Over the past six weeks since the premiere of “The Act”, with each episode coming out every Wednesday, it seems that all anyone can talk about is Gypsy Rose Blanchard, her murder of her mother Dee Dee and her current life in prison.

The true crime series, based on a true story, follows the years of Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee living their pretend life together as a mother taking care of her “sick” child who is in fact perfectly healthy. For years, Dee Dee Blanchard lied to doctors and the rest of the world about Gypsy Rose’s age and fabricated multiple illnesses saying she had leukemia, muscular dystrophy, hearing and sight impairment and could not process solid food meaning she needed a feeding tube. Over the course of the series, viewers at home have been able to watch the horrible, yet intriguing relationship that Gypsy Rose and her mother shared leading up to Gypsy Rose’s major rebellion against her mother. The show casts major actors like Joey King as Gypsy Rose, Patricia Arquette as Dee Dee Blanchard, Anna-Sophia Robb playing Gypsy Rose’s neighbor and Calum Worthy playing Gypsy Rose’s boyfriend and co-conspirator in the murder of her mother.

With each passing episode, it unfolds another twisted layer of both Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee unfolds  as viewers see the things they will do to get what they want. Gypsy Rose begins going behind her mothers back at every chance she could get to have contact with the outside world and Dee Dee never ceases to pull out every lie in the book to make the world believe her daughter is a helpless, sickly child.

Before watching the show I had my hesitations because I knew that this show was covering a very serious and real topic, and Joey King’s past acting in movies like “The Kissing Booth” was subpar, but after the first episode my mind was completely changed. King nailed the reenactment of Gypsy Rose in both mimicking her voice and conveying the emotions that go along with what she was being put through for years by her mother. Patricia Arquette portrayed the perfect ‘lovable villain’, Dee Dee,  in a way that at various times in the show, it was hard to hate the horrible person she truly was. Which was in a way quite accurate due to the fact that the world only knew the real Dee Dee as a devoted mother and caretaker to Gypsy.

Even the set design was able to successfully show the shift in how the two characters lived their life through the course of the season. In the first few episodes, the show is always perfectly kept together, with nothing out of place, making it absolutely picture perfect. But as the story progresses, and as both Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose begin to dive deeper into chaos, their home becomes more and more cluttered, very far from picture perfect. One can take this as a metaphor for how the characters both seem to lose control of their lives, or see it just as a perfectly accurate depiction of how the real Dee Dee Blanchard kept her home. When real authorities got to the scene, the state of the actual home along with the murder was very alarming by the amount of things scattered around the house.

It is oftentimes hard to handle such serious and sensitive topics, while also making it entertaining and respectful at the same time. “The Act,” however, on the other hand has been able to keep the audience intrigued and wanting more after each episode ends, without it making it too “Hollywood” or over-dramatized. The director, Erin Lee Carr was successfully able to take a topic that no one wanted to talk about and make it all anyone could talk about.