A fish that can walk, surfing hippos, and many more fascinating creatures are featured in what President Barack Obama calls a celebration of our planet’s greatest national parks and wilderness. Netflix just released a gorgeous new trailer and poster for Our Great National Parks, a five-part documentary series narrated by President Obama that explores our world and showcases the extraordinary creatures that inhabit it.
Our Great National Parks will launch on Netflix on April 13, 2022.
Barack Obama, James Honeyborne, and Tonia Davis serve as executive producers, with Sophie Todd producing. The docuseries is a Wild Space Production in association with Higher Ground Productions and Freeborne Media.
Our Great National Parks Details, Courtesy of Netflix:
From the executive producer of Blue Planet II comes Our Great National Parks, a breathtaking five-part series executive produced and narrated by President Barack Obama — who protected more public lands and waters than any other U.S. President in history — that invites viewers to experience nature in the world’s most iconic national parks. Spanning five continents, the series brims with wonder, humor, and optimism as each episode tells the story of a national park through the lives of its wildest residents — both big and exceptionally small — and explores our changing relationship with wilderness.
Traveling from the waters of Monterey Bay, California, to the bright red soil of Kenya’s Tsavo National Park, the lush rainforests of Indonesia’s Gunung Leuser National Park, the majestic terrain of Chilean Patagonia, and more, Our Great National Parks beckons us to get out and explore, create new ways for these wild places to thrive, and vigorously preserve them for future generations to come.
In collaboration with Higher Ground Productions and Freeborne Impact, the Wildlife Conservation Society and Count Us In will launch a campaign to activate inspired audiences to learn more about nature protection and its many benefits to human, animal and climate health. Using the social hashtag #WildForAll, interested viewers can share the wild spaces in their personal lives while learning about the spaces others enjoy — all toward the goal of ultimately making a meaningful change for our world. To learn more, please visit WildForAll.org.
THE 64th ANNUAL GRAMMY AWARDS logo (Photo: 2021 CBS Broadcasting, Inc)
The Recording Academy has begun to roll out their star-studded lineup of performers set for the 64th Annual Grammy Awards, following through on their March 14, 2022 tease announcing the first batch would be revealed on March 15th.
The first wave of performers includes two-time Grammy nominees BTS, with their upcoming performance marking the third time the global supergroup has performed at the Grammys. They performed their smash hit “Dynamite” at the 2020 Grammy Awards long distance from Seoul, South Korea due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This year they’ll be performing live and in person. The group first performed on the Grammys stage as special guests of Grammy Award winner Lil Nas X in 2019.
BTS is nominated in the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance category for the second straight year.
Brothers Osborne will also be taking the stage to perform in addition to competing in the Best Country Duo/Group Performance and Best Country Album categories. Six-time Grammy winner Brandi Carlile is also confirmed to perform and is nominated in the Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year, Best Pop Solo Performance, and Best American Roots Performance categories.
Seven-time Grammy winner and current nominee Billie Eilish – Record Of The Year, Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year, Best Pop Solo Performance, Best Pop Vocal Album, Best Music Video, and Best Music Film for Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter To Los Angeles – is among the first batch of performers announced to grace the Grammys stage.
Lil Nas X with Jack Harlow and first-time Grammy nominee Olivia Rodrigo complete the initial group of confirmed artists.
Two-time Grammy winner Lil Nas X is nominated for Record Of The Year, Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year, Best Melodic Rap Performance, and Best Music Video. Jack Harlow has two nominations this year in the Best Melodic Rap Performance and Album of The Year categories for his work on Montero.
Former Disney star Olivia Rodrigo is up for seven Grammy Awards – Record Of The Year, Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year, Best New Artist, Best Pop Solo Performance, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Music Video.
The 64th Grammy Awards were originally scheduled to be held on January 31st in Los Angeles, California, but were pushed back due to Omicron. The Grammys moved to April 3, 2022 and will now air live on CBS from the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah will handle hosting duties for the second consecutive year. (The CMT Awards were supposed to take place on that same night but have been pushed to April 11, 2022.)
Music fans will have to stay tuned as there hasn’t been any official indication of when the next batch of performers will be announced.
Disney+ just unveiled a nearly two-minute trailer for the upcoming superhero series Ms. Marvel. The trailer provides the first look at Kamala Kahn (aka Ms. Marvel) as she attempts to figure out how to handle the stress of high school along with learning to deal with her super powers.
The trailer’s release was accompanied by a new poster and photos from the upcoming first season of Marvel Studios’ Ms. Marvel. In addition, Disney+ confirmed the series will premiere on June 8, 2022.
