‘Truth be Told’: There’s little nobility in Poppy’s guilt driving her to revisit case, resulting in dire consequences for the Burhmans
The following piece contains spoilers
Apple TV+’s ‘Truth Be Told’ deals with a complex subject matter: a successful investigative journalist reexamining an almost two-decade-old murder case. Poppy Parnell, played to perfection by Octavia Spencer, realizes she may have made a mistake in profiling Warren Cave (then Hunter Doohan and now Aaron Paul) as a “monster” for allegedly murdering his neighbor.
Warren was 16 at the time and she believes her article series led to jurors and the public forming opinions about the boy, which in turn led to him being tried and sentenced as an adult. This leads Poppy, a now-popular true-crime podcaster, to backtrack and figure out if -- and it’s a big if -- she was wrong.
Even outside the purview of the justice system, this exercise is akin to opening Pandora’s box. And the contents of the box should pose 'Sophie’s Choice' for Poppy: the quest for justice versus not inflicting further trauma on a family that has already suffered enough.
But they don’t, because, for Poppy, it isn’t just about delivering justice; it is also about admitting she may have erred in the past. She is thus driven more by a sense of overwhelming guilt -- guilt that overrides her revulsion towards the now-Neo-Nazi Warren. And it is also this guilt that has claimed a few casualties already.
In her obsession over getting the story right, Poppy ignores the fact that she is reopening past wounds for the twins Josie and Lanie Burhman (Lizzy Caplan), the daughters of the murdered man, Chuck Buhrman (Nic Bishop). She stalks and finds Lanie, and even accosts her.
She doesn’t take into consideration that Lanie may have moved on and may have closed that tumultuous chapter in her life. And Poppy’s gumption -- though one can easily characterize it as insensitivity -- has a domino effect on the lives of the Burhman family.
Josie, in the aftermath of the murder, started afresh. She moved cities and made a new life for herself, a new identity as well, far away from the horrors back at home. The only person in touch with her was their aunt Susan Carver (Molly Hagan).
After being accosted by Poppy, Lanie panics and begs her aunt to get her in touch with Josie so she could warn her about this new development. But Susan is adamant about abiding with Josie’s wishes to cut off from the family. In such an argument, while they were in a car, Lanie and Susan meet with an accident that proves fatal for the latter.
Was Poppy the cause of the accident? No. Was she instrumental in creating anguish and tension that led to a moment of negligence behind the wheels? Yes. Yet, Poppy doesn’t stop. She gets her ex-boyfriend Markus Knox (Mekhi Phifer) to steal Susan’s phone from the crash site and goes on to locate and contact Josie.
This again is an example of Poppy being deliberately obtuse to a family’s trauma. Yes, ‘Truth Be Told’ is a complex story. But what Poppy ends up doing in an attempt to assuage her guilt is neither without repercussion nor worthy of redemption. She may be able to get rid of one ghost from her past, but in exchange, she seems to be creating a new set of ghosts.
‘Truth Be Told’ is available for viewing on Apple TV+.