"Murder In the Bayou" (2019 release; 5 episodes of about 55 min. each) is a documentary TV series about the mysterious murders of a number of women in a small Louisiana town called Jennings. As Episode 1 "A Body In the Canal" opens, it is May 20, 2005, and a guy fishing in one of the local canals finds the body of a woman, later identified as Loretta, age 28, and mother to 2 young kids. Then we go to June 17, 2005 when, believe it or not, another body is recovered from another nearby canal, this time a woman named Ernestine, age 30. Who could've done this? Meanwhile we are introduced to the Jennings Daily News reporter who covered these stories for the local newspaper... At this point we are less than 15 min. into Episode 1 but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.
Couple of comments: this documentary series is produced and directed by veteran documentarian Matthew Galkin. Here he adapts for the screen the non-fiction book of the same name by Ethan Brown (who appears extensively in the second half of this TV series). I didn't know much about these cases when I started watching this, and I really don't want to give away any thing that might spoil your viewing experience. So let me just say that this series is like an onion: you peel away, only to discover that there is more than meets the eye. And then you peel away some more, and before you know it, by the time we are in Episode 4, we find ourselves miles away from what we could or might have anticipated. Some might say that the series is moving too slowly, and it's true that this series probably didn't need the full 275 min., but I didn't mind the slow pace at all. Galkin does a good job giving us a true sense of what this small community was like (with a stark difference between the well-off north part of town and the trashy south part of town, both sides neatly separated by railroad tracks. The other thing that is so striking is how this small town was overrun by drugs, literally from all sides.
Bottom line: I found this to be a compelling true crime documentary series, with some twists that will blow you away, I mean, you can't make this stuff up! Kudos to both Galkin and Brown for their painstaking work on this. This series premiered on Showtime in the Fall, 2019, and I caught it recently on SHO On Demand. If you like true crime documentaries, I'd readily suggest you check this out and draw your own conclusion.
Couple of comments: this documentary series is produced and directed by veteran documentarian Matthew Galkin. Here he adapts for the screen the non-fiction book of the same name by Ethan Brown (who appears extensively in the second half of this TV series). I didn't know much about these cases when I started watching this, and I really don't want to give away any thing that might spoil your viewing experience. So let me just say that this series is like an onion: you peel away, only to discover that there is more than meets the eye. And then you peel away some more, and before you know it, by the time we are in Episode 4, we find ourselves miles away from what we could or might have anticipated. Some might say that the series is moving too slowly, and it's true that this series probably didn't need the full 275 min., but I didn't mind the slow pace at all. Galkin does a good job giving us a true sense of what this small community was like (with a stark difference between the well-off north part of town and the trashy south part of town, both sides neatly separated by railroad tracks. The other thing that is so striking is how this small town was overrun by drugs, literally from all sides.
Bottom line: I found this to be a compelling true crime documentary series, with some twists that will blow you away, I mean, you can't make this stuff up! Kudos to both Galkin and Brown for their painstaking work on this. This series premiered on Showtime in the Fall, 2019, and I caught it recently on SHO On Demand. If you like true crime documentaries, I'd readily suggest you check this out and draw your own conclusion.