'Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story' Episode 3 Review: A failed 'marriage encounter' and the 'other woman'
Spoilers for 'Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story' Episode 3 'Marriage Encounter'
At the start of the third episode of 'Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story' Dan Broderick (Christian Slater) is sitting at a table with his associates and friends. The group is discussing the separation of one of their own - Martin (played by Doug Savant). The men plan to initiate the separation, taking care of assets, investments, how the money should, and could, be divided. The table has beer and food flowing and the men are cheerful – it is a good day as one of them plans on dissolving a 21-year-old marriage.
Elsewhere, Betty is having a conversation with her friend Yvonne, the wife of the same friend. It is a distressing conversation as Betty is restless and scared for her own future without her husband and family, one that she spent more than two decades building. As she cries, Betty offers her solace but the friend cannot help but think, "You're so lucky, Betty," she repeatedly tells her.
This could come to haunt Betty several months later when she sees Yvonne outside a store, but avoids meeting her. By now, her husband has married the woman he had an affair with. Betty, on the other hand, is going through a rough patch with her own husband, Dan. They tried therapy in 'Marriage Encounter' too, which seemed to have helped their relationship a little bit, only until it didn't.
There is a new woman in his office, Linda Kolkena (Rachel Keller), a receptionist who suddenly seems to threaten their relationship. The discovery comes as a shock to Betty who expresses her mistrust and disapproval from the get-go. But Dan continues to maintain that there is nothing between the two of them. He is eventually warned that he must get rid of her in a month's time else he must leave the house.
Meanwhile, in barely a month's time, Dan has promoted Linda from the receptionist to a paralegal. "She doesn't even know typing" – a fact Betty had pointed it out. But that did not keep Dan from promoting her. Episode 3 is especially infuriating because we see how Dan gaslights Betty. "You're being crazy," he tells her when she confronts him about Linda. Not once does he try to sit her down and discuss it. He repeatedly brushes aside all her desperate queries without attempting to resolve them.
Slowly the facade begins to fall apart as all of Betty's worst fears come true. She stands gawking unable to do anything as her husband begins to grow more and more aloof.
Perhaps the first signs of that were visible to Betty once their status started to change. Unlike Betty, Dan never wanted to talk about their past, about their struggles, discuss how far they had come. Almost as if he wanted nothing to do with it and just wanted to store it away in the back of his mind somewhere, thus, getting irked every time Betty would bring it up. After so many years, Dan doesn't wish to recall the past. He now refers to that time as "shitty".
'Marriage Encounter' documents the initial stages of the lies and deceit of an infidelity case that shook the entire country. Based on a true crime, the series is dramatized, and it is safe to say that the dramatization is pretty intense. By the end of the episode, one might find themselves completely distressed by the lives of the Brodericks'. Following a two back-to-back episodic premiere, 'Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story' returns to the show's usual time slot at 10 pm ET from this week on the USA Network.
