Peacock’s The Resort review: Giving true-crime fans what they need

The ResortAs so many great things start with a drink, this one starts off like all good things. The dark comedy has its protagonist step out of her cab from the airport to a luxury Yucatán resort and down a complimentary drink with the sort of fevered intensity that suggests this vacation is sorely needed. Emma is played by Cristin Milioti. She’s a girl in desperate need of distraction. Finding the phone number of a missing young man proves to be the solution.

There’s much to admire in The Resort — unexpected twists happen in every episode, building to the sort of high-concept time-bending premise seen most widely in the works of Denis Villeneuve and Christopher Nolan. The cast has impeccable comedy timing, and the concept is well-executed. The Resort is perhaps the best example of “true-crime brain” adapted to screen.

True crime can be a complex phenomenon. The first iterations of true crime were niche-oriented. Those who became interested in the Victorian murders of Jack the Ripper or the butchery committed by Ed Gein would be able to dissect them. This was the beginning of Hitchcock’s involvement with the O.J. In the 1990s, the O.J. was broadcast live to mainstream viewers. Court TV started broadcasting the Simpson trial live on TV. The pre-internet public feedback loop had been closed and non-experts were limited to dissecting the cases at the tap. With social media in its full swing and podcasts becoming a more popular medium, the position of amateur detective has become something sinister in the decades since.

First, the new wave in true crime was a high-profile phenomenon: podcasts. Seriala meticulously researched and produced dissection on the tragic murder Hae Min Lee. The JinxAnd Make a MurdererDeep dives were made into the murky waters that are the American justice system. Ryan Murphy, a fictionalized TV star, caught the trend and created what can be considered his best television. American Crime Story: The People V O.J. SimpsonAnd Gianni Versace assassinatedBoth of these properties received a slew of awards-season statues. They never lost sight of humanity, and both the victim as well as the perpetrator were shown to be complex people with lives far beyond their inciting incidents.

O.J. Simpson and his defense team stand to enter a plea of “100 percent not guilty”

Anna walking past a coworker at a desk on the phone in Inventing Anna

Emma standing in the woods with her hands on her hips looking sweaty and dirty

With the rise of true crime, audiences became increasingly hungry for more content. Podcasts have become hugely popular despite the fact that they do not need to conduct extensive research like their predecessors. They can simply recap old episodes. I Survived…With very little more insight. Names like The Drunken Women are the Criminals and slogans like “Stay sexy and don’t get murdered,” and the genre grew increasingly gendered. The medium focused on female, often suburban, victims and preyed on women’s darkest fears while stoking the moral panic around the “other.” The market target audience resembled The Resort’s Emma, middle-class white women in need of a distraction.

The rise of streaming and podcasting networks that produce low-quality material was the beginning of prestige broadcasting. Scammer stories and adaptations of soap operas were able to entice viewers who weren’t attracted by the shallow, salacious content that treated graphic murders as soap operas. Invention of Anna, The Dropout, Fyre Fraud, WeCrashedAnd HustlersGiving up space once occupied by true crime, this was a new way to make it a high-profile issue. These shows and films were an equally compelling look at injustice and the seeming psychopathy of its perpetrators, but the victims weren’t dehumanized and lying six feet under. Many found it much more appealing to watch people robbed of their money rather than being mutilated.

The true-crime brain had to be satisfied and Netflix’s content came in thick and fast, despite its low quality. Netflix’s true-crime library continued to grow and everyone from Ted Bundy to Charles Manson got hunky makeovers in dramatic reimaginings of the events. We return to true-crime boogeymen looking for simpler answers, even when the stories have become part of cultural zeitgeist. Statistics from the University of Pennsylvania show that violent crime rates have been steadily declining, especially during the pandemic. However, women felt more at risk of being harmed. While hypervigilance could be caused by trauma responses, true crime results from the body absorbing traumas.

