The Truth
The truth is finally out and while it was quite a big twist, it didn’t feel as shocking as it should have, thanks in part to the lack of character development throughout the series. Still, the actors do a great job in their roles, even if this twist has felt a little anticlimactic. The Season 1 finale of Truth Be Told starts as Erin’s body is taken away while Lanie and Poppy watch on. Later, Poppy and Markus discuss the suicide as they believe it points at Lanie being the guilty one. Suddenly, she gets a call from Warren who tells her that he’s in danger at the prison. He’s not able to finish his call however as other inmates quickly corner him and beat him up. Ingram speaks to his wife about her time in foster care and wants to know more about it. However, she dismisses his probing and asks him for his help to get the name of Lanie’s doctor when she was in the mental hospital. After obtaining the name, Poppy heads to see Josie and tells her about her mother being sober on the night her father died. She believes Lanie killed her father and when she found out her mother was going to talk, Lanie decided to kill her too. Penny then pleads for her help as she’s the only one who can. Pretending to be Lanie, Josie heads to Redwood Institute to get her sister’s medical report. Heading back in her car where Poppy is waiting for her, they read the pages and find out that Lanie was obsessed with her twin sister and that the doctors believed that she was lying about her father abusing her as it was a way to sever the emotional tie between Josie and her father. Lanie is then fired after the podcast and sleeping with her patient’s grandson. This leads to her husband leaving with her daughter after he finds out the dark truth about his wife, as he starts to suspect her too. Meanwhile, Poppy tries helping Josie remember the night of the murder. She starts having flashbacks of her sister burying a sharp bird ornament and manages to find it in the woods. She then has another memory where she realizes that she was the one who stabbed her father that night. With the truth finally revealed, Poppy meets with Lanie who tells her she has a decision to make as she doesn’t think her twin will survive in prison. We then cut to the twins giving statements to the police with a made-up story about their mother being the one responsible and not Warren. With this confession, Warren is free and hurries off to reunite with his mother while both Josie and Lanie discuss what happened. Lanie admits to giving pills to her mother but unfortunately for her, the police were listening the whole time and arrest her. The episode then ends with Poppy meeting with Markus who tells her he heard she’s moving to New York and thinks it’s for the best as he realizes he still loves her. Truth Be Told definitely had the potential to be a tense and interesting crime thriller but unfortunately the under-developed character arcs have really failed to help this one reach its full potential. Despite that, there are some positives to take from this show. The pacing of the story is really good, as the truth has slowly unraveled over the weeks, and the acting has done well to overshadow some of the weak writing. With Lanie now in prison and Warren free, most of the plot threads have now been resolved but the series feels like it’s bowed out with a whimper rather than a roar. It’s not a bad show by any means but it’s also one that feels a little too anticlimactic for its own good. Given how many true crime offerings there are out there, Truth Be Told is not one you’ll return to in a hurry.
