Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story series premiere recap: What led Betty to murder?
By Mads Lennon
Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story premiere recap
Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story moves away from John Meehan and Debra Newell and into the story of Betty and Dan Broderick. The murder of Dan Broderick was a very highly publicized case in 1989. Several books were written about the Brodericks, along with many made-for-television movies.
In the latest dramatization of their story, Amanda Peet plays Betty and Christian Slater co-stars as Dan.
Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story premiere: A divorce to kick things off
The premiere of Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story doesn’t take long to get into the action of the story. Throughout the first episode, we see how Betty is dealing — er, not dealing — with her impending divorce from Dan.
Within the first ten minutes of the episode, Betty crashes her car into Dan’s new house, and he responds by committing her to a 72-hour psychiatric hold, complete with a straitjacket to enhance the dramatics.
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Betty is driven to such antics after learning that Dan has sold their beloved Coral Reef house. She contemplates burning the entire place down, but can’t bring herself to do it. She settles for ramming her car into his front porch instead.
Once Betty gets out of the hospital, Dan extends an olive branch to her in the shape of a trip to Keystone with the kids.
She and their two sons and two daughters have a great time together in their suite, which Dan pays for in its entirety.
The only problem is, Dan’s act of kindness gives Betty hope that he might not really want to get divorced. She starts to theorize that everything he’s doing proves that he still loves her, including the fact he refuses to pay the retainer on her attorney.
Betty’s friends try to encourage her to get back out there, play the field, get a job, meet new people, do things to make Dan realize what he’s missing when he sees her moving on.
To Betty’s credit, she does make an effort. She and her friend Janet visit the local bar for drinks and dancing. For a moment, it looks like Betty might even be forgetting about Dan, but then she starts seeing a vision of him on the dance floor, and her brief Dan respite goes out the window.
She can’t even keep herself from calling him when she gets home just to remind him of a funny inside joke they shared in their happier days. All of this motivates Betty to postpone finding a new lawyer.
Well, Dan isn’t hesitating as she had anticipated. He’s moving forward, full steam ahead, including suggesting that she relinquish custody of her children to him.
Yet Betty still puts off finding new representation. Then the kids come over to visit her, and she finds out the boys are in therapy, Betty freaks out after learning that her sons might be frightened of her.
She gives Dan an expletive-laden piece of her mind over his voicemail. Unfortunately, all of her kids are standing in the doorway, having overheard all of it. It doesn’t exactly help her “I”m not crazy” defense.
At the end of the first hour, Betty has neglected to find a new lawyer despite everyone’s advice, and she doesn’t even know when the hearing is. Betty expects Dan to have postponed it again, but she doesn’t double-check.
So when Dan shows up o court and Betty doesn’t, the judge rules in his favor, granting all of his terms — including the custody agreement and lack of child support payments.
The final scene shows Betty in an interrogation room sometime in the future, after shooting her husband.