True Story (TV series) – spare yourself!

**Spoilers ahead. Plus this wouldn’t make much sense unless you have at least seen the first episode of “True Story” a stupid-ass TV show from Netflix**

So you are a successful comedian with a needy elder brother who is clearly shady and always wants money from you for his various unsuccessful business ventures. Everybody knows he is shady. Everyone warns you about him. You too sorta know it but you turn a blind eye for some reason.

You decide to return “home” at the start of the show just to begin your new tour from there. (That should ring alarm bells straight away! No good ever comes from going “home” and starting from there).

You decide to meet your brother and some of your buddies for a night out. You are sober and yet to decide to do meet them for drinks – what are you thinking, that there won’t be drinking involved?! When you realize (shocker!) there’s drinking involved you tell your brother (who can clearly not be trusted with anything!) that you are six months sober and not into drinking etc. Of course he’s not going be like “sure bro, let’s get out of this”… he says “it’s ok, let’s do a few etc.”. You start with a semi-shot, then finish the shot, and pretty soon you are into a lot of shots.

Your brother also brings over some ladies conveniently placed in the bar. One of them is extra friendly to you (nothing suspicious, of course!) and she is the one who is getting you to drink all the shots.

Again, you turn to your angel of a brother after a while and say I want to get out of here. Do you expect him to say “sure bro”? Of course not, he says “nah you got to be around, I want you to be my wingman etc.”.  So you stay and the scene cuts to black with you being woken up from sleep by your brother. You are in your bed, the brother is all panicky, and he says you have killed that girl you were in the bar with.

She is of course lying next to you. Nope, no sign of blood or anything. She is lying face down, a natural pose for sleeping. But somehow your brother feels she is dead. (Do you get up and check her pulse etc.? Of course not, that’d be crazy! Your brother says he’s checked so you believe him naturally.)

You want to call the ambulance coz it’s just a case of her ODing. Your brother says no – that’ll get the cops involved (so what?). You say you want to call your business manager so he can think of what to do here – your brother says no, and of course you believe him and decide not to. (Why would you, right? You’d be nuts to call an objective third party you are paying to manage your affairs? Crazy, right!)

Your brother says he will take the crime upon himself. Sensible idea – but nope, you say that won’t do the job. (Why not?! That’s like the only sensible thing your brother has said all night).

There were three girls in the bar. One’s with you. Presumeably your brother has one (or two)? But nope, there’s no one else in the room. (That definitely does not set off any alarm bells. Isn’t it odd at all that your brother has no girls with him? Isn’t it odd at all that your brother is the one who discovered the girl with you is dead? I mean what is he doing in your bedroom? In what set of circumstances would he try and see if the girl who is presumeably sleeping next to you is actually alive or not?? Even if he felt her breath and wasn’t breathing wouldn’t he try and wake you up and both of you check the pulse etc.?)

Anyways your brother then says he’s got this, he has a Greek friend who can sort this out. (Hah, sure! Nothing suspicious there! He doesn’t want you getting someone from your side but it’s ok he brings a friend along).

Enter Greek friend. Who is someone you should take one look at figure “nah, he’s out!”. He’s all humourous and trying to rile you up. (I mean sure, you called him for help, but you are paying him so he better keep his place, right? But nope, he’s calling all the shots. Oh, and what are you doing sitting there in plain sight? Shouldn’t you be hiding so more people don’t know you are involved in this crime? Why not just having it so that your brother calls his friend up pretending to be the one who killed the girl, and this friend is out to help your brother. You don’t have to be involved. You don’t have to be anywhere in the scene!!! But do you do that? Of course, you are right there.)

He gives set of things to do, you go to sleep and wake up to him playing the piano. What’s up the dead body, you ask? Oh it’s taken care of. Apparently he broke her bones and stuffed her into a food cart. (Hmm, nothing suspicious about that at all. The guy literally walked in empty handed – no tools etc. – and somehow managed to break up a human body? There’s no blood on him. No blood on the bedsheets or room either coz all he says is to just wash the bedsheet or so it removes the smell of the girl.)

Of course you never decided on how much it would cost etc. to take care of this mess, so now the guy says he wants 6 million for the job (paid at 500k per month for 12 months). And he goes, leaving his business card. Your brother returns, you mention this to him, he’s like he’ll figure it out etc. You have some words and that’s the end of that.

(Interestingly there’s a shot of the business card left behind and all that has is the Greek guy’s name, phone number, and the outline of a girl. Hah, suspicious. Could he be in the business of supplying girls? Could the whole thing be a setup? Maybe he supplied the dead girl to your brother?? Naah… the thought doesn’t even cross your mind.)

The next day the Greek guy is back because you got to discuss money matters with him (you had a call with your banker the previous night, it’s not so easy to pay someone 500k per month etc.) Again you ask him how did dispose of the body, he gives a slightly more detailed (but not really detailed) answer about breaking bones and flesh, going through the fourth floor which has no cameras, a trash chute etc. He wants you to pay… and this this point twist!! the only interesting part of episode 1 happens – you kill him with a USB cable you had borrowed from some guy on the plane at the beginning of the show. (Whoa! That was cool. The only redeeming part of episode 1. That you killed him, and that it was with a freakin’ USB cable… who’d have thought! I loved that, seriously.)

Anyways, that is end of episode 1. Episode 2 is about you having a rough next days coz it’s so packed with events and you are rude and snipey to everyone… and your brother is trying to fit the dead body of the Greek guy into a food cart. It clearly doesn’t work but for whatever reason doesn’t ring any alarm bells in your head that “hmm, if my brother can’t fit the dead body into the cart then maybe the Greek guy couldn’t fit it into the cart either; and since he and my brother disposed off the body together maybe they are both lying? maybe the girl never died, I didn’t even see them do this after all…”

Instead you try to get a bigger cart and you both manage to fit the body into that and get it into a van.


At this point – some 10 mins remain in episode 2 – I decided to give up on “True Story”. That was all I could take of the obvious plot holes and glaring character flaws. Instead I checked up on Google as to what the story is and sure enough the “shocking twist” at the end of the show is you realizing that your brother was the one behind all this. The girl was his girlfriend, she and him planned this, the Greek guy was on it too… your killing the Greek guy was unexpected and that threw a wrench into the plan and things went a bit haywire from there (apparently the Greek guy has brothers who are out to get you and your brother; someone has a video of you and brother dumping the Greek guy’s body etc.)

I am shocked this was actually a shocking twist for anyone. It was so obvious. The only twist for me was him killing the Greek guy and I am glad to see that disrupted everyone’s plans. Apart from that what a waste of a TV show!

Save yourself some time and watch something else.