My wife and I finished watching Unbelievable on Netflix, just as the NY Times story broke about a second sexual misconduct incident involving now Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh in his freshman year at Yale, in addition to the one involving Deborah Ramirez, a second incident that the FBI was informed about but neglected or refused to fully investigate.
Unbelievable is about a serial rapist, who committed acts more egregious than sexual assault, but the all-too-true story is the same: the callous disregard of women and girls who are victims of sexual assault, combined with psychological bullying by authorities. In the Unbelievable case, the result was a rapist who went on to rape numerous other woman. In the Kavanaugh case, the result is a man accused of attempted rape and sexual assault, not adequately investigated, now sitting on the U. S. Supreme Court.
The docudrama was brilliantly acted, and had as happy an ending as could result in these circumstances: the rapist was sent to prison for more than 300 years. The Kavanaugh hearings, in particular the Republican defense of Kavanaugh, was a shambles, and the result a travesty of justice.
On the brilliantly acted Unbelievable - Kaitlyn Dever as Marie Adler the first victim, and Merritt Wever as Det. Karen Duvall and Toni Collette as Det. Grace Rasmussen, the detectives whose focused, unrelenting, perceptive work brought the rapist down, all deserve Emmys. Eric Lange, who played the cuckolded husband in Escape from Dannemora, put in another memorable performance as the first detective, who had a heart but not enough strength to do the right thing for Marie. The pacing and counterpoint of the story in two different places and times - Washington State and Colorado - and the way they unify in the end was masterful.
As for Kavanugh, he deserves not to judge but to be investigated further and judged. But politics, especially these days, seems to often get in the way of justice, so we'll have to wait and see.
