Last year after watching Dirty John, I was under the impression that this well crafted dramatization of a real-life con artist and killer was going to be a limited series, and it had run its course. Garnering a handful of well-deserved nominations (Connie Britton was fabulous), I figured it was a job well done and a nice closing of a chapter. But I was wrong! Turns out they are going to possibly take many Lifetime-esque stories and expand them into series that are a little more polished than that network usually provides. Although, similar to You, Dirty John did undergo a network change from Bravo to USA, which was only mildly confusing. I also think the creators of this show didn’t think there’d be another season, because they kept the show’s original name then tacked on the new twisted tale’s tagline. Strange, but not unheard of I suppose. But I do think that gives it more of a Lifetime feel.
Anyways, this season of Dirty John focuses on the double murders committed by Betty Broderick, “a woman scorned.” With the casting of Christian Slater and Amanda Peet, I thought this was going to be just a enticing as the original series, but I was very quickly proved wrong by that. Not that I thought the acting was bad, but it just seemed like they were stretching the material to cover eight episodes. I think the point could have been covered in six, and even that feels generous.
The story goes like this: Betty gets wooed by Dan Broderick young, but she’s in love, so she ignores the fact that he basically wants her to be a housemaid at the start of their marriage. To keep her from working as a teacher, they have kids young while he goes to med school. Then he decides he wants to go to law school. Betty is supportive in all the ways she can be because she clearly loves this man deeply. After having a miscarriage and then two more children, Dan is at the peak of his success. Not too long after opening his own practice, he starts an affair with his secretary, Linda. Betty is suspicious and intense about it which Dan does not like, so he denies it while simultaneously getting advice on how to divorce Betty and also leaving her essentially with nothing.
Once he tells her he’s leaving, there are several instances when Betty thinks she’s got the upper hand, but Dan has prepared for so long and has thought so far ahead, that Betty doesn’t have a leg to stand on. That combined with the fact that he left her for some young blond thing, has her seething. It appears that Dan’s main objective is to destroy Betty’s life, and she makes it easier for him by displaying her jealously in full force with threatening voicemails and destroying property. Eventually it all comes crashing down around Betty, so in a fit of blind rage she manages to kill Dan and his new wife. Even though I know the turnout of the events (this happened in real life), a lot of her testimony made me wonder if she was going to come out on top. But sadly for Betty, when all of this went down, man was still number one, and she was just the crazed ex-wife. I’m not condoning the murder of anyone, but Betty was pushed to the edge and no one offered her a hand. As someone said in the show, “I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.”
While the story itself is an interesting one, the series drags this out, so that by the time I hit the last few episodes, I was so tired of hearing Betty talk. Only because she wasn’t saying anything new! I had lost interest, but I still wanted to see it played out. And sure, this series wasn’t necessarily about seeing the murder happen, but we only saw her enter the house! That’s it! Just another thing that made this season less thrilling than it’s predecessor. I’d say, if you’ve watched the original Dirty John, there is honestly no reason to sour your taste for it by watching the second. Maybe they’ll get a third season and pick something a little more enticing, or at least treat it better.