As I feared, this true-crime series, inspired by a podcast, dramatizes events so conveniently, so as to grab the viewer and propel the murder mystery story forward, that audience manipulation is plainly evident, especially in the framing device of our heroine appearing on the Reality-TV show where she works as a makeup artist, and is manipulated by the smarmy host Dr. Greg to manipulate the studio audience and viewers at home. This seems like the pot calling the kettle black, as "Happy Face" mocks aspects of the TV medium which it shares.
Very early in the episode, the first piece of tangible evidence presented, a guitar pick, is quite phony and in fact easily negated in the next reel, at which point my Spidey sense told me what I was watching was claptrap.
Okay, if one is among the millions of "True Crime" fans out there consuming expose-style podcasts and television presentations, the thrill of "what if" is a driving force to entertainment. The sticking point is the "true" in True Crime. If one is a mystery buff, addicted to Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle or even James Patterson yarns, the ingenuity of concocting a fictional story is exciting. But watching the talented Annaleigh Ashford emote in this miniseries requires more than the usual suspension of disbelief. I admire her professional craft, but it's undermined by the hokey screenplay, however much it is torn from the headlines.
