babes did not wonder, while watching Netflix’s Conversations with a Killer, if Ted Bundy would have been tempted to off us? I also adore Chris Messina in anything, even if he’s always Danny Castellano to me.1 Kaley Cuoco I have a little trouble with. Her acting always feels like she’s going at a million miles per hour, making chaotic decisions left and right even when there’s no need. I have a similar reaction to her as I do to my friends who show me a potential date’s profile in which the guy has a fish pic in the year of our lord 2023, or a David Foster Wallace-esque quote in his bio. Like, girl… slow down… take a breath…you don’t have to do this. But that energy mostly worked in this show, since Cuoco is the brains behind the operation and so into true crime she is a member of a book club of gals who discuss podcasts in that genre. Tom Bateman as the West Side Ripper is so good it took me nearly until the end of the show to realize he was that one hot guy in Netflix’s Behind Her Eyes.
All this to say, I wanted to finish this show and tell everyone I know that they needed to watch it immediately. But… the damn fake outs! The show is peppered with scenes that build and build and then reach some climax that is bananas before you realize it’s just a fantasy.
The stakes are really high in Based on a True Story, as they are in any murder-y show. The series is arguing that yes, of course, murderers are bad — but is it possible that the people behind the plethora of true crime podcasts, documentaries and docuseries are almost just as bad? Because this show is a satire, it ups the ante even more to prove its point: Ava and Max aren’t just being entertained by a serial killer, they’re working with him, allowing him to reap the profits of the public’s fixation on his own crimes. When the show points the finger at us, showing us how despicable our true crime mania is in scenes disguised as a comedy, it’s smart. Until, suddenly, those scenes turn into ones that aren’t what’s actually happening. Based on a True Story is a show about the darkest parts of us, but it’s afraid to actually go there. Hence, the fake outs.
This deception tool obviously isn’t new. How many times have you been taken abruptly out of a story with the dreaded “and then she woke up”? But Based on a True Story is the latest — and in my many years of taking TV watching much too seriously, one of the worst — examples of this.
There’s a vulnerability to watching television. I know that sounds a bit woo-woo, but I just mean that we’re completely giving ourselves over to a storyline, often using the screen as a way to decompress from our days or escape into another world or just pass the time. I, for one, am extremely gullible when I watch television (and always, but this ain’t about that). So unless it's made obvious a scene is taking place in a dream or fantasy, I’m going to believe, to quote Penny Lane, “it’s all happening.” And if a “fake” scene reflects something that, if it actually happened, has high stakes for the plot and could really throw a wrench in things, I’m not going to be happy when I realize it was all just one big “gotcha.”
Take the will-they-won’t they of Gilmore Girls’ Lorelai and Luke. After two seasons of us hoping these two would finally admit they had the hots for each other, the writers decided to start season three with a scene of the two going about their morning routine as if they were finally a couple. They’re cooking breakfast, kissing, making jokes about naming their kids after Leopold and Loeb who were famously child killers, which…. seems extremely odd on a rewatch, but moving on. Viewers are thinking could it be? Did I miss Lorelai and Luke getting together? This is the first scene of a series premiere so it’s plausible something happened during the in between! But then, Lorelai wakes up. And then we watch these two lovebirds pretend they don’t like each other for another couple of years. The stakes in this case may not be as high as those of a literal murderer like in Based on A True Story, but if you have ever been so invested in a TV couple that it’s actually unhealthy (why am I personally thinking of Alisha and Simon from Misfits) then you get that this was a dirty trick.
I’d even make the same argument for Euphoria's “I’VE NEVER EVER BEEN HAPPIER” scene, which is one of my favorite television scenes in recent history thanks solely to the line “Oklahoma’s not, like, a play you read.” After several episodes of watching Cassie go behind her best friend’s back — and her biggest crime of all, taking all the joy out of a guacha and under-eye patches — it’s kind of cathartic to watch her absolutely lose it. The eventual Maddy-Cassie showdown we get later that season is worth the wait, but I still didn’t love being teased in the high school bathroom at a time in which it would have been understandable, and relieving in a way, for Cassie to go bonkers.
To be fair, the fake out can work, and when it does it can be really effective. That’s the case for one particularly harrowing episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in which Buffy comes home to find her mother Joyce dead on the living room couch. She calls an ambulance, she attempts CPR, the paramedics arrive and try to revive Buffy’s mother and — it works. But it doesn’t actually. After a few brief seconds, we’re brought back to reality: Buffy’s mother is dead, and Buffy can’t save the day this time. Here, the stakes are high, but the fake out is short, and there are hints that something is off about it. There are quick bits of dialogue like “it’s a beautiful miracle,” “good as new” and the devastating, “Buffy, thank god you found me in time.” The dream-like sequence serves a purpose. It reveals how the human brain tries to protect us when the worst thing that we can imagine happening starts to happen. It puts Buffy’s lack of control and inability to help on display. It pushes the story forward; it’s no cheap trick.
I actually enjoy fake outs that follow the rules of the plot, or bring the audience in on the game they’re playing. Hopper’s “death” at the end of Stranger Things’ third season, for example, may have fooled the audience, but it played by the rules: All the characters thought he was dead, not just the viewers. The One Tree Hill fantasy scene in which Lucas is imagining what life would be like with his three different love interests pretty quickly winks at the audience, and lets us in on the joke (the joke being that three women would be interested in this man).
