Facing Evil

Each episode comprises former FBI profiler Candice DeLong interviewing a woman who was convicted of a terrible crime.

But - no matter that she planned the murder, pulled the trigger, was convicted of it and now admits it to camera - Ms DeLong knows she is blameless because women don't do wrong. Instead, we must find a man from the perpetrator's past to carry every ounce of culpability and, helpfully, Ms DeLong is here to identify him: the father, son, lover, ex-husband who psychologically tortured her by requesting visitation rights or lending her money when she asked for it, man whose ex she offered to kill, man she paid to pull a trigger or man who paid her to do so.

And certainly some of the men Ms DeLong identifies are terrible people... always assuming you accept the word of a convicted murderer and, as a documentary maker, why would you not?

The premise of the show, in a nutshell, is that women have no agency and no culpability for criminal actions, even those they committed. Some of the subjects profess their innocence, which helps support Ms DeLong's world view. When one makes things awkward by admitting causing harm we can safely dismiss this by saying "she is suffering from survivor guilt." The alternative - that she accepts wrongdoing because she did wrong - is unthinkable.

Exception: we learn in Season 2 Episode 1 that Ms DeLong believes that a lesbian may have partial culpability.

The premise of the show is good because you have a person who worked for the FBI interviewing real criminals actually serving prison time, however, Candice liked to go for the cheese factor or she was told to because her catch phrases could get annoying! Some of the things she said did not jive with what I had heard from other true crime experts, and it seemed to me she was a little vain when it comes to her physical appearance. Her professionalism seemed good and the criminals that were chosen for the interviews were great choices! Getting to hear directly from them what led up to their crimes and how they feel about everything now was very interesting to watch!

You'd think that an alleged former FBI profiler interviewing inmates about their crimes would result in some insight into the criminal mind, but not in this case. Either DeLong is hopelessly incompetent or "profiling" is pseudo-science made up of subjective opinions. After watching several episodes of this rubbish a good case can be made.that both are true.

In only one of the episodes I watched did DeLong actually offer any real analysis of the inmate's statements, but most of it seemed to be pretty presumptive, although it was clear her final assessment was correct. In every other episode I suffered through she came across more like a (very slightly) less unlikeable version of Nancy Grace-- spouting opinion based on answers to her inane questions, while offering no objective basis for her conclusions.

Since DeLong's commentary is mostly subjective opinion with zero scientific basis, and because she does not bother to compare inmates' claims to evidence presented at trial, let alone do any new investigating on her own, what we're left with is 20 minutes of an inmate telling viewers what they want them to hear. That gets old really quickly.

There are plenty of good True Crime shows available. This is not one of them. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did, but I'm glad it's no longer being produced.

If you've watched a lot of crime TV, you might pass by another show about a case you've seen covered multiple times.

Candice DeLong is a pro at disarming people and getting them to open up in a very unique way. It can be unnerving and exhausting to listen to some of them ramble on about their innocence when it's obvious they're guilty.

Other subjects broke my heart with their brutal honesty about what led them to kill, and their acceptance of responsibility for ending a life.

The woman who clearly acted in self defense really hit home. She knew what harm he was capable of doing, and it's a tragedy that she killed him.