The story bounces around in time between the 2015 discovery of a body in the Blanchard home and mother and daughter’s arrival several years earlier at that house, which was built for them through Habitat for Humanity after they lost everything in Hurricane Katrina. But since the series is based on a wildly popular BuzzFeed article - its author, Michelle Dean, co-created the series with Nick Antosca - and the Blanchards’ story was also told in an HBO documentary ( Mommy Dead and Dearest), I feel safe in “spoiling” some of this true tale.ĭee Dee ( Patricia Arquette) is overworked single mother to Gypsy Rose (Joey King), a wheelchair-bound, bald, chronically-ill teenage girl who speaks in a squeaky voice and, according to Dee Dee, has the mental capacity of a seven-year-old. It’s impossible to discuss the series (the first two episodes premiere March 20th, with the remaining six debuting weekly I’ve seen the first five hours) without getting into some of Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose’s secret. But in the case of Dee Dee Blanchard and her daughter Gypsy Rose - the central figures of the first season of Hulu’s new true-crime anthology series The Act - it would be hard to blame anyone for missing what was really going on. It’s a cliché in crime stories both true and fictional that neighbors and loved ones are blindsided to learn what the people close to them were truly capable of doing.
