‘I'll Be Gone In The Dark’ Episode 3 Review: Did Patton Oswalt know Michelle McNamara had a mental breakdown?
Haunting and heart-touching. Can a documentary tick both boxes? HBO's ‘I'll Be Gone In The Dark’ achieves that rare feat within minutes. The six-part series not only delves deep into the hunt for the serial killer and rapist coined as the Golden State Killer but is based on Michelle McNamara's life.
Titled ‘Rat in a Maze’, the third episode delves deep into McNamara's personal life along with the quest to identify how both East Area Rapist (EAR) and Original Night Stalker (ONS) was the same perpetrator. Through the hour-long drama where words tug at your heartstrings and pictures speak more than words, Michelle's siblings come into the picture and talk about how she really was as a person.
Born to trial lawyer father Thomas W McNamara and her stay-at-home mother Rita McNamara, she grew up in Oak Park, Illinois. Her parents were Irish American and McNamara was the youngest of the couple's five daughters and one son. Michelle's sisters — Maureen Stratton, Mary Rita Skrine, Kathleen Conroy, Margo Chadwick, and her brother — Robert McNamara come together to talk about the beloved memories of their sister.
Being the youngest of the lot, she had much of an age gap with all her other siblings. "Michelle was an only child because we were up and out," Kathleen says in the series. All of them then go on to talk about her strained relationship with their mother. "My mom was pretty reserved and she wanted a bit more attention. She did have difficulty giving a direct compliment," Robert aka Bob McNamara says.
In her blog and diary entries, Michelle often wrote about her aloofness from her mother. Remembering a cluster of childhood memories, she narrates how the life long nickname for Michelle from her mom was The Little Witch and then delves into how at her wedding, she had one of the biggest blowouts with her mother when she said, "You have too much time on your hands..." Not just that, Michelle herself confesses, "I both yearned for her approval and found her investment in me suffocating."
A string of lovable moments captured on video footage play as Michelle's close friends and family members celebrate her birthday on April 14. Soon after, it tunes into the death of her father, who she absolutely adored. Recalling the events of the fateful day, her sister says Michelle could not see her father in his last moments: "She didn't get that last moment with him so there was a lot of shock..."
Not just Michelle's family, her lovely husband Patton Oswalt set aside all his work priorities to make space for his wife. The third episode in the docuseries hints on the beautiful relationship that the couple shared, especially in its last five minutes. It was Thanksgiving Day, 2015. The husband and wife share a string of text messages when Patton noticed Michelle had started following the same pattern that he did when he was writing his book. She was looking for anything to run away from the pressure of the deadline — especially after her publishers rang her to prepone the deadline to December instead of January.
"These next 54 hours? All you need to do is wake up in the morning, have your coffee and cereal, and write your pages. Okay? I love you," Patton wrote to her. In his next message, he wrote: "Now pour some wine, have a nosh, and write your book." But Michelle was definitely going through a tough time getting it all together. The next few texts from her will send chills down your spine.
"You guys love me, right? Even if I have a mental breakdown and shred everything I've written?" she wrote, adding, "I'm just in one of those places where I've lost the excitement. Nice Thanksgiving message I know..." But Patton was still encouraging. "This means you're close. Every creative object wants the safety and warmth of staying inside your head. You're trying to drag it out into the light. Alice and I are in the bleachers, cheering you on. Now pin that f**ker to the mat and claim your trophy. You deserve it."
Isn't that all a loved one needs to do for someone who may be dealing with pressure? ‘I'll Be Gone In The Dark’ elegantly puts all the threads into the yarn and leaves one question lingering in our minds: Did Patton know Michelle was going through a mental breakdown? Perhaps, the next episode may lead to the tragic day when she died in her sleep on April 21, 2016. It came as a heartbreaking loss and her sudden death was attributed to the effects of multiple drugs and was ruled as an accidental overdose.
As the next few episodes roll out, we may find out more secrets of Michelle's life and what really led to the stress that took her life. Directed by Myles Kane and Josh Koury, the episode premieres on HBO, Sunday, July 12, at 10 pm ET to 11 pm ET.