The true-crime brain is only fed by social media. When Gabby Petito went missing or Amber Heard took the stand against Johnny Depp, Twitter and Tik Tok became filled by true-crime aficionados posting theories, and gotcha moments ripped from everything from a woman crying about a sexual assault by a man with a storied history of violence to the viewing history of Petito’s fiance’s Netflix account. There are many theories floating around the Internet. Gone Girl levels of conspiracy and the (usually female) victims were often blamed, as if the solution for safety is to live one’s life in a state of perpetual paranoia.

William Jackson Harper as Noah standing in an overgrown abandoned hotel room, silhouetted against the light, in The Resort

Sam looking shocked on a plane while his girlfriend sleeps on his shoulder in The Resort

two characters in The Resort sitting on an outdoor couch leaning on each other

The Resort This speaks to the new age of brain rot from true crime, but it’s not the first production to notice its effect on our wider culture. Nur Murders are allowed in the Building, Halloween, And Trial & ErrorEach has a true crime podcaster who is layered in to the cases they’re investigating and in every case, bungling that particular crime. More recently there’s the strange wish fulfillment of the Alison Brie episode of Roar titled “The Woman Who Solved Her Own Murder.” That neat narrative, of waking up to find your own corpse and then proving the only person with the talent and insight to solve it, seems the ultimate fulfillment of the true-crime brain: both proving that we were right all along to be afraid but also proving to be capable of seeing a truth beyond the unimaginative doldrum of police procedure.

Emma finds the phone when she opens it. The ResortIt is the paranoia that consumes her. With intensity that is normally reserved for Reddit’s lowest bowels, the innocuous messages sent by Sam (Skyler) and Violet (Nina Bloomgarden), to the missing boy, are picked up with intensity not usually found on Reddit. The show, with its use of flashback, plays with how true-crime brain has distorted Emma’s sense of the world, the text messages read as sexier than they were in reality. Meaningless jokes sent after a few drinks now unlock the secrets to an entire person’s psyche. As with many people, her assumptions are based entirely on stereotypes of real crime. Luis Gerardo Méndez plays the resort’s security manager, Baltasar Frías, a man with complex and often bizarre motives — but to Emma, he’s an archetype whose family connections and demeanor can only mean one, highly inaccurate thing.

Frías himself has always dreamed of becoming a detective. He spent his life reading detective novels, and though he was raised to take over his wealthy and well-connected family’s business, he longed for a different path: a world where hard work, thorough investigation, and methodical detective work will eventually lead to the right answer. He is, rightly, incredulous at Emma’s approach, where passion overrides logic — appalled that upon finding the phone she wouldn’t bother searching the area for more clues, instead content to spin a fantasy based on a few ambiguous text messages.

An overhead shot of Emma and Noah in intertubes in a lazy river in The Resort

Milioti is a fascinating character, even when she looks at the most mundane of clues while she spirals. He brings depth and meaning to Emma, who has lost her sense of self, but can’t help but feel confused. William Jackson Harper’s story is just as compelling after demonstrating his talent. The Good Place, Underground RailroadThe second season of. Loving Life, is proving to be one of television’s most compelling romantic leads. He longs to connect with his wife, who can only focus on the tragic events of 15 years prior, gently asking her, “What if there aren’t any answers?” only to be met with a determined, “Well, there have to be. Otherwise what else is the fucking point?”

For more information, see the section on How to get into these twists and pitfalls. The Resort would be a disservice to an excellent program, but suffice to say it’s one of the most unpredictable shows on television, both in plot and tone. But what grounds the show is the journey through Emma’s unrelenting obsession, that perhaps if she can find these answers, it will make the world make sense again. Who can’t relate to the idea of coping with chaos through the exploration of the stories of other people, rather than facing our own grief. Emma believes it can lead to closure and help those in need. True crime does not matter which way it goes. DatelineAmateur podcasts are changing how audiophiles interact with the rest of the world. You aren’t a reckless simpleton if you extend a modicum of trust toward your fellow human beings, walk home without your keys forming a Wolverine-style claw between your fingers, or don’t try to leave DNA evidence in the back of every cab. Life isn’t divided into good guys and bad guys, it’s complicated and messy and scary and joyful. Enjoy your drink.

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