Truth Be Told: An Excellent Telling

I saw Truth Be Told on Apple TV+ over the past few nights.  It received a lukewarm response from critics but was much enjoyed by the general public.  I'm with the general public on this one, not the myopic critics, what else is new.  I'm really glad it was renewed for a second season, which should be up sometime this year.

The eight-episode mini-series rings a bell on a bunch of levels: 

• It's a first-class whodunnit, with at least a handful of plausible suspects, and a resolution which is both surprising,  yet makes good sense in retrospect, or just want you want in this kind of murder mystery.
• Poppy is a reporter now podcaster, who revisits in her podcast a murder she reported on in The New York Times twenty years ago.  Truth Be Told offers a compelling tableau of the relationship of traditional and newer media, in particular the pressures that a podcaster faces.  This series is not the first to have a podcaster at the center of the narrative, but it's one of the best.
• Poppy is African-American, and Truth Be Told provides a well-furnished view of Black culture in America, ranging from family life to life in prison.
• The acting is really good.  Octavia Spencer is just right as Poppy, combining head and heart, and struggling to keep her marriage sound as she devotes increasing time to finding the killer.  Aaron Paul is great as the guy behind bars, whom Poppy is trying to exonerate and free -- I'd say this is his best performance since Breaking Bad (yeah, he was more effective in Truth Be Told than in Westworld). Lizzy Caplan is impressive as the Buhrman twins, convincingly portraying two different yet intersecting personalities.   And the other characters were well played.  Always good to see Mekhi Phifer (former detective helping Poppy) and Michael Beach (Poppy' husband) on the screen.

If I had to cite one problem with the narrative, it would be Poppy's tendency to immediately go to the next most-likely suspect, each time a suspect is eliminated.  I think Poppy is subtler and more intelligent than that.  But this is a relatively small quibble.  The series is based on a novel (Are You Sleeping by Karen Barber) which I haven't read, so I don't know where this problem originated, or who is responsible for all the sharp turns of events in the series which will keep you up late into the night.  Hats off to Nichelle D. Tramble, creator of this series.

And I'll see you back here later this year, with a review of the second season.