Making a Murderer

[biggytitbo]

Following on from the immense Staircase and The Jinx, a new long form true life crime documentary is here in the shape of Making a Murderer.

Filmed over a 10-year period, Making a Murderer is an unprecedented real-life thriller about Steven Avery, a DNA exoneree who, while in the midst of exposing corruption in local law enforcement, finds himself the prime suspect in a grisly new crime. Set in America's heartland, the series takes viewers inside a high-stakes criminal case where reputation is everything and things are never as they appear.

The reviews are unanimous in its excellence http://www.metacritic.com/tv/making-a-murderer/critic-reviews

Just started watching it now, and to annoy Stephen here is a thread to kick off discussion!

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

a high-stakes criminal case where reputation is everything and things are never as they appear.

..apart from reputation, which is everything.

[biggytitbo]

In episode 2, I can't be the only one who suspects that...

...

Spoiler alert

one of the deposed cops killed the woman and set it up so it would look like Avery was involved

[close]

can I?

The coincidence of timings and the suspect is just way too much.

[Johnny Textface]

Where is this available to watch? Sounds right up my street.

[biggytitbo]

They released episode 1 for free on youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34M2zdLc-2U and I got all the others from here - http://rlseries.com/making-a-murderer-season-1/


What happens in episode 2, the film-makers got incredibly lucky as the film surely wouldn't exist otherwise.

[biggytitbo]

Man this is unbelievable! Either

Spoiler alert

he did kill her or they have framed him in the most jaw-droppingly comprehensive and blatant way imaginable.

[close]

[Paaaaul]

Where is this available to watch? Sounds right up my street.

This is on Netflix.

[biggytitbo]

Ohh yeah, I forgot to mention its on Netflix. I'm not watching it on Netflix.

The police really

Spoiler alert

raised the stakes beyond what is actually credible, imo, if this is a second a frame up.

[close]

[biggytitbo]

Episode 3 - the

Spoiler alert

confession, to me, has all the hallmarks of been complete bullshit. It's way to lurid and over the top - exactly you the kind of thing a disturbed teenage boy would make up.

[close]

It's the

Spoiler alert

absolute classic pressurised interrogation situation false confession, which is then recanted as soon as the pressure is relieved

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[biggytitbo]

Seems they

Spoiler alert

saddled the boy with a completly incompetent/bent lawyer deliberetly to aid the fit up, to me. He may as well be working for the prosecutor as he's actively working against his own client. They even have the 'defence investigator' trying to coerce a false confession out of him, and immedietly phoning the cops to give them a copy of it. Astonishing.

[close]

I think this may well need to be added to the grimmest documentaries thread. Watching people's lives be destroyed for real in slow motion is pretty harsh.

[biggytitbo]

Len Kacinsky

Spoiler alert

what a fucking louse. Not only a creepy fucker, but doing his best to send his own client to jail for life. Maybe he's the true murderer?

[close]

Episode 4 is equal part infuriating and depressing. Grim stuff.


Ends with an amazing bombshell though...

[Ignatius_S]

The book by Michael Griesbach (the prosecutor who helped release Avery from prison) is well worth reading.

[Entropy Balsmalch]

Looks promising. Can people stop doing *those* credit sequences for a bit now though?

[biggytitbo]

Onto episode 8 now and my main problem with the defence case is the point made by the prosecution in their summary -

Spoiler alert

the defence only really works if we propose the cops killed the woman. The alternative is a random killer whose plan relies on so many factors out of their control to go for them as to be incredibly unlikely and unsatisfying as a scenario. Would the cops really have murdered and mutilated a woman, then burnt her corpse to frame Avery? It just seems so extreme and unecessary to be viable for me.

[close]

[Steven]

Just started watching it now, and to annoy Stephen here is a thread to kick off discussion!

Only just got in, about to watch first episode, this better be good.

Plus you spelled my name incorrectly yet the accused is also called Steven, I'd imagine this is either in error or attributed as an extra element of annoyance, which you can't really take credit for now as it's sort of Schrodinger's cat kind of vacillating argument.

[Pinckle Wicker]

I think this may well need to be added to the grimmest documentaries thread.

Blimey, just watched the first episode and you aint wrong. I decided to peek at the spoilers though and read a bit online about Stephen Avery. Seems the Twittersphere are well on-side as well with this case, look at the responses to Manitowic County PD's feed. Is quite amusing to see the responses they get to their tweets.

What are your thoughts Biggy?

[biggytitbo]

After episode 6 it all becomes a trainwreck, just a hopeless, inevitable human disaster that makes you want to gnaw your fist off.


The comments by the judge when he's sentenced are just an added flourish of cuntery on top of it all.

What are your thoughts Biggy?

Purely having watched the film I'm getting a knot of despair at humanity in my stomach, the injustice of it has a kind of crushing effect in the last 4 episodes that makes you feel a bit hollow.

Of course what I need to do after finishing this is check out the other sides case in a fair way, to ensure the filmmakers haven't misrepresnted the evidence in the same way the makers of Paradise Lost did.

You never know with these court room things what stuff they have left out that might lend an entirely different light on the matter.

But purely in terms of whats in the film,

Spoiler alert

the boy certainly is obviously innocent - its an absolute classic textbook false confession, and the idea that he'd be sent down for life on the basis if that alone is an obscene injustice.