At a time when commentary on the true crime podcast — from the TV show Only Murders in the Building to the movie Vengeance to the book I Have Some Questions for You — seem to be coming at us as fast as true crime podcasts themselves, I still think Based on a True Story is a funny, clever and enjoyable watch. But be prepared to feel some whiplash as you pivot between reality and fantasy, holding on for dear life as the show brings you close to its characters’ most deplorable acts, then immediately ushers them away.
There are two fantasies that especially tripped me up, and I don’t think they involve major spoilers, but continue with caution. The subplot of Ava and Nathan’s marriage teetering on the edge just as they’re about to have a baby quickly becomes part of the main plot: As much as they’re using the West Side Ripper to get to fame and fortune, they’re using the excitement of the podcast to save their relationship. Many of their marital issues are depicted through their temptations for other people — Nathan for his wife’s friend, and Ava for one of her clients. I won’t tell you what happens with either of those flirtations in the end but there are at least fake out scenes of both fantasies coming to fruition. Both were so believable that I quickly felt indignant for their spouse, so when the truth was revealed that in that moment they didn’t cheat on their significant other, I struggled with a big dose of what’s the point? In a show about some of the most heinous crimes we can commit — killing people, and knowing someone is killing people but capitalizing off of it — is an affair really that bad? In needing the crutch of the fake out, is the show saying that an affair is just as bad as bludgeoning someone with an ax? Based on a True Story is a show built on the premise that it’s completely self-aware. But what, in its eyes, are the worst crimes are unclear.
I’d have been more impressed with a satire that included off-the-walls fantasy-like scenes that actually stuck the landing, trusting its plot and character development enough to deal with the aftermath. Take a show like Barry, where you have to do a double take, wondering if half the scenes are actually just in the character's head, only to be thrilled, and usually horrified, to discover it's real. Bill Hader understands something it seems like the Based on a True Story creators struggle with: The only thing scarier than a nightmare is waking up and realizing that it's real.
But what do I know? Maybe we’re really back in 2019 — before Peacock even had its own streaming service, when Chris Messina was still riding high from Sharp Objects and Kaley Cuoco had yet to deal with those Pete Davidson dating rumors like every other girl in town — and this is all just a dream.
B Plot
Question: What’s a TV book adaption that you wish we could redo?
Mallika: In junior high, I wanted a scrawny eighth grader named [redacted] to think that if people were rain, he was drizzle and I was hurricane. I wanted to smoke cigarettes so I could say things like, “Y'all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die.” If you were a “young adult” who liked to read circa 2005-2010, maybe you know where this is going. I wanted to be the manic pixie dream girl on every middle/high schoolers’ mind: Alaska Young from John Green’s novel Looking for Alaska. Scientists really need to study the grip that man (and his brother) had on us kids back then. Hulu adapted the book (way late) into an eight-episode miniseries in 2019 and despite it having a strong cast, it fell flat to me. I think that’s probably in part because the show relied mostly on nostalgia instead of fleshing out the complexities within (some of) the characters. But I think we should get a redo! One that somehow acknowledges how different teens are now compared to back then — and how they’re still the same — and highlights the narrator’s coming-of-age feelings more than Hulu did. We cannot let the best John Green adaption be the one starring Ansel Elgort, I won’t have it!
Rachel: There’s an obvious choice here: Hulu’s adaption of Conversations with Friends!! Hulu literally changed lives casting Paul Mescal in that sultry gold chain in Normal People, and as a Sally Rooney bitch, I knew that Conversations was the superior book, so I had high hopes for this show. But oh boy, I couldn’t make it more than two episodes in. The miniseries was, above all else, an affront to Jemima Kirke who was BORN to play the role of Melissa, but Taylor Swift’s ex-man had to ruin it for her. Joe Alwyn, for that horrific Irish accent, I will NEVER give you peace! The book itself was never really meant for television, because so much of it is the main protagonist Francis’ internal monologue and if you take that away and are just watching her behavior throughout the book, she is impossible to root for. But I think Kirke deserves another shot regardless.
C Plot
And just like that, the actors are on strike. Their union SAG-AFTRA voted to make the move this week after negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers broke down. This is the first time that the actors’ union is on strike at the same time as the writers’ union in 63 years (!). Production on tons of TV and movies like Stranger Things and Abbott Elementary were already on pause but now that actors are walking out too, Hollywood will likely completely shut down all filming. The result? You might have to wait to see some of your favorite shows’ next seasons, and next summer might not be as big a blockbuster boom as Barbenheimer but also… actors and writers on a smash streaming hit like Orange is the New Black might actually be able to quit their day jobs, it’s not such a wild idea! The Washington Post outlined what the people who bring you the shows you love are asking for here.
This all means it’s kind of a strange time for the Emmy nominations to come out but, here we are! The awards show is supposed to be September 18, though there’s a good chance the actual awards will be delayed. You can see all the noms here. Basically all the Roys are up for an award, and Succession scored 27 nominations overall. White Lotus swept, too. We’ll be doing some more Emmy content in the coming weeks (you’ll be hearing our opinions whether you want to or not xoxo) but let us know what you think. Who were you surprised by? Who got snubbed? Will Logan Roy take down his sons again despite… you know… hardly being in this season? Rachel is ready to take to the streets after another Sarah Goldberg snub for Barry but she respects the Emmy’s commitment to the bit (getting snubbed for a world class performance two years in a row is of course the most Sally Reed thing to happen to anyone).
It hurts too much to talk about Danny’s downfall. Maybe I will explore this in a future newsletter but I’m genuinely sensitive about it.