LukeCustomer2

Though it was overall a good exploration of the story of the Night Stalker... it was missing something crucial... the Night Stalker.

This documentary is 100% exclusively from the view of the cops and frankly that is a little boring. The point of any serial killer documentary is to find out about the serial killer. So, at the very least you can avoid someone like him in the future.

I understand that this was done on purpose to avoid giving media to the stalker but ... you can just go elsewhere for it. We get all of the bad parts but none of the good. We are still presented with all of horrors the man did... but we get no background about the actual man. We get to find out that the cops made some major mistakes which could have saved many people's lives.

It was also too long. Just being the cops it should have been 2 episodes not four.

But it isn't. It has a pretty good premise... telling a story 1/2 as a television sitcom and 1/2 a real world drama. That is done well and on occasion... very funny. But 90% of this series is dark.

The story concerns Allison McRoberts. The ongoing suffering wife to the man child Kevin. They live in the very working class Worcester Mass. Allison just wants to grow up and live a sane life but Kevin is the man child that most sitcoms have. She finally loses it when she finds out Kevin has spent all their money on stupidity. But, and this is where the show lost me, decides to kill her husband.

Why kill? Why not divorce? Ok I can see that she would get money / house from death easier than divorce.... but it is murder! They never really explained it well and makes the character come off unsympathetic. The entire first season concerns this plot.

The second season basically deals with the consequences of the first season but I believe strongly that the network forced some storylines that didn't make sense for the characters. One character has mental health issues from learning about the attempts on Kevin. But that made no sense because... the "attempts" never put anyone he cared about in danger and frankly... were in no way traumatic enough to cause mental health issues.

There are other illogical things happening in season two but it works better than expected because of the way it ends with Allison getting out and Kevin's unbridled stupidity leading to his downfall all on his own.

I had hoped perhaps smarter points might have been made - such as that Kevin was a bafoon but Allison has a helpless mentality, but alas, the no smart points were made here.

After watching this I felt the urge to go outside and just start screaming in anger. What a horrible thing that happened here. However, unlike most Netflix documentaries this one did have the appropriate story for its run time and didn't offer tons of filler. Every 30 minutes or so there is a new and shocking revelation.

Cathy made an unimaginable choice.. to give up her baby daughter (10 months) for adoption because she felt (with the encouragement of her mom) it would be the right thing to do. Instead of them giving her daughter a great home... they send her to live with monsters who, frankly, you probably could have figured out were monsters.

(what happened in the 70s?)

More than 20 years later Cathy learns her daughter is missing and sadly starts putting together the pieces of what happened to her and, in the end, gets justice for her daughter.

I do actually think Cathy was the hero here. No one (including the police) seemed to be doing much until she got involved. And that involvement not only got her daughter justice but other families as well.