Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Outcry’ On Showtime, A Docuseries On A High School Football Star Convicted Of Molesting Children — But There Are Doubts

Since Greg Kelley was convicted in 2013 of sexually assaulting two four-year-old boys, there’s been a groundswell of support for the former high school football standout. The thinking was that the local police botched the investigation. In addition, neither boy identified Kelley in court and the second one who reported the abuse recanted his story. If you look up the facts of this case, you can see how complex it is, despite the fact that the charges against him were eventually vacated last November, after he was released on bond in 2017. A new Showtime docuseries attempts to unravel this case.

OUTCRY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Two chairs in a plain room, then two people walk in; a female interrogator specializing in talking to children and a 4-year-old boy, who’s blurred out. When the boy is asked, “What does it mean to tell the truth?” He replies, “With Greg?”

The Gist: Greg Kelley was the toast of the town in Leander, TX, a suburb of Austin. Like most towns in Texas, Leander lives and dies by its high school football team, and Leander High has had one of the best teams in the state for a few decades. Kelley, who joined the varsity team as a sophomore in 2010, was one of the best players the coaches and fans had ever seen. Fast, could leap, wasn’t afraid to make a hit. He was recruited by multiple colleges, and he needed those scholarships; unlike many of the people who lived in Leander and the neighboring suburb Cedar Park, Kelley didn’t grow up with money.

In fact, during his senior year in 2012, in the middle of a stellar season, his father suffered a stroke, while his mother was already in the hospital recovering from a brain tumor. This led him to stay at the home of a big booster of the program, whose son, Johnathan McCarty, was one of Kelley’s closest friends. She also ran an at-home day care program.

In early 2013, a 4-year-old boy came forward to say that Greg sexually abused him. During what the Cedar Park police department call the “outcry” interview, where the police interview the child as the basis to launch the investigation, the boy repeatedly said that Greg “put his pee-pee in my mouth.” Kelley was flabbergasted at the charge because he knew he never did that. Because there was only one child’s claims and little to no corroborating evidence, everyone from his friends and family to his attorney were confident that things would get straightened out.

Then a second 4-year-old boy came forward to say that Kelley abused him, and that more or less made the case for the Williamson County District Attorney. Despite the lack of physical evidence, the initially split jury came back with a conviction on two counts of supper aggravated sexual assault, which carries sentences with no parole. On sentencing day, he was encouraged to take a 25-year sentence instead of taking the risk of getting something longer from the jury, in exchange for waiving his right to appeal.

But soon friends, family and even strangers were rallying against Kelley’s conviction, thinking that something wasn’t right, including Jake Brydon, who wanted to help the family by looking into things further, covering ground the Cedar Park police didn’t.

Our Take: Outcry has the potential to be a really complex, layered story about the Greg Kelley case. But the first episode of this docuseries, directed by Pat Kondelis, glosses over most of that complexity to service the point that this All-American kid couldn’t possibly have assaulted these young children. We suspect that the investigation and the trial will be explored in more detail in the rest of the five-part docuseries, but the first episode misses so many details, we’re just left to think, “Oh, this poor kid got railroaded into a 25-year sentence.” And it just feels like something has been left out.

Yes, there is some representation from the other side, like people from the DA’s office, the Cedar Park police chief, and a friend of Kelley’s girlfriend who, as a victim of abuse herself, thinks he’s lying and he’s guilty. But the reactions from those sides are portrayed as mere speculation. A 4-year-old shouldn’t know those terms, says the police chief; he wasn’t horrified enough by the accusations, says his girlfriend’s friend. For now, there’s nothing that talks about why these people think Kelley is lying and how he’s capable of such attacks.

And maybe that’s the point; the case against Kelley was so sketchy that there isn’t much to say by the people who think he did it. But we wish that the first episode went into more details about the boys’ accusations and the trial that ensued. Otherwise, it was a lot of the same song being sung, that this kid couldn’t possibly have done what he was accused of doing; it made for a particularly slow-moving first episode.

Sex and Skin: Not that kind of show.

Parting Shot: As Kelley, who gave his interview while still in prison, exits the room where the interview was conducted, we hear Brydon say “It may not be as it appears. They got it wrong.”

Sleeper Star: Rosa Kelley has been through a lot over the past decade, from a brain tumor to Greg’s father having a stroke to seeing her son be labeled a sex offender. Yet, her interview segments are strong and direct.

Most Pilot-y Line: This really has nothing to do with the production of the series, but even after all those seasons of Friday Night Lights, we’re still shocked that a high-school football team can fill a 12,000-seat stadium every Friday night. But that’s high school football in Texas. It sure puts a lot of pressure on players who are basically kids.

Our Call: STREAM IT. While we think the complexities of Kelley’s case will eventually be brought out, Outcry starts by teasing things a bit too much, making for a relatively uneventful first episode.

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 Outcry On Showtime