Iman Vellani leads the cast as Kamala Khan. Aramis Knight, Saagar Shaikh, Rish Shah, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Matt Lintz, Yasmeen Fletcher, Laith Nakli, Azhar Usman, Travina Springer, and Nimra Bucha also star in season one.
Bisha K. Ali is the head writer and Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah, Meera Menon, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy direct. Executive producers include Ali, Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, and Victoria Alonso.
Disney+ released the following plot description:
“Marvel Studios’ Ms. Marvel is a new, original series that introduces Kamala Khan, a Muslim American teenager growing up in Jersey City. An avid gamer and a voracious fan-fiction scribe, Kamala is a Super Hero mega fan with an oversized imagination — particularly when it comes to Captain Marvel. Yet Kamala feels like she doesn’t fit in at school and sometimes even at home — that is, until she gets super powers like the heroes she’s always looked up to. Life gets better with super powers, right?”
A young patient forms a special attachment to Shaun on ABC’s The Good Doctor season five episode 11. Directed by Mina Shum from a script by Jessica Grasl and David Renaud, episode 11 – “The Family” – will air on Monday, March 21, 2022 at 10pm ET/PT.
The cast of season five features Freddie Highmore as Dr. Shaun Murphy, Antonia Thomas as Dr. Claire Browne, Hill Harper as Dr. Marcus Andrews, and Richard Schiff as Dr. Aaron Glassman. Christina Chang plays Dr. Audrey Lim, Fiona Gubelmann is Dr. Morgan Reznick, Will Yun Lee is Dr. Alex Park, and Paige Spara stars as Lea Dilallo.
“The Family” Plot: Dr. Shaun Murphy makes a personal connection with a precocious young patient which threatens his objectivity. Meanwhile, while volunteering at a long-term care facility, Dr. Morgan Reznick realizes she could help Dr. Aaron Glassman’s clinic by offering telemedicine services for nursing homes and care facilities.
The Good Doctor Description, Courtesy of ABC:
Dr. Shaun Murphy (Highmore), a young surgeon with autism and savant syndrome, continues to use his extraordinary medical gifts at St. Bonaventure Hospital’s surgical unit. As his friendships deepen, Shaun tackles the world of dating for the first time and continues to work harder than he ever has before, navigating his environment to prove to his colleagues that his talents as a surgeon will save lives.
Noah Galvin, Bria Henderson, Paige Spara and Freddie Highmore in ‘The Good Doctor’ season 5 episode 11 (ABC/Jeff Weddell)Will Yun Lee and Fiona Gubelmann in season 5 episode 11 (ABC/Jeff Weddell)Isla Rose Hall and Freddie Highmore in season 5 episode 11 (ABC/Jeff Weddell)Hill Harper, Fiona Gubelmann, and Richard Schiff in season 5 episode 11 (ABC/Jeff Weddell)Freddie Highmore in season 5 episode 11 (ABC/Jeff Weddell)Freddie Highmore and Isla Rose Hall in season 5 episode 11 (ABC/Jeff Weddell)
Joseph Cataldo (Michael Mosley) and Michelle Carter (Elle Fanning) in ‘The Girl From Plainville’ (Photo by: Steve Dietl/Hulu)
Elle Fanning (The Great) stars as Michelle Carter, the teenager at the center of the 2017 texting suicide case, in Hulu’s The Girl from Plainville premiering on March 29, 2022. Based on a true story, the limited series delves into the relationship between Michelle and Conrad “Coco” Roy III (played by Colton Ryan), a troubled young man who ultimately took his own life after receiving text messages from Michelle encouraging him to go through with it.
Michelle was ultimately convicted of involuntary manslaughter for her role in her 18-year-old boyfriend’s death. She began serving a 15-month sentence in early 2019 but was released in January 2020, earning three months off her sentence because of good behavior in jail.
During the 2022 Television Critics Association’s winter press tour, Elle Fanning described why she was interested in taking on the role.
“I think for me what attracted me to the project in the first place was I’m a young person living today and that relationship that I have with technology, and with my phone, and with kind of that false sense of intimacy, and false sense of reality that that creates. I grew up in high school with kind of that obsession and I’d look at my phone every morning. We all do. And, for me, it was diving deeper into how technology affected these two people. Especially with Michelle, she was very much alone. And meeting Conrad, that relationship sparked that kind of instant gratification that you feel. That can be a dark place to live in.
