Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Truth Be Told’ On Apple TV+, Where Octavia Spencer Is A Podcaster Trying To Get Aaron Paul Out Of Prison

Podcasts have become so ingrained in our pop culture that they’re now becoming the main thrust of new dramas. God Friended Me started the trend, but crime-related podcasts seem to be more ripe for making dramas about than the more talk-show kind of podcast. Limetown was a surprisingly-tense drama on Facebook earlier this fall, and now we have Truth Be Told on Apple TV+. Read on for more…

TRUTH BE TOLD: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Home video footage, “archival” footage and more depict the 1999 murder of author Chuck Buhrman and 16-year-old Warren Cave (Hunter Doohan) in custody for those murders.

The Gist: Poppy Parnell (Octavia Spencer) is an investigative journalist that left a 20-year career writing for big-city newspapers to start a popular podcast. Her career took off when she wrote about Warren and the murder trial that ultimately sent him to prison for life. As a follow-up, she attends a hearing where the defense tries to get a new trial via a newly-revealed tape that shows that Lanie Burhman, one of the victim’s twin daughters, was coached to give more a more definitive eyewitness account.

This leads Poppy to talk about the case with her husband, Ingrahm Rhodes (Michael Beach), who thinks the case is closed. Poppy decides to re-investigate the case via a new podcast series, but she has to get some more information first… including a talk with a now-adult Warren (Aaron Paul).

When she seeks permission to talk to Warren from his mother, Melanie (Elizabeth Perkins), she gets rejected at first. Melanie is dying of breast cancer, she thinks Poppy’s reporting on her son is part of the reason he got put away, and she doesn’t want to rip open old wounds. She especially doesn’t want Warren to know she’s dying. Later, though, she changes her mind, hoping that it gives Warren a chance to be free before she dies.

Poppy also tracks down Lanie (Lizzy Caplan), whom Poppy’s producer Noa (Katherine LaNasa) tells her is doing business as a “death doula”. Lanie is especially creeped out by Poppy’s reappearance, and tells her aunt Susan (Molly Hagan), that she needs to talk to her twin Josie (also Caplan), who has been in hiding for years.

In the meantime, Poppy has family matters to deal with, like the deteriorating mental state of her biker father Leander “Shreve” Scoville (Ron Cephas Jones), as well as the machinations of his current wife, Lillian (Tami Roman). At a birthday party for her dad, she runs into an old friend, former Oakland PD detective Markus Knox (Mekhi Phifer), whom she asks for help on the case.

When she finally sits down with Warren, he rolls up his sleeves to show his swastika tattoos and stonewalls her. When Poppy calls Melanie to ask how “he became a damn Nazi,” she does so more out of guilt than anything else. When Melanie insists that it’s not who Warren is, Poppy goes back to talk to him, drops the bomb that his mother is dying and threatens to leave if he says anything racist towards her.

Our Take: Truth Be Told is another Apple TV+ series where you see the money all over the screen. Like The Morning Show, that money is seen in all the top-grade actors that have been persuaded to play smaller-than-usual roles on the series. And, just like with The Morning Show, their acting elevates what is, for the most part, a pretty humdrum and not very original story.

The series, created by Nichelle Tramble Spellman (Reese Witherspoon is also an executive producer) based on the book Are You Sleeping by Kathleen Barber, is for the most part a “did he really do it?” story, where elements of a long-ago case get revealed and people who were previously thought to be victims or innocent bystanders get the spotlight put on them. The part that involves a podcast seems to be about as superfluous as it was on Facebook’s series Limetown, though at least the latter was based on an actual fictional podcast. Perhaps it won’t be as we go along, as we already see Poppy going to great lengths to reinsert herself into these people’s lives just to get good podcast material.

That being said, Spencer does give good “NPR voice,” which has carried over to the world of podcasts like Serial and its ilk, and watching her talk into her microphone is soothing if not all that exciting. But what I like about Spencer in the role of Poppy is that she’s smart and driven, but knows she could have done a more credible job of vetting some of the rumors surrounding Warren’s trial almost 20 years ago.

Of course, the rest of the cast does their part: Perkins, who is also in the goofy Fox series The Moodys right now, shows how she can play hurt, disappointed, and dark in the role of Melanie, who dispenses stark advice to Poppy while getting chemo treatments. Paul does his twitchy best as Warren, a guy who had a penchant for breaking into the Burhman house to steal drugs, but was innocent otherwise; spending all of his adult life in prison has made him cagey and wary of anyone who professes to help him. Tracie Thomas and Haneefah Wood as Poppy’s sisters Desiree and Clydie, also do a great job.

But we couldn’t help but feel a bit bored by the first episode, one that didn’t seem to have much going on to propel it forward, despite needing to do the job of setting up the entire series.

Sex and Skin: Lanie, despite being married, has sex in a car with one of the grandsons of a death doula client. She perhaps uses it as a release for her stress.

Parting Shot: As people like Melanie and Lanie listen to the first episode of Poppy’s podcast, titled Reconsider, we hear Poppy say, “Did an innocent man go to prison, and did I lead the charge? I’m Poppy Parnell, and I’d like you… to Reconsider.”

Sleeper Star: While it’s hard to classify Lizzy Caplan as a sleeper, she was definitely underutilized in the first episode, especially because she’ll be playing both Lanie and Josie Burhman, who are approaching their roles in their father’s murder in different ways.

Most Pilot-y Line: Poppy figures out that Melanie has cancer because Melanie’s garbage broke as she was putting it in the can, and Poppy saw all of the Trader Joe’s-labeled ice cream and other junk she was eating. “This was what my mother ate when she was sick,” she said. That’s some good reporter’s intuition there, Poppy. And did Trader Joe’s pay for a product placement in that scene?

Our Call: STREAM IT. It’s fun watching Paul and Spencer square off, and pretty much all the rest of the performances elevate what’s a pretty unremarkable story.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Truth Be Told On Apple TV+