True-crime podcasts: on Apple TV+, Aaron Paul and Octavia Spencer explore our morbid fascination with genre in fictional drama Truth Be Told
- In Truth Be Told on Apple TV+, Oscar winner Spencer plays a journalist podcaster who re-examines the case of a teenage murderer she helped convict
- Show’s creator says says she wanted to emphasise the problem with relying on a podcaster’s point of view when forming opinions on real cases
True-crime podcasts have become an obsession of armchair detectives around the world. Millions of wannabe sleuths “solve” real-life murders as they listen during morning commutes.
But what toll do these hit shows take on the families and victims of crimes long considered closed by police and the courts? And what credentials – or motivations – do the podcasters have to reopen their cases?
Truth Be Told, a new fictional drama from Apple TV+ out on Friday, explores this morbid fascination through the eyes of journalist Poppy Parnell, played by Oscar-winning actress Octavia Spencer.
Parnell re-examines the case of Warren Cave, a teenager convicted of murder, after new evidence comes to light years later. She broadcasts her findings on a popular podcast.
But we quickly learn that Parnell made her name as a young black reporter by helping to incriminate Cave – and decides to revisit his plight even though he has joined a neo-Nazi gang in prison. “She’s flawed in a lot of ways. But she thinks that she might have wronged him and she looks into it,” explains Spencer.
Aaron Paul, who plays Cave, says his swastika-tattooed character forces Parnell – and viewers – to recognise that “not everything is as black and white as it may seem”.