If you haven't heard so already there's a new true crime series out on Hulu that has people going nuts about it. In the past several years, true crime has taken over. There are now endless amounts of true crime tv shows, movies, podcasts, etc. While true crime may not be what everyone is interested in, everyone has at least heard about true crime series like "The Confession Tapes", "The Staircase" and the latest one, "The Act".
The Act is a new Hulu series based on the life of Dee Dee Blanchard, played by Patricia Arquette, and her daughter Gypsy, played by Joey King. Dee Dee is an overprotective single mother, who just wants to take care of her daughter and will go to extremes to do so. Dee Dee, whose real name is Clauddine, got pregnant with her daughter Gypsy at the age of 24. She then married the father of her child, who at the time was only 17 years old. In 1991 they welcome their "Perfectly healthy, pretty little baby". The couple broke up shortly after Gypsy was born.
Dee Dee began telling her husband that Gypsy, only three months old, suffered from sleep apnea, one of the many illnesses she had along with leukemia, muscular dystrophy, asthma, vision, and hearing impairment, she even had a feeding tube. Gypsy was also told that she suffered from seizures, had a learning disability, and had been in a wheelchair since the age of five. But even with all the medical records they had, Gypsy soon came to realize that her whole life was a lie.
Children tend to believe anything and everything their parents tell them. They might be feeling completely fine but if their parent says that there is something wrong with them they are not going to question it. And that is what happened with Gypsy. Her whole life she was told that she had all these different illnesses and that she was never going to be a healthy girl, she was always going to have some sort of problem and she was always going to need to depend on someone. But Gypsy soon started to feel that need for independence and started to break away from her mom. Of the first times that the viewers begin to see that there is nothing wrong with Gypsy is when she gets up in the middle of the night and walks to the kitchen. Something so simple opened Gypsy's eyes and she began to experience things that she was told she was never going to be able to do like walk.
After becoming homeless after hurricane Katrina, Dee Dee and Gypsy moved to Missouri in 2008 where their dream home was built from Habitat for Humanity. The home even had a wheelchair ramp for Gypsy. The house was located on the corner of Hope Road and Volunteer way. The mother-daughter duo traveled the country. Going to places like baseball games and Disney World, all thanks to the Make a Wish Foundation.
When they moved to Missouri, Gypsy became really close to their neighbor Aleah Woodmansee, who is played by Annasophia Robb. Woodmansee says, "She was one of the happiest people I had ever met and yet she was the sickest people id ever met at the same time." Aleah became someone that Gypsy looked up to someone that she can ask for advice. She confided in her.
As a teenager Gypsy's interest began to shift. She began to want more independence and she began to go boy crazy. She later created a private Facebook account, a place where she could escape her overbearing mother, and a place where she would meet boys.
Soon later Gypsy met her boyfriend Nick Gottejohn on a Christian dating site. She first had lied to him about who she was, scared of what he might think, but later came clean about it and he told her that he accepted her just the way she is. She then began to tell Aleah about him telling her things like how romantic he is and how they had already talked about their future together and about having kids. But Nick wasn't the prince charming Gypsy believed he was. Nick was similar to Gypsy in that he acted as if he was younger than what his actual age was.
As things began to heat up in the relationship Gypsy thought that it was time to take the extra step and introduce Nick to her mom. The interaction did not go as planned. Dee Dee became furious, screaming at Gypsy demanding her to stay away from him.
After sharing how her life was with her mom with Nick, Gypsy told Nick that she wanted to escape her. In June 2015 her dream of escaping her mom became a reality, Gypsy and Nick traveled from Wisconsin to Missouri on a mission to kill Dee Dee. When they arrived at her home, Gypsy was so scared she hid in the bathroom the whole time. Nick confessed to stabbing Dee Dee, and Dee Dee screamed for Gypsy's help but Gypsy was too frightened by the whole scenario she couldn't move from the bathroom. After Dee Dee was murdered the couple had sex in Gypsy's bed, although in an interview with HBO Gypsy claims that she made a deal with Nick saying that if he raped her he wouldn't rape her mom's corpse. Soon after that, the two fled the crime scene with $4,000 that they had stolen from Dee Dee.
Gypsy and Dee Dee shared a facebook account and after the murder, several posts were made saying "That B**ch is dead!" and another saying what Nick had done to Dee Dee and then to Gypsy. It is then when the neighbors become concerned and call the police.
Gypsy was found guilty for second-degree murder and was sentenced 10 years in prison. As for Nick, he was sentenced to life in prison in February 2019 for first-degree murder.
This crazy story has captured the attention of viewers all across the country. Gypsy tells Buzzfeed, "I have been raised to do what my mother taught me to do. And those things aren't very good," "She taught me to lie, and I don't want to lie. I want to be a good, honest person."
The first three episodes of The Act are now streaming on Hulu and every Wednesday a new episode is released.
