What Dirty John on Netflix gets right that the podcast didn't
Netflix has had a bit of a run of shows featuring horrifying, duplicitous men. Last month brought us the compulsively binge-able drama You, introduced a new generation to the life and hideous crimes of Ted Bundy with Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes and presented the most questionable family decision-making ever in Abducted in Plain Sight.
This month, we have a Valentine’s treat in the form of Dirty John, a series created by Alexandra Cunningham that dramatises the true-crime story first told by the podcast of the same name.
Dirty John brings to life the first-hand accounts from the 2017 Los Angeles Times podcast, telling the true story of Debra Newell (Connie Britton), a beautiful and successful middle-aged interior designer who falls in love with wealthy anaesthesiologist John Meehan (Eric Bana). Only, as the title suggests, perhaps he isn’t so wealthy or so qualified after all.
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Debra, a regular churchgoer who has previously been married four times, opens her heart to a man that seems too good to be true. While her adoration, optimism and forgiveness rule so many of her decisions throughout the course of her relationship with John, her daughters Jacquelyn (renamed Veronica for the series, played by Juno Temple) and Terra (Julia Garner) notice something is off right away.
Why is John always dressed so scruffily? Why does he claim to own many properties when it’s clear he’s just scraping by? Why does an anaesthesiologist only have a nursing certificate?
The drama is an impressive reconstruction of the stories told by the Newell family in the original podcast and achieves one big thing that the podcast never could: it explains the allure of John.
Listeners to the podcast were perplexed right from the start as to why Debra fell for John; confusion that later turns to complete bafflement as Debra stands beside a man whose dark past is out in the open for all the family to see.
From the very start of the podcast, testimonies from Debra’s daughters intercut Debra’s account. Debra attempts to paint a picture of a man worth marrying a mere two months after they started dating but the immediate animosity that the daughters felt towards John at the time make it impossible to imagine.
It doesn’t make any sense at all why Debra got – and kept – herself in this mess. There were so many warning signs. She seems like an unbelievably gullible and unfeasibly forgiving person.
Eric Bana's charismatic performance as John, however, presents ‘Dirty John’ as a man who fell into Debra's life and changed it for the better.
Bana’s John is affectionate and loyal – and his scruffiness is almost endearing. He’s clueless when it comes to entering Debra’s glamorous world, but he sure seems to love her. Even when some of his behaviour is exposed, he appears to be a man who’s willing to change.
The show helps its audience understand how Debra overlooked so many red flags. While the podcast is never without suspicion of John’s behaviour, the series presents us with numerous carefree, romantic moments between Debra and John where it seems like there’s no one else in the world but them.
The daughters’ hostility towards John can seems at times like brattish entitlement and you can honestly begin to see why Debra ignored their warnings. At least for a while, you can see the appeal of John.
Connie Britton does a fantastic job of treading the difficult line between gullible fool and optimistic and lovestruck. It's very easy to question Debra’s motives for standing by John in the podcast, but here Britton finds a sweet spot between stupid and hopeful. She's at once honouring Debra's decisions while also showing the naivety that was so frustrating to listeners.
The show stays true to geographical locations and includes all of the crucial moments in the Newells’ testimonies, elaborating on some truths and constructing new interactions but never in a way that distorts the real order of events. The script is overly expository at times and it would have been better to show us more of John’s former swindling in the form of flashbacks, rather than relaying information over therapist sessions and coffee meet-ups.
Ultimately, though, Dirty John manages to achieve something that seemed nearly impossible going in. We can begin to understand why Debra got caught in John’s web… and we feel sympathy for a woman who once exasperated us.
Dirty John is streaming now on Netflix.
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