For me, research-wise…Jessie (Barron)’s article is what the show is based off of. We have the documentary as well (and) a lot of YouTube footage. So, I had a lot of research to pull from in creating Michelle, but, at the same time, we don’t know everything,” said Fanning. “And I think that’s what this show is hopefully going to do best is look deeper into those headlines and put ourselves in those characters’ positions. As an actor, I guess, it’s always what you try to do.”
Fanning continued: “It was definitely a big challenge to balance wanting to be sensitive and feeling a responsibility of playing real people but at the same time having to create a character that is all of our own and feeling these emotions from a truthful place. You try to create that and there’s a lot involved.”
Co-showrunners and executive producers Liz Hannah and Patrick Macmanus aren’t attempting to relitigate the case with The Girl from Plainville. Instead, they wanted to dig deeper into Michelle, Conrad, and their families beyond what’s been shown in the media.
“I think the media has a tendency to vilify young women and that was something that absolutely happened with Michelle Carter, right or wrong. And so we felt that we had an opportunity to explore more than just the circus of that,” said Hannah.
“I’ll just add on top of that, that when Liz and I first got together to create this show and portray this story, we actually were very much in line from the very beginning about the idea that we didn’t want to present a specific point of view as to what the creatives would have thought was guilt or innocence across the board,” explained Macmanus. “One of the things – and again, to piggyback off of what Elle said quite eloquently is that there was a lot that was left out in the case that we were able to explore. And that from our perspective as creatives, we had no interest in either vilifying or in holding up any of these people, right? […] From the teenagers to the parents, our goal from the very beginning was to present a dramatization of this story and to use all the thousands of text messages, all the hundreds of pages of depositions, all the hundreds of pages of interviews as our guidepost to be able to present a full and true story.”
Asked if being involved with The Girl from Plainville has affected how he feels about social media and technology, Colton Ryan replied, “I think my own personal relationship with social media, and I think anyone’s, deserves a certain level of eyebrow-raising. And I think that’s what this story and the way we’re telling it kind of asks us to do. This whole thing upon watching it feels like a morality play, in terms of how it approaches the way we value our lives online versus in the real world, how we find ourselves, and the consequences that come with trying to find it online versus authentically.
And so, yeah, I think with that, you can imagine that the way I’m even approaching posting today, it always is everchanging. And I think that’s what I kind of hope other people have when they’re watching the show, as well.”
Chloe Sevigny, who stars as Conrad’s mother Lynn Roy, expanded on that and said, “Even more so than social media, I mean, how we communicate, how we text, this show is really an examination of that. I had a girlfriend over the other night who’s around my age in her 40s and she’s dating a new man. He didn’t text her back in an hour, and she was like having a breakdown. And I was like, ‘Listen, you’re a successful woman. He might be busy. He may be…’ It’s just like we’re so used to instantaneous response that we get triggered so easily. And I think that this show is really important to examine how we communicate now, be it texts, be it emails, this pressure to respond immediately, just how fast everything is moving.”
Fanning’s impressed with how the limited series also addresses bullying.
“Especially social media, texts, what not, it’s so much easier – and I think you’ll see this in the show – how much easier it is for people to say things behind a screen. And you can kind of create this world that isn’t real where you have no consequences for what you say. If it’s comments on Instagram or typing a nasty thing, texting nasty things to people, and that’s something…not that it’s necessarily a cautionary tale, but it’s like people really need to know that those words don’t go away. People are reading those words and reacting to them or taking them to heart or they’re being hurt from that, and tragedies can really come from it. So our weapon, honestly, in the show are two phones, which is really modern — it’s what we’re living in today. It’s interesting,” said Fanning.
Elle Fanning as Michelle Carter in ‘The Girl from Plainville’ (Photo by: Steve Dietl/Hulu)
Michelle Carter was a “Gleek” and including her love of Glee was important in telling the teenager’s story. Hannah went into every pitch for The Girl from Plainville making it clear they wanted to include Glee in the limited series.
“We all, I think, took from the article and then more so even through the texts and the case just how enamored she was by Glee and how much it affected her life,” explained Hannah. “So that was definitely something that we walked in with that before we wrote anything we wanted to make sure that we would be able to do it. Luckily, Hulu was very helpful in making that happen, so we were really lucky and fortunate that our team at Hulu and at Universal were able to happily be a part of the show.”
Fanning couldn’t wait to dig her teeth into that aspect of Michelle’s personality.
