Perception Is Reality

The Betty Broderick story has been made into a TV series several times already. Having already watched this craziness a couple of times before, this was a rehash. I also remember the actual events, having lived in Southern California at the time.

Betty did a lot of bizarre things during her breakup with her husband, but there was not enough to fill out 8 episodes. I'm hopeful season 3 will be more exciting.

I've watched the Meredith Baxter miniseries probably a dozen times since it first came out. That seemed very dan Md Linda empathetic (though them being dead does deserve a degree of sympathy). This newer telling of the stories fills in some gaps for us the audience, particularly regarding money. Yes Betty should be entitled to some degree of property gained while married but at the end of the day, she didn't want her kids unless she got that money. There's some level of psychosis in that line of thinking. Never once does she think it prudent to get a job and make her own money.

In our state, to divorce with kids the adults must complete a parenting course, I suspect because of cases like this. Betty loses all credibility when she makes her children to cry or makes them a party to the divorce with the phone messages she knows they hear.

Was Dan Broderick mister hero upstanding citizen? I highly doubt it. But that didn't give Betty the right to kill him or his wife. This program did a good job showing g the psychosis Betty was experiencing. Definitely helped fill in some gaps.

With the first season wrapping up it's story nicely, the "Dirty John" producers have decided to go down the anthology route, with this second season involving entirely different characters, a new story and even a different time period.

Having raised several children together and supported him as he completed both medical and law school, Betty Broderick (Amanda Peet) is devastated when her husband Dan leaves her for his secretary Linda Kolkena (Rachel Keller). As Dan is prominent in the legal community and is Betty's primary financial provider he's able to manipulate the separation and divorce to his advantage, something that the increasingly unstable Betty reacts to badly, beginning a campaign of abuse and damage that escalates to the darkest of places.

Before I talk about the season, it's a little hard to define what the "Dirty John" brand of is actually about. The John Meehan case is clearly one of a profession con-artist defrauding a naive woman, you might anticipate that the series would continue to highlight real life con-artist stories, but instead the Betty Broderick story us much more a case of two people, each of which try to damage the other that escalates to a tragic conclusion for all involved. There's not much of a link between the two seasons.

That said in an of itself this was an excellent portrayal of a marriage that was unequal from day one and the performances, particularly from Amanda Peet are really strong. The series jumps around in time, showing us a younger version of the couple, meeting and starting their lives together, right up to the trial that explains to us early that the story ends in murder. The recreation of 80's technology and fashion is pretty well done and the show does a good job of explaining the nuances of the story, without categorically judging either main character as being "the bad guy" - although perhaps it's better to say that they neither is the "good guy".

Interested to see if a third season does happen, and what story is chosen.

The moral of the last episode seems to be that it's OK to kill people who abuse you, and perhaps it is... when it's real abuse. My point is that most of what Betty considered abuse was such only in her deranged mind. As shown in this episode, Betty got the support of many other women scorned, "scorned" being key word here, not "abused".

Abuse refers to sever mental and physical violence, inflicted willingly. It seems like most of what Dan was guilty of was greed. His actions were motivated by his attempts to improve his life, keep most of the money he earned and go on living with his new love. His actions were not motivated by a desire to inflict pain to Betty. As hurtful it is to be rejected for someone else, younger or otherwise, we've all been there at some stage and the vast majority of us does not act on the impulse of killing the straying partner.

The vast majority learns to move on and think about something else, instead of obsessing and navel-gazing. Despite a huge effort from the writers, I just don't buy into the "poor abused Betty" theory and the pseudo-feminist stance of the victimised woman who did the only thing she could, short of suicide, to survive in a man's world.