Dirty John

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.

It’s a compassionate telling, one that teeters on the right side of empathy for a heinous convicted killer who was, also, a broken woman.

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.

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.

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.

What this scripted true-crime story may lack in surprise, it makes up for in its nuance, especially in the latter half of the season, as well as in its go-for-beyond-broke performance by Amanda Peet as Betty.

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.

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]

Peet's career-best performance is perfectly paired with Slater's appropriately stoic and conniving portrayal, effortlessly delivering a grade-A depiction of gaslighting, sometimes to the beat of a fun Neil Diamond song.

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.