“In the pilot…like the last scene of the pilot when I read that, that was phew, that was the one scene that I was so excited to do. I think because it summarizes so much just in that moment about this character. […] I think the reason that she and probably so many of us young people loved Glee or love Fault in Our Stars or the YA world is because you can be the star of that show. You can put yourself in that fantasy and it’s such an escape for people who feel alone, or they get to be the popular girl. They get to be that girl for just a second while for those, you know, for how long the episode is, or how long the movie is. I think that our show also kind of incorporates like pop culture the way that it does, it shows so much about young people, and also sometimes like idolization and creating this false sense of reality for yourself to feel accepted in these worlds that you’re not in.
And so I’m so happy that Hulu helped us out there because for a while we’re like are we even going to be able to do this scene? Like, can I sing this song? I don’t know. But luckily it did work out because the whole Glee throughout is, I think, so essential. Reading Michelle’s texts in real life, you know, she was a big gleek,” said Fanning.
Hannah believes so much of Michelle and Coco’s story has to do with feeling isolated and lonely. Somehow, Glee was able to lessen that feeling of being an outsider.
“It was something that was really bittersweet to explore through Michelle’s character was this idea of inclusion through this show when she couldn’t do it in real life, or it wasn’t there in her connections with other people,” explained Hannah.
Key and Peele’sKeegan-Michael Key and Oscar winner Jordan Peele (Get Out) will lend their voices to the title characters in Netflix’s Wendell & Wild, a stop-motion animated film co-written by Peele and Oscar nominee Henry Selick (Coraline). Key and Peele’s co-stars will include Angela Bassett (Black Panther), Lyric Ross (This Is Us), and Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction).
Additional voice cast members include James Hong (Kung Fu Panda), Tamara Smart (A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting), Natalie Martinez (The Twilight Zone), Tantoo Cardinal (Dances with Wolves), Gabrielle Dennis (A Black Lady Sketch Show), Igal Naor (300: Rise of an Empire), David Harewood (Tulip Fever), Maxine Peake (Black Mirror), Ramona Young (Never Have I Ever), Sam Zelaya, Seema Virdi, and Gary Gatewood (Grimm).
Co-writer Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach) is directing and will serve as a producer along with The Gotham Group’s Ellen Goldsmith-Vein and Monkeypaw’s Peele and Win Rosenfeld. Executive producers include Kamil Oshundara, Monkeypaw’s Ian Cooper, and The Gotham Group’s Lindsay Williams and Eddie Gamarra.
Netflix released the following synopsis:
“From the delightfully wicked minds of Henry Selick and Jordan Peele, comes Wendell & Wild, an animated tale about scheming demon brothers Wendell (Keegan-Michael Key) and Wild (Peele) – who enlist the aid of 13-year-old Kat Elliot – a tough teen with a load of guilt – to summon them to the Land of the Living. But what Kat demands in return leads to a brilliantly bizarre and comedic adventure like no other, an animated fantasy that defies the law of life and death, all told through the handmade artistry of stop motion.”
Series star Bridget Moynahan makes her directorial debut with CBS’s Blue Bloods season 12 episode 17. Written by Daniel Truly, episode 17 – “Hidden Motive” – is set to air on Friday, April 1, 2022 at 10pm ET/PT.
Tom Selleck leads the cast as Frank Reagan, with Donnie Wahlberg back as Danny Reagan and Bridget Moynahan returning as Erin Reagan. Will Estes plays Jamie Reagan, Len Cariou is Henry Reagan, Sami Gayle is Nicky Reagan-Boyle, Marisa Ramirez is Det. Maria Baez, and Vanessa Ray plays Officer Eddie Janko.
Recurring season 12 cast members include Abigail Hawk, Gregory Jbara, Robert Clohessy, Steven Schirripa, Andrew Terraciano, Ian Quinlan, Erick Betancourt, and Max Weinberg.
“Hidden Motive” Plot: Frank is blindsided when Mayor Chase bypasses him with a request for Jamie to head his security detail. Also, Danny and Baez investigate the murder of a wealthy college student; Eddie experiences tension with her partner, Badillo (Quinlan), when she arrests an protestor against his wishes; and Anthony scrambles to help his half-brother when he fears money woes are leading his sibling down the wrong path.
Blue Bloods is a drama about a multi-generational family of cops dedicated to New York City law enforcement. Frank Reagan is the New York Police Commissioner, and heads both the police force and the Reagan brood. He runs his department as diplomatically as he runs his family, even when dealing with the politics that plagued his unapologetically bold father, Henry, during his stint as Chief. A source of pride and concern for Frank is his eldest son, Danny, a seasoned detective, family man and Iraq War vet who on occasion uses dubious tactics to solve cases with his partner, Detective Maria Baez. Erin, the middle daughter, is a New York Assistant D.A. who serves as the legal compass for her siblings and father.
