The Diary
More revelations are coming to light in Truth Be Told as Lanie’s dark past reveals itself along with more of her manipulative side too. While the show still lacks some depth with its plot points, the actors continue delivering some solid performances in this drama that’s, so far at least, failed to really reach its potential. We start the episode with Warren heading to his father’s funeral. Before returning to prison, Warren asks Poppy where his mother is. She tells him she doesn’t know and confronts him about his lies surrounding that fateful night. He insists that he didn’t kill Chuck and demands to see his mother. Poppy then tells him that she knows he’s guilty and will make sure his mother knows about it, which angers Warren and he threatens her before leaving. Back home, Poppy starts having second thoughts about what happened as she feels guilty about Owen’s suicide. Noa arrives in her office as she found Lanie’s diary and wants to decipher the codes inside it. However, Poppy tells her that she wants to stop digging as this is affecting too much in her life. She then starts recording her last podcast where she reveals that a witness came forward, who saw Warren coming out of the Buhrman house that night proving his guilt. In the evening, Poppy returns home and sees that her husband has invited her family to dinner. After what happened, they all rally to support her and her father makes amends for his behaviour in the past. After dinner, Ingram asks his wife about her time in foster care and wonders why she never told him. Meanwhile, Josie berates Lanie for calling her fiance behind her back as he now wants to meet her, while Markus tries to convince Poppy not to give up on the case and shows her the diary, believing it holds some of the answers. In the evening, Poppy returns home to find her house trashed as someone has broken in. Her father arrives to make sure she’s okay and believes Warren is responsible for the break-in. This prompts her to visit him in prison the next day as there are still some inconsistencies in the case. He finally admits that he used to hide under Lanie’s bed and read the diary, leading Poppy to ask him to help with the codes. Later that night while Poppy, Markus and Noa work on the diary, Poppy realizes that Chuck used to abuse Lanie, which could make Erin guilty of the murder. Meanwhile, Lanie speaks to Josie’s fiance and lies about her sister, claiming that she was unstable after the murder, and even tried to smother her. The next day, Poppy decides to follow her and jumps in her car while Lanie is at the car wash. She confronts her about the abuse and asks if her mother knew about it. Lanie tells her she did but she didn’t kill her dad. After investigating the places where Lanie was institutionalized, Poppy finds out that Sharon Dostikas was on the hospital board and her husband is actually a colleague. This prompts Poppy to invite the couple out for dinner to find out more about Lanie. Unfortunately, Sharon gets offended when she realizes the only reason they were invited was for Poppy to get information about Lanie. After the couple leave, Ingram angrily confronts her, tired of Poppy’s antics. The episode then ends with Poppy recording the end of her podcast as she wonders why Lanie lied about that fateful night while we see Warren looking at a letter he received from Lanie. Truth Be Told is not a bad drama but it’s not a particularly outstanding or great one either. With so many other true crime series out there, Truth Be Told’s problem stems from its inability to captialize on what makes this genre tick. We’re given some interesting plot points but the series never really develops or expands on them deeply enough to make it as thrilling and authentic as the show perhaps should be. Still, the actors are probably Truth Be Told’s strongest point, typified by Lizzy Caplan playing both twins. We see more of her manipulative side here when she manages to get her sister to move back in by interfering with her personal life. Both her and her mother Erin seem to be the ones hiding the most secrets and these should hopefully be revealed in the next episodes.
