The Act Series is Serious Nightmare Fodder. The Act can be found over on Hulu. And I’m only taking a moment out to tell you that you should definitely be cautious going in on this one. I watched this series with my wife and had no idea what I was getting into. And personally, the number of sheer hours of nightmares this series caused made it 100% not worth it. I HATED IT. And yet… I hated it like I loved to hate watching an explosion and the fire and the chaos it spewed and I hated it like I couldn’t look away.
Quick The Act Overview
Dee Dee Blanchard is overly protective of her daughter, Gypsy. And by overly protective, I don’t mean the standard definition of helicopter parent. No. What we are talking about here earns her the meritorious distinction of being in the top ten worst parents of all time. We are talking about levels of mental and physical abuse that knows no bounds. Sure, her abuse is coated in saccharine sweet platitudes, and gloriously seeming efforts of affection and love. But really? I’d go so far as to say… Dee Dee deserved her exit from the planet. Okay, maybe not. But it was close. REALLY close.
Basically Gypsy, who believes herself to be sick. Very sick. Is gradually learning more and more about the world of lies she’s been told as she’s grown up under her mother’s authoritarian rule. She lives in a wheel chair… but guess what, she can walk just fine. So, what is that all about? She has a feeding tube… because she’s been told by her mother… um something medically. She is deathly allergic to sweets. And yet she pounds sugar and soda all night while her mother is sleeping. Something truly false is going on here. Something truly terrible is going on here. And ultimately it is all about control. Dee Dee is afraid and is in desperate need for her daughter’s love, and the praise of the community that will build her houses, donate to their “cause,” provide her a free living, etc., etc. But ultimately, it feels like the thing she is most desperate for is the physical need that her daughter has on her.
And as Gypsy grows more and more independent (relative term) from her mother, she begins to realize the trap that she is in. A trap she only thought she could escape by killing her mother. Or, having her mother killed.
Personal Thoughts on the Film
Personally, I thought the show was much easier to watch after Patricia Arquette took her leave from the show. She was making me physically ill – like nauseous – just couldn’t cope with the levels of evil that she was spewing in such a putridly sweet, and horribly “beneficial” way. I know that the show and the real life story diverge somewhat, and generally I like to do compare/contrasting lists of how they diverge, but I just couldn’t for this show. Personally done thinking about it! Hahah. But I do know that the show was based on a 2016 BuzzFeed article that brought the story about the 2015 murder to light. Personally, I wouldn’t watch this particular show if I were you and I could rewind time. But maybe you are intrigued and like nightmares? I don’t know. But don’t say you weren’t warned!
Edited by: CY
