**Spoiler Alert: This article reveals sensitive plot details about the show. Read-only if you have seen the show.**
“Unbelievable” has been all the buzz in my sorority house this month. Released to Netflix on Sept. 13, the show follows the story of a serial rapist terrorizing women of all ages living alone in Washington and Colorado. The show begins with Marie Adler, a teenage girl living in her own apartment in a development for troubled teens after being passed around through multiple foster families. A month after moving into her apartment, she is raped by a stranger in the dark hours of the morning.
Photo courtesy of @unbelievable_netflix on Instagram
“An 18-year-old is attacked at knifepoint. Then she said she made it up. That is where our story begins.” -Ken Armstrong and T. Christian Miller, The Marshall Project
Jump to Colorado three years later, where detectives Karen Duvall and Grace Rasmussen have teamed up from different departments to crack the code to multiple rape cases, all in different Colorado towns but with similar specifics. Since I don’t want to spoil the show, I won’t go into much more detail. To say the least, this show depicts the hardships one faces after an assault and the steps taken to solve a case.
Photo courtesy of @netflix on Twitter
“One of the best crime dramas in recent memory and one of the best shows of 2019.” -Jen Chaney, Vulture
The show is a limited Netflix original series, with eight episodes averaging about 45 minutes. Closely following a true story, “Unbelievable” is binge-able and extremely capturing. I tend to stick to comedy series and completely fictional entertainment, so this was a step outside the box for me. But after watching the trailers, I knew I had to give it a shot. I finished the entire show in less than a week, a little shamefully. The show strikes an accord with many women in today’s world, as one in five women will experience sexual assault in her lifetime, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. Just days after being released, the show gained support, as it looked at crime shows from a new perspective by focusing on the victim instead of the attacker. It is eye-opening and shocking to see everything these women go through. To read the account of the true story, visit The Marshall Project: An Unbelievable Story of Rape.
Photo courtesy of @ifpfilm on Twitter