I'm pretty, but less, sure Avery is innocent aswell. But I'm struggling to think what could have really happened without proposing the cops killed the woman

[close]

I guess one possibility exists that reconciles the problem -

Spoiler alert

He did kill her, and they did frame him aswell.

[close]

[biggytitbo]

Fuck me, episode 10 and Brendan's 'defence' lawyer and investigator.

Spoiler alert

Ever seen anything quite like that before? Essentially a pair of extremely weird liars and pyscopaths forcing their own client to confess because they had what seems to be some sort of bizarre homicidal hatred of Avery.

The stuff with the ribbon is unbelievable.

[close]

[Pinckle Wicker]

After episode 6 it all becomes a trainwreck, just a hopeless, inevitable human disaster that makes you want to gnaw your fist off.


The comments by the judge when he's sentenced are just an added flourish of cuntery on top of it all.

Purely having watched the film I'm getting a knot of despair at humanity in my stomach, the injustice of it has a kind of crushing effect in the last 4 episodes that makes you feel a bit hollow.

Of course what I need to do after finishing this is check out the other sides case in a fair way, to ensure the filmmakers haven't misrepresnted the evidence in the same way the makers of Paradise Lost did.

You never know with these court room things what stuff they have left out that might lend an entirely different light on the matter.

But purely in terms of whats in the film,

Spoiler alert

the boy certainly is obviously innocent - its an absolute classic textbook false confession, and the idea that he'd be sent down for life on the basis if that alone is an obscene injustice.

I'm pretty, but less, sure Avery is innocent aswell. But I'm struggling to think what could have really happened without proposing the cops killed the woman

[close]

I guess one possibility exists that reconciles the problem -

Spoiler alert

He did kill her, and they did frame him aswell.

[close]

I am on episode three and yep it is fascinating and equally horrific.

[Pinckle Wicker]

There are some real cunts on this but i think the shit-eating grin of Brendan's Attorney, Len Kachinsky is really hard to stomach.

[biggytitbo]

He is an astonishing little turd.

[Pinckle Wicker]

In episode 2, I can't be the only one who suspects that...

...

Spoiler alert

one of the deposed cops killed the woman and set it up so it would look like Avery was involved

[close]

can I?

The coincidence of timings and the suspect is just way too much.

The more episodes i am viewing the murkier and murkier this all appears and totally suggested in the spoiler above. 

Spoiler alert

The collusion between the law departments and attorneys is completely transparent throughout the measures and actions they take when dealing with Brendan. Obviously they are totally unaware of how this documentary would expose this to the viewer.

[close]

[biggytitbo]

The fact one of the suspect cops

Spoiler alert

was aware of the murdered woman's licence plate in days before she was reported missing is ultra suspicious, but the films pretty much drops it. As is the obviously tampered with blood evidence, which gets dropped too. Not quite sure what is happening there.

[close]

[Pinckle Wicker]

The fact one of the suspect cops

Spoiler alert

was aware of the murdered woman's licence plate in days before she was reported missing is ultra suspicious, but the films pretty much drops it. As is the obviously tampered with blood evidence, which gets dropped too. Not quite sure what is happening there.

[close]

Yes, that was quite a remarkable escalation within the proceedings. What can we conclude by this, feasibly, t

Spoiler alert

hat he was aware of the vehicle's whereabouts at that time.

[close]

[Pinckle Wicker]

Well i binge watched all ten episodes, it is pretty easy to do tbh once you have started, and cannot recommend this enough to all you crime sleuths. The treatment of Steven and particularly Brendan is truly awful stuff and definitely one for the Grim Documentaries thread too. I guess in this day and age with new technoligies and a greater sense of justice, human rights etc you really don't expect this to happen, especially a sixteen year old boy, in the U.S.A. Then again how much do we really pay attention to when reading over latest murders and convitions. It really opens up a lot of questions on the justice system but will it reall change anything, i am sure there are hundreds (if not thousands) of Steven Averys and Brendan Dassys incarcerated across America.

[thugler]

Also binged over a couple of days.

Amazing program, really in depth and detailed. Really want to know what happens next. It is difficult to work out who did the murder if not avery though. A few suspects but the amount of planning involved seems too much.

Several people look extremely dodgy though.

[Steven]

Very slowly making my way through this, only on episode 3 and not reading any spoilers until I have watched it all and formed my own opinion I suppose. Reminds me a lot of the recent TV series, Rectify.

[ersatz99]

I'd have thought the last episode would have given us an update on the

Spoiler alert

reliability of the FBI's test for EDTA that was used

[close]

.

[biggytitbo]

I'd have thought the last episode would have given us an update on the

Spoiler alert

reliability of the FBI's test for EDTA that was used

[close]

.

Weird how the bombshell where they find the

Spoiler alert

blood sample from '85 has been tampered with

[close]

is almost entirely dropped though isnt it?

[Moribunderast]

I'm only three episodes into this but it's fantastic thus far. Every bit as good as The Staircase and The Jinx, sharing the quality that made those documentaries so great: every time you think the story is starting to wane or straighten up, it takes a left-field turn that boggles the mind. I'm finding it almost unbearably sad though. That

Spoiler alert

interrogation

[close]

in episode three is throw-the-remote angry-making. I'm compelled by the story and would like to binge on the show to see where it goes but I feel like I can only take one episode per day - it's making me feel utterly depressed and gross. And that's coming from someone whose watched probably 70% of the films mentioned in the Grimmest Docs thread!