Sympathy Pains · Our Father · Bros
Plus, a birthday sale!
the true crime that's worth your time
The Sympathy Pains podcast and Netflix documentary Our Father share a lot of the same (oh god am I gonna say it? I am) DNA. I don’t know if I would have noticed the commonalities if I hadn’t consumed both within the past few days, so credit goes to all the Best Evidence readers who recommended it in the “tell Eve what to listen to” thread earlier this week. (I’m still taking recommendations, so please drop yours in!)
In both shows, the primary allegations are versions of fraudulent medical activity, on both cases wrought by someone in the healthcare field who we’d expect (perhaps naively, these days) to be trustworthy. In the case of Sympathy Pains, (eventually disgraced) nurse Sarah Delashmit has admittedly faked a slew of illnesses, miscarriages and (false) family deaths — not the kinds of claims one expresses skepticism about.
In Our Father, (eventually disgraced) fertility doctor Donald Cline inseminated patients with his own sperm — not chosen donor sperm or his patients’ partners’ — without their knowledge, and for over a decade. Again, this isn’t the kind of misconduct one mentally prepares for the way one might brace for a theft or violent act under certain circumstances. Like the victims in Sympathy Pains, Cline’s victims spend as much time discussing how “impossible” or “surreal” their experience is; and in both cases many seem — even decades after coming to terms with things — to still be in a state of disbelief.
Both shows also focus on women who worked tirelessly to unravel the tangled webs the suspects wove. Sympathy Pains is essentially a roll call of women taken in by Delashmit’s deceptions who tracked her online activities, networked to inform others, and even reached out to Phil McGraw’s TV series for an appearance to ostensibly get Delashmit help.
Our Father’s central figure is Jacoba Ballard, who discovered via a now ubiquitous home DNA test that she had slews of half siblings, eventually uncovering at least 61 people who can claim Cline as their biological dad. Though Cline’s former partner and nurse appear in the doc, it’s the kids who move the doc forward, and their stories are centered, not the wrong-doer’s.
That means, however, that we’re in a curious state of finally getting what we’ve asked for, then being dissatisfied by it. We talk about this stuff all the time: that true-crime properties shouldn’t push the victims to the margins, or glorify the suspect by centering them. But what that means, Sympathy Pains and Our Father suggest, is that we’re left with SO MANY QUESTIONS, questions that end up only half-assedly addressed with speculation and guesswork
Here’s an example: in Sympathy Pains, host Laura Beil consults a University of California expert on Munchausen’s to discuss what might have driven Delashmit (raise a paw if you, too, hollered “it’s clearly not Munchausen’s” when that potential diagnosis came up), but his answers don’t offer much in the way of revelation.
Meanwhile, Our Father’s Lucie Jourdan offers a dissatisfying and highly speculative meander into Cline’s possible relationship with far-right Christian belief Quiverfull, a group that the film claims venerates procreation above all else. It’s not Jourdan’s fault, she can’t know the future, but hard to take that possible explanation too seriously when the state of Oklahoma is making any pregnancy intervention after “fertilization” illegal.
Yeah, Quiverfull folks are a pack of wackos, but OK legislators are making them look pretty mainstream this week…and so far, even those Oklahoma shitheads aren’t (as far as I know) inseminating women with with fraudulent sperm. (Good lord, did I just defend those jackholes? I guess I did.)
Finally, both approach their subject matter with an oft-melodramatic approach. Our Father is a Blumhouse co-production and it shows, with multiple “odd juxtaposition” scenes of moodily lit baby-related stuff as a spooooky score plays. If you just watched the opener, in fact, you might think you’d accidentally hit “play” on one of the slickly (and seemingly mass-) produced Blumhouse horror films that seem to drop on Hulu a couple times a week.
Over at Sympathy Pains, it’s Beil’s transitions and bumps that can elicit sarcastic laughter (at least in my car), with ominous declarations that “the worst was yet to come” or how one victim had a “grandbaby-sized hole in her heart.” Both shows cast their wrongdoers’ crimes so incredibly starkly that, without intending it, they actually force viewers/listeners to think “jeez, it wasn’t that bad.”
I honestly think if presented in a more straightforward fashion, the crimes would speak for themselves, especially given both properties’ victim-centered approaches. I don’t think we need all the haunted-house nonsense to make it clear that the actions of the wrongdoers in these cases are truly monstrous.
To both shows’ credit, neither fall victim to the bloating and fluffing we’ve seen so often these days — Our Father is a disciplined 137 minutes, and while Sympathy Pains could easily have fallen victim to the redundancy and repetition we often see from serial con artist narratives, it keeps it admirably tight.
In the end, I felt like I got good things from both without wasting any time, and both kept me fully engaged (Our Father only got 2-3 phone pickups from me during its run, which is a very low distraction factor for me when it comes to Netflix true crime). You could do worse than either this weekend! But if you have time, I suggest you take both of them together, as the combined impact of the properties (think how much better Advil works on menstrual cramps when you follow it with a beer) might be slightly greater than if consumed separately. — EB
It’s a my birthday-week sale! I turn 51 next week (May 24, if you want to make any astrological generalizations), so we’re marking an annual paid subscription to Best Evidence way down to celebrate.
For the next week, grab one year for $51 (it’s usually $55, while a subscription paid clocks in at a total of $60) and support our work, grab subscriber-only issues and reviews, and make this week something to really celebrate!
Is it Bro Week? Two of true crime’s most notorious bros just got out of the slammer this week, what are the odds? How soon do you think we’ll see them 1) collaborate on some infernal project 2) on Twitter/in the gossip pages doing something vile 3) on some sort of anti-hero redemption tour? Your guesses in the comments, please.
'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli has been released from prison [NPR]
On Wednesday, the Inventing Anna side character was released to a post-incarceration halfway house in Brooklyn. Via statement, his lawyer said “While in the halfway house I have encouraged Mr. Shkreli to make no further statement, nor will he or I have any additional comments at this time.” Shkreli has already started posting on Facebook (“Getting out of real prison is easier than getting out of Twitter prison.”) and has allegedly created a Bumble profile.
Fyre Festival fraudster Billy McFarland released from federal prison early [USA Today]
McFarland, another Inventing Anna boldfaced name, also bounced from jail Wednesday, and he, too, is in a halfway house in Brooklyn. Of course, I am dying to know if it is the same one Shkreli is in — it seems like that is an aspect reporters would seize on if so, but who knows? McFarland’s lawyer says that he is “putting together a team to organize and plan for projects that will allow him to generate the restitution for all those affected” by his disastrous concert/event that launched multiple docs and countless memes.
Next week on Best Evidence: I’m taking a birthday road trip (progress to be documented on my Insta), so it’s all Sarah all the time!
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