I'll Be Gone in the Dark - Season 1 Episode 2 Reign of Terror After a decade of terror, the Golden State Killer vanished. One woman refused to let him disappear.
Overview: Michelle McNamara reflects on the 1984 murder of her childhood neighbor Kathy Lombardo, which she credits with planting the seed for her lifelong fascination with unsolved crimes. Local detectives who worked the East Area Rapist (EAR) case in the ‘70s – and citizen detectives who picked up where they left off – discuss a proliferation of serial rape cases in Northern California at the time, discussing an era when victims were often too ashamed to speak out and sexual crime was minimized in the press and the courtroom.
Comment
Something about Patton Oswald and his wife. A few clips from his stand-up comedy. A detailed story about how he met his wife. Gummy Bears in what looked like a mason jar. I don't know. I guess I was expecting something about the Golden State Killer. Maybe a brief explanation about his crimes and then a focus on the investigation, how they eventually caught him decades later... like most documentaries about these kinds of things cover. Instead I got a little about it. We heard one of his victims, victim #10 explain how he snuck up on hear while she was playing the piano. That was certainly about the Golden State Killer. They mentioned how canals and drainage ditches popped up in the investigation reports. But.... mostly it was about Patton Oswald and his wife, and his stand-up, and how they met and a couple interviews with his wife's friends talking about their relationship. Honestly, I'm only really vaguely aware of who Patton Oswald is. I know he is a celebrity, I know he's a comedian. The clips of his stand-up this program showed weren't that bad, the jokes he made about his wife and true crime I can relate to, my wife does the same thing so it made me chuckle... but I am 100% positive that Patton Oswald is NOT the Golden State Killer and I am 100% positive that marrying Patton Oswald does NOT make you a victim of the Golden State Killer. So after the first episode, I was kind of left with the feeling that this was more about Michelle McNamara's fixation with her husband and not so much about how the killer was caught... and i feel kind of robbed. That wasn't the story I sat down to watch.