TV Review - Unbelievable (2019)

The major TV networks have tons of police procedural programs or legal dramas that they've done and put on the air. Most of the new ones that have come and gone or even some of the older ones feel so lame or contrived, or they try to have some kind of clever hook. Often, it just makes the whole thing feel dumber than it should. The best example of what a cop show or legal drama should be is probably Law & Order (1990). Its spin-off Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) is still just as good at showing the work it takes to pursue cases, particularly when it comes to sexual assault and rape, as well as giving us the perspective of the people who suffer these crimes and making us feel empathy for them.

Unfortunately, the whole ripped-from-the-headlines thing that Law & Order and its spin-off do has become a bit of gimmick. It doesn't really have the weight it used to have. The show is also more about being twisty and plot-driven. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is still a good show, but it does represent a standard or a bar that most shows that have come after it fail to meet. That's not the case with this series, developed by Oscar-nominee Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich), Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Chabon and his wife Ayelet Waldman, adapting a Pulitzer Prize-winning, nonfiction article by Ken Armstrong and T. Christian Miller. This series surpasses that bar easily.

Kaitlyn Dever (Last Man Standing and Justified) stars as Marie Adler, a young woman living in Lynnwood, Washington, which is a suburban area just north of Seattle. She was a foster child who grew up in a couple of homes. Literally, she lived in two homes. She had two foster mothers who are still in her life, but she's no longer living with them. She's now 18 and instead resides in transitional housing where she has counselors to help her financially and socially. She had a job at a department store but she obviously has anxieties and other issues that stem from childhood abuse, which makes her a bit of a loner who rides her bike to work and back. She hasn't yet gotten the nerve to get her driver's license.

Unfortunately, in the summer of 2008, her life was forever changed when a man broke into her apartment and raped her. The series starts with her going to the police and reporting this. She has to recount the details to her rape over and over again. As traumatic as that is, she does so. However, as the police detectives evaluate those details, they start to doubt her story and question if she's lying about the rape all together. It's reminiscent of the second season of American Crime (2015), except in that show, the victim knew who the alleged rapist was. Here, Marie doesn't know who the rapist is. He wore a mask and had her tied up. The alleged rapist in American Crime denied the rape and it was ultimately a question of consent. Here, it's a question of the victim herself being questioned. It's a condemnation of male detectives investigating rape having misconceptions and preconceptions about victims.

Merritt Wever (The Walking Dead and Nurse Jackie) also stars as Karen Duvall, a detective in Golden, Colorado, a suburb west of Denver. She's married to a police officer. In 2011, she's assigned to another rape case. Toni Collette (Little Miss Sunshine and The Sixth Sense) co-stars as Grace Rasmussen, a detective in Westminster, Colorado, a suburb north of Denver. She's also married but to a lawyer working for the state's attorney general. Like Karen, she brings her work home and she primarily works rape cases. She's currently working a rape case. The two are brought together when Karen realizes that there are a lot of similarities between her case and Grace's case. She theorizes that they are separately searching for the same guy.

The show is structured that while we watch Karen and Grace be dedicated and hard-working, trying to solve their cases, we also watch Marie as she deals with the aftermath of being perceived as a liar who made up her rape. Strangely, it reminded me of the real-life case that happened earlier in 2019 regarding Jussie Smollett. Except here, there isn't the kind of evidence that Marie is lying as there might have been against Smollett. The doubts from the police seem like a rush to judgment and undue pressure to dismiss her. It might just be because the police are men. This is in contrast to how Karen and Grace handle the victims in their cases.

It's amazing though to watch Karen and Grace methodically do their jobs. We follow a detailed step-by-step process to how they solve their cases and catch their culprits. The verisimilitude is so on point and the performances from Wever and Collette are stellar and beyond superb. They're engaging. They're funny. They're smart. They're interesting. They're damn-near perfect. They'll probably be forgotten by the time the next Emmys cycle rolls around, but they shouldn't be. The supporting cast is also fantastic. All of them wrangled and focused by great direction from directors like Susannah Grant herself, as well as Emmy-winner Michael Dinner (Chicago Hope and The Wonder Years) and Oscar-nominee Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right).

Rated TV-MA.
Running Time: 1 hr. / 8 eps.

Available on Netflix.