Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich’ On Netflix, A Docuseries Detailing The Sexual Assault Case Against The Powerful Financier

Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich is a four-part examination of the super-wealthy financier’s history of sexual assault, especially involving underage girls, and the web of protection that he built via his powerful friends and associates (including Presidents Trump and Clinton). While there is some biographical information about Epstein, executive producer Joe Berlinger (James Patterson, a neighbor of Epstein’s in Palm Beach, Florida, is also an EP and is interviewed) concentrates on Epstein’s victims, who are labeled “survivors.” Read on for more.

JEFFREY EPSTEIN: FILTHY RICH: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: After a disclaimer about how the series will present disturbing accounts of sexual assault on underage girls, we see a video of Jeffrey Epstein grinning as he’s sworn in for a deposition on January 25, 2012. During the deposition he states the sexual crimes he’s been convicted for but pleads the fifth on any questions relating to soliciting women, underage or not, in any of his residences.

The Gist: Part 1 discusses both Epstein’s earliest reported assaults, in 1996, and the investigation from 2003-05 that yielded the first convictions. We’re introduced to Vicky Ward, who unearthed some of Epstein’s earliest victims as she was writing up what was supposed to be a business-oriented piece for Vanity Fair. Those victims, sisters Maria and Annie Farmer, were willing to come forward and talk to her about their experiences with Epstein. In both cases, Epstein exposed himself to them under the guise of wanting a massage. In the case of Annie, who was underage, she was touched by Epstein.

When Ward wanted them included in piece, then-editor-in-chief Graydon Carter spiked those parts of the story, citing that there was no time to fact-check their stories. But Ward has a feeling that Epstein and his powerful friends spooked Carter and his Conde Nast bosses.

Then there was what was going on in his Palm Beach compound. Palm Beach is notoriously insular, and someone with new money buying into the island (our current president included) is looked at with extreme skepticism. Young women were being seen going in and out of his mansion, and it was reported to the police. But all were of age. But then a call came in from the mother of a 17 year old who reported that she got a job massaging Epstein and he exposed himself. Det. Joe Recary of the PBPD started looking into it, and found that there were lots of underage girls coming in to “massage” Epstein, often recruited through his girlfriend/facilitator Ghislaine Maxwell, who was also the connector between Epstein and his powerful friends.

A few of those women speak in Part 1. Shawna Rivera, from a poor section of West Palm Beach across the bridge from Palm Beach, was first assaulted at 14, and kept doing it for years because she felt the money was her ticket out of WPB. Haley Robson was also attacked by Epstein, but she managed to resist to the point where Epstein offered to pay her every time she recruited a new girl for the masseuse job, something that he and Maxwell did a lot, making for a “sexual pyramid scheme.”

Our Take: Watching the first episode of Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich set off all of our disgust meters; we knew that Epstein was a serial creep, especially after he was arrested on sex trafficking charges in 2019 after years of rumors and investigation. But the sheer numbers of women he (and, it seems in some cases, Maxwell) assaulted, as well as the fact that  he recruited powerful friends and used them as a shield against getting into deeper trouble was just plain shocking.

Berlinger and the show’s director, Lisa Bryant, are in no uncertain terms in the victims’ camp, also making sure they closely associate Epstein with people like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. In fact, they show Epstein with Trump so many times that you can tell that they’re doing more than just implying things about their relationship. Clinton, for his part, has denied that he knew anything was going on, but Prince Andrew of Britain readily admitted that he was around Epstein as he consorted with underage girls.

Considering how disgusting the accounts of Epstein’s assaults are, we’re wondering if his dealmaking and threats to get those Palm Beach charges reduced will make us even angrier. Yes, the four-part docuseries is designed to make us angry at how much power can be used to cover up the most heinous of activity, but we’re not sure if our quarantine-addled senses of outrage can handle it; we already get pissed off when we see someone not cover their noses with their masks.

We’re wondering how Berlinger and Bryant are going to handle the subject of Epstein’s death in August of 2019. While it was ruled a suicide, there are many people who don’t believe that conclusion. Will they explore the factors leading up to his death and draw some conclusions or will they just leave it to the viewer to decide?

Parting Shot: Video of Recarey and other PBPD officers executing a search warrant on Epstein’s mansion, and we hear the late detective’s boss say “that we we were extremely surprised at what we found.”

Sleeper Star: All of the women who came forward to describe their encounters with Epstein and their reasons for why some of them kept doing it were harrowing to listen to and watch.

Most Pilot-y Line: We can see why, during the videos of Recarey questioning the underage victims, the victims’ faces would be pixelized; they were underage at the time. But we’re not sure why Recarey’s face was pixelized in those interview videos as well as the video where they execute the search warrant. A photo of the late detective is shown in the episode, so there must be a legal reason why he was pixelized. We’re not sure what that is, though.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich is a pretty straightforward docuseries about a monster’s horrible behavior. Your level of engagement with the series will depend on how much stomach you have for hearing about Epstein’s crimes and abuses of power, especially when it comes to underage girls.

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 Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich On Netflix