Jamie is the youngest Reagan, a Harvard Law graduate and the family’s “golden boy.” Unable to deny the family tradition, Jamie decided to give up a lucrative future in law and follow in the family footsteps as a cop. He’s found a friend and ally in his wife, Eddie, who keeps him on his toes, and has very different reasons than the Reagans for joining the police force.
The swashbuckling cat returns in DreamWorks Animation’s new animated comedy Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Oscar nominee Antonio Banderas is confirmed to reprise his role as the little cat with a huge attitude in the first new Puss in Boots film in over a decade.
Oscar nominee Salma Hayek is also set to reprise her role as Puss’ former partner, Kitty Soft Paws. Additional confirmed cast members include Harvey Guillén (What We Do in the Shadows), Florence Pugh (Black Widow), John Mulaney (Big Mouth), and Wagner Moura (Narcos).
Olivia Colman (The Lost Daughter), Ray Winstone (Black Widow), Samson Kayo (Sliced), Anthony Mendez (Jane the Virgin) and Da’Vine Joy Randolph (Trolls World Tour) also lend their voices to animated characters.
The Croods: A New Age director Joel Crawford and producer Mark Swift bring the new tale to life, with Illumination founder/CEO Chris Meledandri executive producing.
DreamWorks Animation’s set a September 23, 2022 premiere date.
The Plot, Courtesy of DreamWorks Animation:
This fall, everyone’s favorite leche-loving, swashbuckling, fear-defying feline returns.
For the first time in more than a decade, DreamWorks Animation presents a new adventure in the Shrek universe as daring outlaw Puss in Boots discovers that his passion for peril and disregard for safety have taken their toll. Puss has burned through eight of his nine lives, though he lost count along the way. Getting those lives back will send Puss in Boots on his grandest quest yet.
Antonio Banderas returns as the voice of the notorious PiB as he embarks on an epic journey into the Black Forest to find the mythical Wishing Star and restore his lost lives. But with only one life left, Puss will have to humble himself and ask for help from his former partner and nemesis: the captivating Kitty Soft Paws (Salma Hayek).
In their quest, Puss and Kitty will be aided — against their better judgment — by a ratty, chatty, relentlessly cheerful mutt, Perro (Guillén). Together, our trio of heroes will have to stay one step ahead of Goldilocks (Pugh) and the Three Bears Crime Family, “Big” Jack Horner (Mulaney) and terrifying bounty hunter, The Big Bad Wolf (Moura).
FBI’s Alana De La Garza guest stars in season three episode 15, the first FBI: Most Wanted episode after Julian McMahon’s exit. Directed by Carlos Bernard from a script by Zach Cannon, episode 15 – “Incel” – will air on CBS on Tuesday, March 22, 2022 at 10pm ET/PT.
The season three cast includes Alexa Davalos as Special Agent Kristin Gaines, YaYa Gosselin as Natalia “Tali” LaCroix, and Roxy Sternberg as Special Agent Sheryll Barnes. Keisha Castle-Hughes plays Special Agent Hana Gibson and Miguel Gomez is Special Agent Ivan Ortiz.
“Incel” Plot: The team must track down a murderous member of the incel community targeting those he believes never give him a chance. Also, Barnes, Hana, Ortiz, and Kristin deal with their grief in the wake of Jess’ death.
FBI: Most Wanted Series Description, Courtesy of CBS:
From Emmy Award winner Dick Wolf and the team behind FBI and the Law & Order brand, FBI: Most Wanted is a high-stakes drama that focuses on the Fugitive Task Force, an elite unit that relentlessly pursues and captures the notorious criminals on the Bureau’s Most Wanted list.
Led by Supervisory Special Agent Jess LaCroix, an expert tracker and profiler with a complicated past, the team includes: Special Agent Sheryll Barnes, a former NYPD detective and forensics expert who is raising one child with her wife with another on the way; Special Agent Hana Gibson, a gifted millennial computer whiz with a sharp wit and mad hacking skills; and Special Agent Kenny Crosby, a young Army vet and brash Oklahoma farm boy who specializes in weapons and tactics; Special Agent Ivan Ortiz, a transplant from Los Angeles with a street cop’s instincts and a gift for undercover work; and their newest member, Special Agent Kristin Gaines, a Navy veteran who became a star in the FBI’s Miami Field Office as a result of her dogged pursuit of cold cases.
Always in the field and always on the run, FBI: Most Wanted is a weekly adrenaline shot about the thrill of the chase.
