Betrayal

I'm heavy into the first episode - and my jaw hurts from grimacing at the music. It. Never. Stops. Everything is punctuated with music. EVERY. THING. It's very Hallmark. I am not a Hallmark person.

I personally like the step-dad. If you watch this, you'll understand why. I totally agree with him.

When you listen to Spencer, really listen, you hear how self involved and egotistical he actually is. Same with the photos. And you sadly see see how many people are fooled by him. Maybe this series will help younger people see how "they" do it.

This series is held together by the music. You can't escape it.

Jenifer is a good storyteller. The pod caster is okay. But, that damn music adds nothing. I do not appreciate being 'cued' into how I am supposed to "feel" about what's being said by being assaulted with all sorts of music.

It is too long, but sends a good message and is a good background program.

First off just watch the third episode don't waste your time watching all 3 episodes.

Episode 1 is the wife talking about how amazing he was when they dated. I think she described as perfect like 50 times.

Episode 2 is her talking about him cheating with adult women and normalizing her obsessiveness over every detail about him cheating. She was reading his sexts out loud to her podcast producer. It was very strange to watch. Speaking of the podcast producer she just really pushes the wife to continue this obsessiveness and really overdramatizes every little thing. This episode was just soooo long. Cheating is terrible and devastating to the spouse how gets cheated on but they made it like they were talking about he murdered someone. I found myself just not caring.

Episode 3 is finally about the sexual assault that lands him in jail. This was finally interesting because the dramatic nature finally matched what they were talking about. The student that comes forward and tells her story was great to listen to. Very brave and very proud of her.

This documentary could have been completed in 1 episode. I felt like I was hearing the same thing over and over again.

Ex was a creep but the wife must have been completely blind not to have noticed. Also annoyed that she kept referring to Acworth as a little town where everyone knew each other and people were talking. It is a suburb of Atlanta area with over 6 million people. Most people who live in Acworth work, shop and dine in the metro Atlanta area. The husband taught at a high school in another county. Wife is very dramatic and pretty full of herself. I usually love these type of shows but found this one boring.

...and my daughter knew this teacher. That made it much more personal for me. I thought the documentary was well done and interesting. This story demonstrates why you really never know anyone. People should not be so arrogant to think that they do. It is unbelievable what he was able to get away with. I feel really sad for all the victims, and surely there are many more students that we don't know about, but also particularly sad for his wife who loved him so much only to be met with such great heartbreak.

ABOUT MY REVIEWS:

I do not include a synopsis of the film/show -- you can get that anywhere and that does not constitute a meaningful review -- but rather my thoughts and feelings on the film that hopefully will be informative to you in deciding whether to invest 90-180 minutes of your life on it.

My scale: 1-5 decreasing degrees of "terrible", with 5 being "mediocre" 6- OK. Generally held my interest OR had reasonable cast and/or cinematography, might watch it again 7 - Good. My default rating for a movie I liked enough to watch again, but didn't rise to the upper echelons 8- Very good. Would watch again and recommend to others 9- Outstanding. Would watch over and over; top 10% of my ratings 10 - A classic. (Less than 2% receive this rating). For Lifetime Movies for Chicks (LMFC), drop the above scale by 3 notches. A 6 is excellent and 7 almost unattainable.

This isn't necessarily a unique story because unfortunately it happens more often than actually reported in the media. The show and it's story presentation just dragged. So much was repeated it seriously could have just been a 60 to 90 minute single episode rather than a series.

It stayed dedicated to those particular victims but for a series it should have went bigger. Include more stories of how these schools and admin protect the teachers rather than believe the students who have been victimized. How these schools wait and wait before involving the police. Schools need to monitor and insist on boundaries. Stop with the emails, texting and unsupervised social interaction off campus and after school hours.