InThe Keepers, the pain of the past morphs from curiosity to responsibility.
For journalist Tom Nugent, the past is a paying puzzle that became an obligation to solve.
For retirees Gemma Hoskins and Abbie Schaub, the past is a hobby that grew into a crusade.
Credit: Netflix
In a culture of comic book escapism and stranger things,The Keepersgives us ordinary people as superheroes.
Theyre the real justice league of Baltimore.
Director Ryan White gives you socially aware pulp nonfiction, driven by cliffhanger storytelling and advocacy.
The cold case hes chosen to re-investigate also frustrates the pleasures of true crime in some provocative ways.
Here, what is true may ultimately be unknowable, and the crime might be impossible to rectify.
Why am I entertained by suffering?
How do I know whats true?
Do I really care?
She had been murdered; her killer was never found.
Was she silenced for what she knew about the men who ran Archbishop Keough?
Did they conspire with law enforcement to perpetrate a cover-up?
Did local church leaders know?
Am I my brothers keeper?
Whites do-gooders are the anti-Cain; they choose to be keepers of each other, brother or sister.
They cant ignore the blood crying out to them from the ground.
Whites scrappy DIY heroes offer surrogate catharsis for the wrongs and exasperations that roil our moment.
Theyre also one way in whichThe Keepersis can be seen as self-reflexive.
As soon as it was done over thank you very much!
Id throw it in a box like the ones you see here and start crankin on the next one.
Nugent knows his part.
They clearly love their righteous hobby, and theyve become excellent at it.
You might be tempted to take them for busybodies looking for late-in-life adventure and purpose.
But we come to understand that Schaub and Hoskins were adoring students of Cesnik.
Sister Cathy made Shakespeare come to life for Schaub; she blew Hoskins mind by teachingThe Scarlet Letter.
They also represent a much bigger community of women and serve a cause of justice that has been neglected.
That duality become more complex when Jane Doe enters the picture.
Wehners most explosive charge is that the priest who violated her and exploited her the most, Rev.
When she finally breaks down, I cried with her.
I also found myself examining my motives for watching.What do I want from this?
How do I respond to this?
Do I have the character to hold this knowledge?Wehner challenges us in other ways, too.
Could she be making all this up?
Is it wrong to be skeptical?
But it would be a mistake to stop at skepticism, or even make it our first response.
I want to believe Wehner; I thinkdobelieve Wehner.
Whites other choices are more questionable.
Their prudence, fuzzy banality and poor imagination are appropriate to Wehners fogged mind and uncanny experience of herself.
Still, they feel manipulative, and they enhance a queasiness that needs no enhancing.
And speaking of cliffhanger endings: every episode has one.
Haskells introductory scene, set at a bar, dotes on drinking.
Make of those things what you will.
ButThe Keeperskeeps you riveted and engaged in more admirable ways, too.
The story keeps widening, deepening, and surprising with new people that bring added layers to the story.
As bleak as it can be, the show represents a refreshing break from TVs villains and anti-heroes.
The Keeperspremieres the same weekend that ShowtimesTwin Peaksreturns.
It was also about sexual abuse, psychic manipulation, and a culture that preys on women.
Both shows even have demonic father figures named Bob.
Netflix has been marketingThe Keeperswith an ad campaign (Who Killed Sister Cathy?)
that mirrors the Who Killed Laura Palmer?
ABC marketing from 1990.
Shouldnt our fascination with abomination mean something more than voyeurism?
Its a question for everyone who makes true crime, and for us, too.A-