Renée Zellweger as Pam Hupp in ‘The Thing About Pam’ episode 1 (Photo by: Skip Bolen/NBC)
NBC’s limited series The Thing About Pam stars Academy Award winner Renee Zellweger (nearly unrecognizable in a fatsuit) as convicted murderer Pam Hupp. Based not only on a true story but a podcast of the same name, The Thing About Pam recalls the events surrounding the murder of Betsy Faria and the wrongful conviction of her husband, Russ.
Episode one – “She’s a Good Friend” – opens with narration by NBC’s own Dateline correspondent, Keith Morrison. Jumping right into the murder without any leadup, Betsy’s shown lying dead on the floor. Her husband, Russ (Glenn Fleshler), is on the phone with 911. He tells the operator he just got home from a friend’s house and discovered his wife has killed herself.
Cue an odd montage of Pam going on about what a wonderful person she herself is. She’s a businesswoman, a loving wife, and an amazing woman.
So it begins…December 27, 2011. Pam phones Betsy (Katy Mixon) and right off the bat she’s pushy. Betsy informs her she’s good; she’s with her family and she’s happy. Pam points out she’s around a lot of germs and insists she should come and pick her up. Pam seems to practically be bullying Betsy into submission, telling her she’ll come over and take care of her. Pam also says Russ should just stay at his friend’s house. When Betsy protests Pam insists, claiming she doesn’t mind driving.
The time’s now 4:04pm as we go through the day and the events immediately prior to Betsy’s death. Her husband’s at a hardware store while Pam’s at a convenience store, getting her pop and buying a necklace. All of this is caught on camera.
At 5:30pm, Pam shows up to retrieve Betsy from her mom’s house but she’s not ready to leave. She’s having fun playing a game and Pam insists she’ll sit and wait.
Meanwhile, Russ is with his friends and texts Betsy. She informs him Pam showed up at her mom’s and will be taking her home. As Pam’s backing out of the driveway, Betsy’s mom, Janet (Suanne Spoke), comes running out saying she didn’t get a goodbye hug. Pam seems to be in a hurry and tells her next time. As they drive away, Keith Morrison chimes in, “It’s hard to tell when a goodbye will turn out to be important. Who would ever think this goodbye would turn out to be forever?”
Pam seems to be in a hurry to drive Betsy home, so much so Betsy asks her if she’ll slow down. Pam plays it off as if she didn’t know she was speeding. Pam changes the subject and suggests they watch a movie together when they get back to Betsy’s. Betsy’s simply too tired but once again Pam won’t back off. She suggests just a show then.
Betsy tells Pam she and her kids wanted her to know that Russ has been so sweet. She admits she knows Pam isn’t the biggest fan of Russ. Betsy becomes emotional, confessing she knows Pam will be there to help her girls when… She doesn’t get to finish that statement because they pull into her driveway at 7:04pm.
Pam says she has to call her husband to let him know she’s at Betsy’s; she tells her they need to leave a message together. Keith Morrison narrates the situation, saying, “Those little things like timestamps for an alibi… The question is will it stand?”
A short while later, Pam’s now alone sitting in her car as she leaves a message for Betsy letting her know she’s worried about her and wonders if she (Betsy) is mad at her or ignoring her on purpose. Pam calls Betsy’s mom, acting concerned she can’t get a hold of Betsy. She thinks Betsy might be mad at her, adding to her lie by claiming Betsy wanted her to stay and watch a movie but she insisted Betsy needed to rest. Betsy’s mother is worried she might be “in a bad space again.”
9:01pm. Russ leaves his friend’s house while Keith Morrison asks, “Leaving a friend’s house, do we notice the time? Should we?”
Russ stops off at an Arby’s before going home. As Russ throws his receipt on the floorboard of his car the camera zooms in on it, taking note of the date and time (9:09pm). He arrives home at 9:38pm and discovers not only is his dog locked outside on the front porch but his wife Betsy is dead on the floor.
Once again we’re treated to his 911 call and we hear him say, “My wife killed herself.” The operator asks how she hurt herself. He states she’s got a knife in her neck and her arms have been cut.
He’s still on the phone with the operator when the police show up and ask if there’s anyone else in the house. An officer escorts Russ outside.
More police arrive as Russ is sitting outside on the grass. An officer takes off Russ’s jacket to collect it as potential evidence. The officer then wraps him in a blanket as Russ looks at his dog through tear-stained eyes. Keith Morrison points out Russ’s beloved dog had been left outside the house.
As lead detective Ryan McCarrick (Mac Brandt) and Captain Mike Lang (Adam David Thompson) get to work inside the house, McCarrick points out one of her socks is partly hanging off while Lang notes there are signs of a struggle. Plus, the knife hanging out of her neck doesn’t seem like a suicide to them.
