Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Twelve’ On Netflix, Where Each Member Of A Jury Brings Their Lives Into A Sensational Murder Case

Most of the time when you see a courtroom drama, the jury consists of twelve extras who don’t have speaking parts. They’re mainly faceless and there is no indication of what their lives are like. But the new Flemish drama The Twelve turns this format inside out and shows what each juror is going through in his or her life in order to show what biases and other experiences play into their observations and verdict.

THE TWELVE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A bearded man lights a cigarette. “I thought you weren’t allowed to smoke in here?” says a female voice. “I can’t. But you can,” he says, and hands the cigarette to her.

The Gist: The man is the lawyer for the woman, Frie Palmers (Maaike Cafmeyer). She’s on trial for two murders, eighteen years apart. The first one was the Jan 1, 2000 murder of her best friend, Brechtje Vindevogel (Lynn Van Royen), the second is the death of her 2-year-old daughter Roos (Estelle Sys) in 2016. The proceedings, dubbed “The Millennium Trial,” has created a media buzz in Belgium, especially in the Flemish city of Ghent, where the trial takes place.

We then see a woman drive up to the courthouse, pull on a skirt and leather jacket. She’s late for jury duty and selection is about to begin. She’s nearly relieved when she’s not seated among the twelve random jurors that both sides approved of, but then Delphine Spijkers (Maaike Neuville) is horrified to learn that she’s been picked as an alternate juror, who will have to be there for the entire trial in case one juror needs to be replaced. She’s so scared of what her husband Mike (Titus De Voogdt) may say that she lies to him about being selected.

Other jurors backstories start to play out a bit. Holly Ceusters (Charlotte De Bruyne) is going by a different last name now, and it seems that the house she lived in for years is something that she desperately wants to get rid of. Joeri Cornille (Tom Vermeir) is still smarting over his divorce, and he’s just taken over his father’s construction firm, much to his older brother’s chagrin. We also see Marc Vindevogel (Koen De Sutter), Brechtje’s father, have his doubts about Frie’s involvement in his daughter’s murder. He may know something we don’t, as he plays a video ransom tape from the day she disappeared, with her bloodied and begging for help, saying “they” will hurt her.

During the arraignment, the judge questions Frie extensively. Frie testifies that her husband, Stefaan De Munck (Johan Heldenbergh) left her for his current wife Margot (Greet Verstraete) while she was pregnant with Roos. Roos was a miracle baby because, according to Frie, Stefaan gave her HPV, which he caught during another affair, and it ruined her cervix. Stefaan was given custody of Roos because of what was deemed to be Frie’s “aggressive” behavior. She gets emotional during questioning, and wonders why she was even a suspect for killing her daughter, and why she was arrested for Brechtje’s case, as well.

As news of the trial and pictures of the jury go out on TV, Mike finds out that Delphine lied to him — he wants her to get out of jury duty and locks her in the bathroom for punishment. Meanwhile, Marc’s lawyer investigates Holly and finds out exactly why she changed her name.

Our Take: The Twelve (Original title: De Twaalf) looks at the criminal justice system in a way we generally haven’t seen before. We get to see the inner and outer lives of the members of the jury as the trial goes on, to see what biases and life experiences they bring to the conference table when listening to evidence against Frie and figuring out whether she’s guilty.

Creators Sanne Nuyens and Bert Van Dael have given us a multilayered approach here. First, the cases that Frie is on trial for seem to be completely unrelated, and she seems like she’s innocent in both. Yet, the jury is going to have to deal with evidence from two murders that were 16 years apart. Frie’s life is littered with disappointments and tragedy, not the least of which is Stefaan’s near-abusive behavior towards her. Yet we don’t know anything about her issues towards the marriage or motherhood. For all we know, she did harm Roos in the past, which is what made her such a good suspect in her murder.

But going into the lives of the jurors will also be fascinating. We will get to see what’s going on that may influence their views of the case, even when they vow to be objective. Bias is inherent in every person’s view of life, no matter how impartial they try to be, and seeing how it’s a factor in how they see the evidence will be a fascinating topic to explore.

We get the feeling that some jurors, like Delphine and her controlling husband, and Holly, who’s running away from a nightmare, will get more time than others. But they’ll all get some backstory, which is a whole lot more than what we can say about how juries have been treated in pop culture, save for the various versions of Twelve Angry Men that we’ve seen. Let’s hope we can keep track of everything that’s going on and that what we find out there impacts how we see the case.

Sex and Skin: Holly has sex with a former boyfriend on the window of her old house, right before she tells him she wants to put it on the market.

Parting Shot: In a flashback, when Frie runs to the hospital after getting word about Roos, she’s greeted by Chief Inspector Eliane Pascual (Sara Vertongen) of the federal police, whom she has dealt with before. After Pascual anodynely asks Frie to consent to a DNA sample, just to rule people out, the detective’s tone changes after she gets the sample. “I know you just tried to cut your daughter’s throat,” she tells Frie. “I’ll make sure you go to prison for a long time.”

Sleeper Star: Charlotte De Bruyne is especially good as the seemingly free-spirited Holly, whom a juror named Carl Destoop (Zouzou Ben Chikha) accuses of getting too emotional during the proceedings. “It’s a full moon,” she says. “I get all excited when that happens.”

Most Pilot-y Line: Frie testifies that she never thought that Stefaan would be attracted to Margot because she’s “flat as a pancake.” Didn’t realize that phrase was still relevant in 2018, when the trial takes place.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Good performances and a layered, unique approach elevates The Twelve above most court dramas. Let’s hope that the ambitious idea of exploring all the jurors’ inner lives won’t make things confusing or the mystery too easy to figure out.

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 The Twelve On Netflix