Each week, Terry and Joe discuss Blumhouse’s true-crime docuseries Fall River on EPIX.

Spoilers follow for Episode 3, “Mark of the Beast.”

Miss a Review? Episode 1 / 2

CONTENT WARNING: Discussions of sexual assault and violence follow.

TERRY

We are 3/4ths of the way through this docuseries, Joe, and the biggest issue I’m having is one we discussed with the previous episode. It seems as if Fall River has been structured around the cliffhanger endings in each episode, rather than around the content being explored. Like the Blumhouse-produced HBO docuseries The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, Fall River lives for those cliffhanger episodes to keep people enthralled and coming back. But unlike The Jinx, it doesn’t seem to have enough meat on its bones to justify even the four episode run.

Episode 2 ended with the suggestion that we’re going to get to the heart of what happened through an interview with Robin Murphy, the person who allegedly lied on the stand to put Carl Drew away for the murder of Karen Marsden and Doreen Levesque. Carl Drew’s private investigator Chris Hayes opens the episode saying, “you have to give credit to Robin Murphy. The only thing you can say is that she’s a lot smarter than any of the fucking people involved in the case.” For all the faults of Fall River, that is a point that seems very apt and somewhat glossed over.

The show is steeped in the historical landscape of a time when women’s complaints were dismissed (not that much has changed in that regard…). If this docuseries has imparted anything on me so far, it’s that the disenfranchised are forced to find ways to solve their issues without the help of the people put in power to protect them. As Robin states in this episode: “Men were always privileged and women were not.”

A good portion of “Mark of the Beast” is spent on a new person never discussed in the previous two episodes; an alleged pedophile named Andy Maltais, who raped both Robin and her friend Catherine. Catherine says she went to the police and they didn’t care because she was only twelve and the show cuts to the director asking a former detective about pursuing Andy as a sexual predator. The response? “No. Just interested in the homicides.” The episode also digs into the predatory behavior of the cops themselves, who insinuated themselves into the group of sex workers to gather information.

It’s then revealed that there was another murder between Doreen and Karen that Robin was also witness to. Barbara Raposa was murdered in January of 1979, but her body wasn’t discovered until January. Andy was convicted of her murder and Fall River insinuates that Robin lied on the stand to get him off the streets and away from the people she loved...much, maybe, in the same way she did Carl Drew.

Much like the series as a whole, “Mark of the Beast” was depressing in the way it showcased the life of a disenfranchised sex worker who had no one to turn to. It paints a bleak picture, sure, but the meat between the big cliffhangers is relatively non-existent. If the show weren’t so focused on delivering hour-long episodes that were structured around these twists, it might be a more intriguing watch.

What do you make of “Mark of the Beast,” Joe? Does the series seem to be spinning its wheels for you? Was the use of Robin’s interview helpful in explaining what might have happened? And what do you think this other cliffhanger interview with the mystery man is going to bring to the narrative?

JOE

While I’m at the stage that I’m ready to wrap up the case, Terry, I will confess that this episode is my favourite of the three so far. You’re completely right that it’s grim and dark, but “Mark of the Beast” finally gives voice to a subject (and subjects) that it has previously only danced around in its front half.

I’m talking about the women who were involved in this case.

Yes, we’ve heard from journalists and the occasional resident living in Fall River in the late 70s and early 80s when these crimes were being committed, but it seemed as though the docuseries was constantly talking about the sex workers and victims, as opposed to talking to them.

Hearing Robin’s version of the course of events is instrumental in that regard. It’s clear that she’s experienced no shortage of trauma in her life, including abandonment and neglect from her parents and sexual abuse by nearly every male in her life, including her older brother.

This information is integral in how we as an audience understand and process what Robin talks about during her interview. Thus far she’s always been presented as a shady figure that can’t be trusted to tell the truth. As you point out Terry, the opening of the episode (and previous episodes) even goes so far as to present her as something of a mastermind: a criminal genius who outsmarted all of the police detectives working on the case.

The reality is, seemingly, something far more mundane: she lied to protect herself and to protect other women in Fall River by removing the predatory men who would do them harm.

In that capacity, I liked that Fall River’s creative team didn’t use her backstory to demonize her behaviour on the stand or continue to position her as an “evil lesbian”. Robin’s backstory instead becomes context to help us understand why she would jeopardize everything to see men like Carl Drew and Andy Maltias off the streets.

Also, from what we’ve learned of the town, Robin Murphy was merely playing the same game that the corrupt and ambivalent police and DA were playing with her when they demanded she give them a suspect so the case could be closed, even when they knew that she hadn’t been at the crime scene(s).

So that’s what I liked about “Mark of the Beast.” With the positives out of the way, you’re not wrong, Terry, that this is another nearly hour-long episode in which very little is actually revealed. The introduction of a whole new predator (Maltias) and a new victim (Raposa) definitely confirms (yet again) that Fall River has been manufactured to withhold the truth in order to set up its sensational cliffhangers. And that’s frustrating as a viewer, because it’s manipulative. Combine that with the feeling that the story is being padded and drawn out, and so much of Fall River winds up feeling (at best) a total slog and (at worst) unnecessary.

Now we’re down to wire. With only one episode left, I’m genuinely curious: without another episode to set up a cliffhanger for, will the series deliver some kind of exclamation mark to cap all of this off? I don’t dare hold my breath for a Jinx-style revelation, but based on the wheel spinning we’ve seen in the first three episodes, I’m concerned we won’t even get a modicum of closure.

I guess we’ll find out when we return to QueerHorrorMovies for the fourth and final episode, “Into Hell.”