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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
14
Mixed:
15
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
TV Guide MagazineJun 5, 2020
Season 2 Review:
Riveting. ... Peet scorches the screen. [8 - 21 Jun 2020, p.5]
Jun 2, 2020
Season 2 Review:
The success of this USA series (whose first anthology season curiously aired on Bravo) hinges on Peet’s fantastic portrayal. ... Showrunner Alexandra Cunningham never forgets whose story she is telling, and Dirty John is the TV equivalent of a compelling page turner.
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Jun 1, 2020
Season 2 Review:
The tragic consequences of Betty and Dan’s story hangs over Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story from the beginning, elevating the series from a possible Lifetime knockoff to a realistic and unforgettable portrayal of mental breakdown, casting Amanda Peet in a new dramatic light.
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Jun 24, 2020
Season 2 Review:
Amanda Peet’s performance is more than enough to put Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story on a season pass. But Broderick’s story is an intriguing one, and it looks like it’ll be told in a way that will show that some of her simmering rage didn’t just come out of the blue.
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RogerEbert.comJun 8, 2020
Season 2 Review:
It’s too easy to say something like ‘the layers have layers,’ but there’s perhaps no better way of describing what Peet and Cunningham jointly accomplish here. ... While Betty’s performance gets much less convincing, Peet’s just keeps getting better and better. There is not a moment wasted, not a single line or non-verbal reaction not fully explored for all its potential. It is, and in this case this is a compliment, utterly exhausting to watch. The same isn’t necessarily true of the other characters.
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The Daily BeastJun 2, 2020
Season 2 Review:
Revisiting the case that started it all with the kind of treatment Dirty John gives it—at times compassionate and introspective, at other times leaning into beats of outrageousness—is a delicate act, one that wouldn’t work without Amanda Peet as Betty. She is very, very good, somehow playing all sides of the tonal kaleidoscope here at once, differing depending from which angle you look at it.
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TV Guide MagazineNov 26, 2018
Season 1 Review:
This series is cautionary escapism at its juiciest. [26 Nov - 9 Dec 2018, p.8]
May 22, 2020
Season 2 Review:
It is [good]... and then it isn't. You sense lawsuits being avoided in the flat portrayals of the Broderick children. ... Peet plays confused desperation to the hilt, but the awkward structure of this eight-part saga turns her rage repetitive.
The actual act of killing gets morseled out as a tension-crating Big Reveal, fodder fro flash-forwards and cliffhangers. [Jun 2020, p.87]
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Nov 20, 2018
Nov 21, 2018
Season 1 Review:
Dirty John doesn't hold any creative surprises for those familiar with the case, and it doesn't break any conventions amply established by, say, Investigation Discovery or Oxygen. That doesn't make it worthless, mind you. It has all the makings of a frivolous, ephemeral good time, a spiky bauble made to stand out among television's soft December offerings.
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ColliderNov 21, 2018
Season 1 Review:
Dirty John is very entertaining, though it’s not without faults. It doesn’t dig very deep, or present Debra’s daughters as full characters (their main roles are to look confused or upset, which is a waste of big talent), and its storytelling can be a little convoluted. But it never claims to be high art.
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Jun 2, 2020
Season 2 Review:
If there's any real reason to recommend Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story, it's to appreciate the sheer range and volume of characterizations Peet gets to offer. ... I'm not sure how many viewers, especially viewers with no memories of the original case, are likely to be as tolerant in the search for meaning as I was.
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Nov 26, 2018
Season 1 Review:
Director Jeffrey Reiner gives this a ‘90s soap patina that works--to a point. The intelligence that Britton and Bana provide gets shoved aside in favor of scenes that look like they couldn’t possibly be true (but are). When “Dirty John” begins to unravel, we lose interest and feel as duped as Debra.
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Nov 20, 2018
Season 1 Review:
Dirty John is little more than a fancy Lifetime movie. ... There is some pleasure in watching the inevitable unfold, particularly since the cast is solid. Britton is, as usual, a sympathetic lead, even if her character is written to be shallow. And, as her daughters, Juno Temple and Julia Garner are formidable. ... As with Debra, John is written as a flat bad guy whose deeper drives are inscrutable.
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IndieWireNov 26, 2018
Jun 1, 2020
Season 2 Review:
Peet gives her all to a role that doesn’t respond in kind. The problem, here, may be that the Betty Broderick story — previously brought to TV in “A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story,” which got Meredith Baxter an Emmy nomination in 1992 — is both outsized and small.
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Nov 14, 2018
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