The Truth About Jim

Between the mother who basically called her daughter a liar in the most passive aggressive manner, who ignore countless red flags, who couldn't see what was happening right in front of her, even though he threatened to kill her more times than could be counted, and pretends everything is just fine. You're at least 70, it's blatantly apparent you haven't a lick of sense in your head, despite your years of life.

The granddaughter (Sierra) who seemingly is too completely moronic, I half expected the person she went to with her discoveries to be a psychic. She keeps claiming to not want to bother people, but doesn't bother to do a single bit of research into families of murder victims with no answers, and how desperately they cling to the hope that some day they'll finally get the answer to all the questions. She's constantly putting HER BARE HANDS all over every piece of physical evidence with no thoughts as to evidentiary integrity. She spends far too much time talking about pointless drivel that has no bearing on what this absolute abomination did. WHY DID SHE NOT IMMEDIATELY GO TO LAW ENFORCEMENT? I swear to God all she ever says is 'I'm so freaked out right now!' It's like the worst Scooby-Doo episode ever. So this entire 4-episode snoozefest was an attempt to grift off of Zodiac? STOP. IT.

The daughter who's the mom of Sierra (Shannon)- they disposed of an entire box of possible trophies of victims of Jim, because they were just tired of it all? WHAT?! So there's all these CHILDREN who died and you could hold the key to it all and just 'screw it, I think I took it to a thrift store or something!', like it's totally normal and understandable.

This so-called Zodiac 'expert' by whose account exactly? Because he wrote a book? These people seek out their victims for specific reasons-murderers don't just turn their entire MO on a dime, going from couples to children.

This entire series is so much blather that it's stunning to think it was stretched into FOUR EPISODES. It's not shocking at all that this complete snore is from Ron Howard and Brian Grazer- (what ever happened to Grazer's #MeToo claims?) these two have taken what could have been good subjects to cover and turned them into something that came straight from TMZ or National Enquirer, and spat out over-produced, tacky nonsense that works better for falling asleep than anything remotely related to engrossing television.

This documentary had no business being stretched into four episodes, and perhaps due to its extended nature it seems to never quite get to the point. It seems primarily to be a vanity piece for its main subject, Sierra, but fails to explore the nuance behind what is driving her "investigation." Jim was clearly a bad man, but watching the women in his life speculate about things he may or may not have done now that he is long dead feels regressive rather than empowering. It lingers on long drawn out scenes of mothers and daughters reminiscing on Jim's impact on their lives, though it didn't feel to me as the viewer like it was particularly healing for them to do so, even as the documentary attempts to manufacture a storyline of familial healing.

This documentary had ample opportunity to take an academic look at cycles of abuse among generations, the role of women as family healers & documentarians, or even could have explored the making the project itself as a coping mechanism for its subjects, but instead it takes a one dimensional view of Sierra and her family.

I would not call this documentary true crime but instead reality tv. A family documents their attempts to pin infamous murders on their late grandfather (who doesn't even have a criminal record) with no proof other than that he was a bad guy. It's obvious that Jim is not a good person, but that a serial killer does not make. The links are tenuous at best and commentary from all family members is wildly speculative. The documenter cannot provide any conclusion due to this lack of evidence and so it makes you wonder why you're watching at all. A hard pass for any true crime or good tv fan, this is just opinions.

No spoilers here as Jim was not Hitler's baby and really not sure what he was besides a mean guy ag studies teacher as the entire series is conjecture and speculation. I believe he was probably abusive to people and the rest I just have nothing to go on because the series gives us nothing to go on. The detective-narrator, Sierra Barter only tertiarily knows him and tends to be overemotional either for the cameras or herself but it just drags the series to a crawl and is the part that feels disingenuous. And what we are presented with are just basic descriptors of any rural person. Knew how to raise and slaughter animals, knew local area and backroads, carried a knife in the truck, use farm phrasology to threaten etc. It all probably sounds bad to a city person but I have frankly seen and heard much worse about people in the Publix checkout line. Anyway there are a PILE of these kinda murder pr0m docs so just watch something else. It really jumps the shark in the last episode and part of the third. (zomg what was the 20 mins of the lake scene???). I also cannot get over the fact that both HBO and Max signed off on this longwinded story. You know what most serial killers don't have? Hours of film footage (70s pre youtube and phones was a big deal heck my parents probably have a total of ten mins of me growing up) with the family doing family things, a cancer razor, and a cadre of live people aka survivors to talk about them. Sorry I just had to get that part out as it really stuck throughout the series. ALLLLLL of that home footage... Even if this was a podcast I would have been disappointed. I dunno if the powers that be are going to make this a returning series of some sort, but hope it goes through more production scrutiny before we are faced with hours of Sierra sitting in places, open mouthed, and trying to make sense of some feelings or buying a mocha latte (as you do) on your way to visit your mom because the drive is super stressful or her mom has severe IBS issues and keeps coffee out of her house as it is demon poop juice. And finally hire another private eye to put together a nice Kinkos murder info packet for the federales lol. Maybe it is meant to be a Steel Magmolias kinda old women are strong movie but it just feels like the vibe is off the entire way through. I throw my hands up at this one.

Is this a joke now? It's devolved into something quite silly, which is unfortunate - I feel it's a sad state of affairs that the mighty HBO / max cosigned on this documentary - granted this was a bad man, objectively even for the times he was in - I have no doubt that his sexual predation was real and traumatized several girls - but I don't see the violent tendencies to suggest he would escalate and in truth had commited serial killings back in the early 70s, Statistically him stopping entirely, is extremely rare and unlikely - especially having been in gold health, having opportunities and not being incarcerated - the documentarian (if you can call her that, and I'm sorry for saying that) often puts words into peoples mouths, never consulted law enforcement nor any professionals of any kind, save for one PI late in her exploits - this in itself is terribly troubling to why the viewer should take stock - perhaps she had and didn't like what she found? Furthermore, and this is big for me, notice the staged meetings and interviews - (obviously HBO lent it's might as a studio in the form of cameramen and editors etc etc) many of these 'first time meetings' were filmed with multiple cameras that had to be set up long before she arrives - these meetings are at best recreations of the original event and at worst, produced and loosely scripted - finally I'd like to add my take on how part of this came to be - SADLY I feel the mother / Jim's step daughter, so fervently indoctrinated her daughter with this fear and caution (albeit warrented), at such a young age, that she did not even need to be told, she could intuit her mother's trepidation, this alone is enough for a formative human to create these core memories that color much of her subsequent years - HOWEVER, this much is true - Sierra has been victimized over and over and over and as she stated, she felt that only her mother cared at all - well I care about you Sierra - I may be critical of this project but I absolutely care about you! I.