Right away they assume the husband did it. (It’s a well-known fact in a murder investigation the spouse/partner is always a suspect.) They both feel his 911 call was over the top. Another officer points out that Russ didn’t have a single drop of blood on him, but also states he could have washed it off. Detective McCarrick tells the officer to check every inch of the bathrooms and laundry to locate where he washed it off.
Inside the house, a detective notices some throw pillows are in a weird spot while outside Russ is being led into the back of a police car. He asks where he’s going and an officer responds, “We just need you to come down to the station and answer some questions about your wife.”
As the car drives off, the detective asks the young officer how his first homicide’s going. He admits he thought it would be harder to solve. It seems the police have blinders on, and Russ appears to have gone from number one suspect to “it’s obvious he did it” status.
While Pam and her husband, Mark (Sean Bridgers), are talking it’s obvious she’s freshly showered as she’s sporting wet hair. She’s complaining Janet got Betsy’s daughter a giant beanbag chair that must have cost a thousand dollars. The whole time Pam’s talking, she’s ironing. She suddenly stops because she burned what she was working on – a $20 bill. Apparently, she was ironing money that whole time. Pam puts that $20 in a literal piggy bank that says “Pam’s $$$”. (It’s worth noting the “s” in Pam’s is written backward and so are all three dollar signs).
Russ is taken to an interrogation room and questioned. They ask how long he and Betsy have been married and he answers 12 years. The detective suggests they must have had their problems and Russ admits they’ve had their bumps; they were even separated at one point. Russ confesses they didn’t get along for a bit, but then they found this new church and worked it out.
Detective Merkel (Jesse Scott Egan) fires off some questions including a demand to know their pastor’s name. After Russ tells him, the detective asks if he goes to Morningstar. He says he knows Pastor Mike and that he’s a great guy. The other detective continues the questioning and asks if the family gets along. Russ mentions they found out their daughter Lily stole some money from Betsy’s mom.
The detective wonders if Betsy was sick or depressed enough to kill herself. Russ reveals she had cancer. After explaining how the cancer spread to her liver, he asks if he’s allowed to use the restroom.
Keith Morrison’s back again and asks viewers, “Look at him and decide: do you see a killer? DA Leah Askey is about to decide for herself.”
Captain Lang calls DA Askey to deliver the news there’s been a homicide – a big one. He says the victim was stabbed, “I don’t know 20, maybe 60 times.” (Big difference in 20 and 60.) Lang also lets her know they have the husband for questioning right now. Askey (Judy Greer) informs him she’ll be there first thing in the morning and asks if he read him his Miranda rights. By the look on Lang’s face, the answer’s definitely no. However, he tells her yes before suddenly asking her to hold on and running off to the interrogation room.
Lang bursts through the door signaling to the other detective to step outside the room. After stepping back into the room, McCarrick eyes the camera while telling Russ to bear with him, it’s been a long day, but somehow he forgot to run over his rights with him. As he does so he keeps eyeing the camera. Russ cuts him off, questioning if he’s being arrested. He wonders if he needs a lawyer. The detective tells him, “Only if you did something wrong.”
Pam’s lying in bed the next morning when her phone rings. It’s a police officer calling to inform her of Betsy’s death. She lets the officer know her husband’s working but she’ll be home.
We see officers show up at Betsy’s mom’s house, then as Pam’s combing her wet hair her doorbell rings. Before answering the door, she grabs a tissue to begin her act. When she opens the door, she’s greeted by officers – not the detectives. Pam immediately starts questioning them about what happened to Betsy. They inform her it’s an active investigation so they aren’t at liberty to discuss details.
Mac Brandt as Detective McCarrick and Glenn Fleshler as Russ Faria in ‘The Thing About Pam’ episode 1 (Photo by: Skip Bolen/NBC)
Back in interrogation, detectives inform Russ that so far they’ve found 52 stab wounds; he’s not going to be able to convince them it’s a suicide. Russ is in shock and can’t believe his wife was murdered. “You think I did this?” asks Russ, suddenly realizing the police think he’s responsible. They ask him to go over his story one more time and specifically ask who took Betsy home. He gives them Pam’s name.
Meanwhile back at Pam’s house, she goes over her typical nights with the two officers…working at a women’s shelter, visiting her mom who has Alzheimer’s. After gaining their sympathy she lets them know that on top of that she’s been helping with Betsy by taking her to chemo appointments.
