Before ‘The Act’ You Need to Watch ‘Mommy Dead and Dearest’

Hulu is about to add another shocking installment to the world of true crime adaptations with the premiere of its miniseries The Act. Yet years before Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s story was even on Hulu’s radar another major network already delivered the definitive take on this particular case. HBO’s Mommy Dead and Dearest isn’t just an informative and gripping documentary about one of the craziest murder cases in recent history. It’s also one of the most heartfelt true crime documentaries ever created.

Directed by Erin Lee Carr (Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop), Mommy Dead and Dearest takes what should be a tabloid case and parses it down to its sad central story of emotional and physical abuse. In June of 2015 Dee Dee Blanchard was found brutally murdered in her home in Greene County, Missouri. In the wake of the crime scene her ill and brain-damaged daughter was nowhere to be found. All that was left was a Facebook status that said, “That Bitch is dead!”

Except Dee Dee’s daughter Gypsy Rose Blanchard was neither ill nor suffering from brain-damage. She was also far from the innocent, helpless girl her family and friends knew. Gypsy Rose had orchestrated her mother’s death in an attempt to break free of her mother’s controlling reign. Though her daughter was was healthy, Dee Dee Blanchard had systematically poisoned, drugged, and lied to her own child, presumably because she gained some satisfaction from being Gypsy Rose’s caretaker. After her death, it has been suspected that this mother had Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

There are several details in the murder of Dee Dee Blanchard that make it perfect for a trashy Lifetime original movie. For one, Gypsy Rose and her boyfriend who actually committed the murder, Nicholas Godejohn, would routinely cosplay as they flirted and sexted. Gypsy Rose allegedly had three different “alter-egos” for this purpose alone. Then there’s the matter of the scale of Dee Dee Blanchard’s deception. From 2005 to 2014 this mother took her daughter to Children’s Mercy Hospital over 100 times. That’s over 100 medical visits that involved hiding medical information from nurses, fooling doctors, and costing many well-meaning organizations a lot of money. Because of Gypsy Rose’s many medical problems, this mother and daughter almost completely relied on different charities, government stipends, and her father’s child support payments.

Yet Mommy Dead and Dearest deftly skims over the scandalous weeds to focus on what matters most. Gypsy Rose Blanchard was a victim of abuse. For years, she was verbally and physically abused by her primary caretaker. Countless people failed her as they trusted her mother over the many red flags before their own eyes. Carr’s documentary allows the victims and family members to frame this story in no uncertain terms. At one point the late Dee Dee Blanchard’s parents are asked what they did with their daughter’s ashes. Without flinching they recount suggesting someone flush them down a toilet.

Despite all the sympathy this documentary clearly has for Gypsy Rose, it refuses to make her a perfect victim. The final moments of Mommy Dead and Dearest feature the Buzzfeed journalist who originally brought this story to national attention, Michelle Dean, reflecting on what this daughter could have learned from her manipulative mother. After all, this young woman did convince her boyfriend to commit a murder for her. That’s a far cry from an innocent Disney princess. For the murder of Dee Dee Blanchard, Godejohn received a life sentence and 25 years in prison. Gypsy Rose accepted a plea bargain and was sentenced to 10 years.

The story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard is one about a girl blossoming into a woman as a hostage in her own home. In its own quiet, fly on the wall way Mommy Dead and Dearest communicates that complicated sorrow without ever once defending its mother or daughter. If you’re only going to watch one take on this crazy true crime case, HBO’s stellar documentary needs to be it.

Watch Mommy Dead and Dearest on HBO Go and HBO NOW