I finally got around to watching Evil Genius: The True Story of America's Most Diabolical Bank Heist - The true crime series based on the pizza bomber case.
I still haven't been able to quite get it out of my mind, and I come away with a lot of conflicting feelings about the documentary series.
The sheer insanity of the story, the magnitude of the crime and the fascinating key players in the story make this a compelling watch with still many unanswered questions that continue to make you guessing - who, how and what.
Over the 4 episodes we hear time and time again what a master manipulator Marge is... and maybe she is... but so are the makers of this documentary. And here is where I had problems with the doc.
In one of the episodes we see a courtroom sketch artist explain that when the trial started he drew Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong more sinister, focusing on her crazy features... but as it progressed he learned more of her story and got a better feeling of who she was as a person and therefore started to draw her softer.
This switch never occurred during the making (or should I say editing decisions) of the documentary. We get introduced to Marge as a person who "has never been normal" and the rest of the doc consists of trying to hammer that point home. That despite Trey's years of letters exchanged and faked friendship with Marge... often down-right bragging in the narration about betraying her trust time and time again for the sake of the documentary. Making it all feel dishonest and exploitative. The moment a documentary and it's makers start coming over as dishonest people you can't help but quickly lose faith in everything they tell you. I'm not suggesting that Marge is innocent and she could very well be the "evil genius" who masterminded the elaborate bank-robbery and murder of of Brian Wells. But even so, I can't help but feel that in many instances her full story was never told. Instead what we do get to see is a perfectly staged piece of sensationalism that IMO often lacks objectivity.
Worth watching, but also highly infuriating at points.