One officer circles back to the events of the prior evening. She recalls they got to Betsy’s at 6:30pm and while still in the car they left her husband a voicemail. The officer says her timeline doesn’t add up; it must have been later because the drive alone was 30 minutes. Pam tries to cover up her mistake by blaming her confusion on an accident at work in which she hit her head. Weirdly, she goes on to say she has a great memory but when she’s asked how long she and Betsy sat in her car and talked, Pam replies, “Gosh, I don’t – I don’t know, I’m not sure. I don’t remember.”
The questioning gets even stranger when she tells them Betsy stayed at her mom’s all weekend but didn’t have any clothes with her. When they ask why she stayed at her mom’s, Pam tosses in the tidbit that the house is Russ’s and he wouldn’t let Betsy put her name on the title. They ask, again, why she was staying at her mom’s. Pam claims Betsy didn’t like the drive and didn’t want to go home.
Back in the interrogation room, Russ is describing Betsy and Pam’s friendship. He’s talking about what a good person Pam is, unaware she’s telling the cops he and Betsy aren’t separated now but that would change because they have been separated six or seven times. She informs them Russ “does a lot of pot” and smokes in the house with her cancer and all. Pam claims it’s because of Russ’s temper that Betsy’s daughter Mariah moved in with Betsy’s mom. The officer asks if he was ever violent with Betsy. Pam says he was mean to her verbally.
As she elaborates on her lies, we’re treated to clips of whatever version she’s regurgitating. She now claims Russ’s car was in the driveway when she dropped Betsy off. One officer asks if Pam went inside the house and she says for a bit. The other officer points out she already said she didn’t go inside. She then says Betsy asked her to. Pam, not very good at keeping her story straight, alters her story and claims she walked her to the door because she found it strange Russ’s car was there and no lights were on.
They ask to see her phone and as they are checking it she’s willingly giving up too much information that they didn’t ask for, including what she ate when she got home.
She suggests they should look for a letter Betsy was going to send to her (Pam) about Russ putting a pillow over her face. She begins describing this bizarre story about Russ playing this game where he would put a pillow over her face and say, “This is what it’s going to be like when you die.”
Russ adamantly declares to the police he did not do this. They insist there’s too much evidence against him. They try to use Pastor Mike and his faith as a weapon against him, wondering what God would think. Russ doesn’t budge. He tells them they would know he didn’t do this.
As the officers are getting in their car Pam asks if she should be worried about Russ. They inform her they’re keeping him at the station.
DA Leah Askey shows up just as Russ is getting on his knees to pray. Lang insists Russ will break soon. She replies, “You were promoted to homicide supervisor, what, a month ago?” He corrects her and says six months. She thinks it shows. Askey asks for the autopsy report and wonders why he still hasn’t asked for a lawyer.
Pam shows up at Betsy’s mom’s house and presents her with a gift. Pam claims she bought it for her because it made her think of Betsy. This is an obvious lie as the gift is the necklace with a heart-shaped pendant we saw her purchase at the convenience store before Betsy was murdered. Janet wonders who would do this and Pam jumps at the chance to point the finger at Russ. Pam tells her the police are holding him and that they came to her house asking all kinds of questions about him. Janet insists he would never do this.
Episode one ends with Keith Morrison saying, “She’s family. She’s there for you. She’s your neighbor. She’s your friend from church. She’s the one you never see coming…but that’s the thing about Pam.”
Renée Zellweger as Pam Hupp, Judy Greer as Leah Askey, Josh Duhamel as Joel Schwartz, Katy Mixon as Betsy Faria, and Glenn Fleshler as Russ Faria in ‘The Thing About Pam’ (Photo by: Frank Ockenfels 3/NBC)
The Thing About Pam Episode One Review:
Fans of true crime, whether it be episodes of Dateline or podcasts, will either love this new series or hate it – there won’t be any middle-of-the-road reactions. Delving into actual events that inspired episodes of Dateline as well as the podcast the series is named after, The Thing About Pam attempts to build the case against Pamela Hupp while focusing on the immediate rush to judgment surrounding Betsy’s husband, Russ. The limited series mirrors the podcast, complete with narration by Dateline‘s Keith Morrison.
Here’s the thing most true crime fans aren’t into…gimmicky stories and corniness when it comes to a brutal crime. With that said, The Thing About Pam episode one has a difficult time walking that fine line of not giving in to a caricatured version of a villain. The series turns some of the investigation’s real-life participants into bizarre, dim-witted characters who seem a little too inept to be believable.
That said, the first episode had a lot of ground to cover. Episode two might do a better job of digging into the minutia and working toward a less irreverent tone, given the horrific murder at the heart of the story.
