True crime documentaries with a bit of acting built in for dramatic purposes are normally something I enjoy and that is exactly what Smugshot is but with a twist: The criminals that they highlight normally have something wrong with them in the fact that they are not at all remorseful for what they have done and from the 3 episodes that I have watched thus far the perpetrators seem to have a sort of smug sense about them and a feeling of superiority over the others that they duped and ripped off.
It brings a certain amount of joy to know that in these stories the people involved faced some sort of justice including jail time.
The first episode is one of the better ones and likely the one where we, the audience, want revenge on the criminals the most. This a story of an ultimate "Karen" parent who didn't like that something extremely minor happened to her child at school and wouldn't accept the explanation give to her, calmly, by a woman who was in an unpaid volunteer position at the school.
I'll give you tiny bit of the information without spoiling it all. The volunteer woman helps with getting children out to the cars at the end of a school day but there are a lot of kids, and only one of her so as is often the case, one of the students needs to go back to get something they forgot, has to tie a shoe, or go to the bathroom - whatever! It isn't important but the point of the story is that at certain points in any school in USA, there are certain doors that face the exterior of the building that if they are closed they automatically lock disallowing people entering from the outside. It was like that when I was in school as well so this is nothing new.
Well one of the children that was the child of a family with two lawyer-parents, ended up slightly "left behind" and when he turned up at the front, late, his mother was aghast that he wasn't with the rest of the group and then tried to blame it on the volunteer woman. The volunteer handled it professionally stating that the child needed to go and get something behind the school and that the doors lock and there was no reason to get alarmed and that everything is safe etc.
Well ultra-Karen-mom wasn't willing to accept the very rational explanation and made a scene. The volunteer tried to keep things professional and away from the other families and students but this just enraged giga-Karen even more. Over the next week or so the Karen-mother attempted to get the volunteer fired by going through every single avenue that she could including contacting the governor's office and the department of education.
When all of these administrators sided with the volunteer, who had followed protocol perfectly and did nothing wrong, they felt the matter was closed. Not to giga-Karen it wasn't. She and her practicing lawyer husband filed suit against the volunteer personally in a criminal and a civil court. This volunteer was not a wealthy person so it is though that the lawyer couple thought that they could bully her into quitting her position... but alas, she did not. She found a way to fight the charges and eventually won all of them.
Giga-Karen wasn't done yet though and a long period of time went by when an anonymous phone call was made to police alerting the authorities that they saw "someone" driving erratically and that the suspected she was on drugs. The vehicle description given to police was the car of the volunteer lady, who was on school grounds when the police responded. The police discovered, because of the tip, a bunch of marijuana and a certain amount of prescription pills that were in plain view behind the driver's seat of her car.
The volunteer insisted, honestly, that these were not her drugs and she had no idea how they would have gotten there and she complied with all instructions including taking a drug test to which she tested negative for all the drugs that were in her car.
The thing that made the police so suspicious was the prescription pills - some opiate called Vicodin in particular. There is a certain amount of these that if they are in your possession that above that amount the charges become a felony instead of a misdemeanor. The amount of pills in her car was exactly 1 tablet over this threshold. That's really convenient isn't it?
Well the rest of the story is about how the investigation quickly stopped being about the volunteer woman and instead focused on the lawyer family because when the volunteer, who was clearly innocent, was asked if there was anyone that was out to get her or would seek to do her harm, there was only one person that she could think of.
This is where the show gets really interesting because the lawyer family is extremely smug and clearly thinks that they are above everyone else and in some sort of higher class system where the rules don't apply to them.
at no point in time, even after the trial against them, did the lawyer-couple show any sort of remorse for what they had done.
The giga-Karen, whose name is Jill, somehow managed to get a spot on Dr. Phil expecting to clear her name, but she is so oblivious to the fact that she could ever be wrong about anything that she doesn't realize that Dr. Phil is not actually on her side. It is truly alarming to see that people like this actually exist in the world.
All of this unfolds in just the first episode, which, like many other series, is one of the stronger episodes of the season. The others which I have watched are not as crazy but they are all presented in a very easy-to-watch and well put-together fashion. They are able to creatively piece together news stories, actual footage from events, actual courtroom video and dramatization from actors into single 44-minute episodes designed for regular TV consumption. I find it wildly entertaining to watch.
Should I watch it?
That trailer is actually quite poorly made for such a well-done series. I guess it had to be really short.
I think this is a great show for either having on in the background while you are doing housework or if you are truly paying attention to it. It can be one or the other. It's not so complicated that you have to pay attention so attentively at all times, but all of the information is there and done in an easy-to-consume fashion. It is my understanding that this show was successful enough that there is now a season 2. I've not seen any of that though.
The episodes stand on their own and it is not required that you see one of them to understand the later ones. Therefore, this is something that I keep "on deck" and just watch one at a time when I can't find anything else that I want to watch.
this show can be legally streamed on a lot of platforms including AMC, Amazon, AppleTV, and Roku. Full episodes are available (with ads) are available here
