S01.E08: America’s Sweetheart or: Time Over Time

[BC4ME]

1 hour ago, gesundheit said:

Well, he didn't have to live a life of deception due to being bisexual. Plenty don't!

Now. He was born in 1943. I'm not gay or bisexual but I'm old enough to know these things were not well accepted when he was a child and younger adult. Look, I'm not trying to defend him. I'm just trying to look at what his life might've been like and why he might act certain ways.

[gesundheit]

2 minutes ago, BC4ME said:

Now. He was born in 1943. I'm not gay or bisexual but I'm old enough to know these things were not well accepted when he was a child and younger adult. Look, I'm not trying to defend him. I'm just trying to look at what his life might've been like and why he might act certain ways.

It's definitely true, but it's a choice to cheat on your spouse behind their back whether it's with folks of your spouse's gender or not. That's wildly different from the very real societal pressure to stay closeted. Reckless behavior that stems from having to conceal a huge part of one's identity is understandable (trust me, I understand it very well!), but I wouldn't consider being a closeted bisexual in a faithful marriage a "life of deception" -- but that's not what he was doing.

[Ms Blue Jay]

4 hours ago, AZChristian said:

I agree with a lot of what you say, but Elizabeth Ratliffe (the first woman who mysteriously died at the bottom of a stairway near Michael Peterson) was never his wife.  She was his neighbor, the mother of the two little girls that he and his first wife (Patty) took in after their parents' deaths.  

Patty was his first wife, and also the woman he was living with AFTER getting out of prison.  According to their son, Todd, Michael stood by for three hours while Patty was dying of a heart attack, and never called 911.  

What?!?!?!??!?!?   Holy shit!

2 hours ago, gesundheit said:

I'm glad Kathleen was finally given some depth and humanity after all the years of the doc. Largely this series seemed to imply guilt (as in, probably didn't mean to kill her but absolutely did do it and lied about it -- his claim to certainty of it being an accident has always been bizarre, nobody would find someone they love like that and skip past "who the hell did this to her"), or at the very least a callousness after the fact that speaks volumes. What a mess.

Yes, I noticed that too!  This is the only pop culture thing I've seen about this case but that really jumped out at me.

Jean asking "Did you kill Kathleen" and Colin Firth as Peterson saying "It was an accident" at the end of this series was almost like an admission of guilt.  

[Ms Blue Jay]

27 minutes ago, gesundheit said:

It's definitely true, but it's a choice to cheat on your spouse behind their back whether it's with folks of your spouse's gender or not. That's wildly different from the very real societal pressure to stay closeted. Reckless behavior that stems from having to conceal a huge part of one's identity is understandable (trust me, I understand it very well!), but I wouldn't consider being a closeted bisexual in a faithful marriage a "life of deception" -- but that's not what he was doing.

Nobody who is gay or bisexual is forced to get married to someone you don't love.... There are a lot of single people walking around regardless of sexuality........  Women receive a lot of pressure to get married but I'm sorry, I find it hard to imagine men face that same pressure........

2 hours ago, gesundheit said:

This series really lost me. I couldn't even tell you one detail about one of the kids except the one who was exploring her history and sexuality, but I also don't remember her name. The others had such vague check-ins with zero context that it was really disorienting.

It's a very confusing family tree and they chose to introduce the kids without explaining any of that until about halfway through the series.  An odd choice.

[Cinnabon]

4 hours ago, AZChristian said:

I agree with a lot of what you say, but Elizabeth Ratliffe (the first woman who mysteriously died at the bottom of a stairway near Michael Peterson) was never his wife.  She was his neighbor, the mother of the two little girls that he and his first wife (Patty) took in after their parents' deaths.  

Patty was his first wife, and also the woman he was living with AFTER getting out of prison.  According to their son, Todd, Michael stood by for three hours while Patty was dying of a heart attack, and never called 911.  

So if you believe that, Michael was probably responsible for the death of both wives and one other woman.  Sophie definitely dodged a bullet (or a "trip" down a stairway).

You would think he would want to keep the women supporting him alive since he doesn’t have much income of his own.

2 hours ago, gesundheit said:

Well, he didn't have to live a life of deception due to being bisexual. Plenty don't!

Exactly. He chose to be a lying coward, period. 

[gesundheit]

8 minutes ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

Nobody who is gay or bisexual is forced to get married to someone you don't love.... There are a lot of single people walking around regardless of sexuality........  Women receive a lot of pressure to get married but I'm sorry, I find it hard to imagine men face that same pressure........

My sense was that he was very attached to the idea of being a patriarch, but of course it was about what that said about him and a certain image rather than his actual interest in having a wife and children to love. (More like seeking a wife and children to adore him.)

[Cinnabon]

1 hour ago, BC4ME said:

Now. He was born in 1943. I'm not gay or bisexual but I'm old enough to know these things were not well accepted when he was a child and younger adult. Look, I'm not trying to defend him. I'm just trying to look at what his life might've been like and why he might act certain ways.

Then believe those of us who have had many gay and bisexual friends and family since the 70’s - he absolutely had the choice to be honest about himself but chose a life of cheating and lying. He never had to get married but chose that, twice. He is a narcissistic coward.

[AZChristian]

1 hour ago, Cinnabon said:

. . . he absolutely had the choice to be honest about himself but chose a life of cheating and lying. He never had to get married but chose that, twice. He is a narcissistic coward.

Not to mention applying for a Purple Heart after calling his traffic accident in Japan an injury occurring in the line of duty.  Cheater.  Liar.  Narcissistic coward.  That pretty much sums up the real Michael Peterson.

[rlc]

On 6/10/2022 at 11:43 AM, AZChristian said:

Different question:  What wife doesn't know her husband's e-mail address?  I can see her asking for his password (some spouses don't share those), but his e-mail address?

In 2001, email definitely wasn't as ubiquitous as it is now. The first Blackberry with a phone was mostly used for business, and wasn't available until 2002 (I think) and the first iPhone didn't come along until 2007. 

[BC4ME]

On 6/12/2022 at 5:32 PM, Cinnabon said:

Then believe those of us who have had many gay and bisexual friends and family since the 70’s - he absolutely had the choice to be honest about himself but chose a life of cheating and lying. He never had to get married but chose that, twice. He is a narcissistic coward.

Well, I for sure have also had "many gay and bisexual friends and family since the 70s" except even earlier. I just said I myself am not gay or bisexual not that I haven't been surrounded by it my whole life. If you cannot come out to the whole of society and be thought of as exactly equal, then, on balance, many people will probably choose to lead lives of deception to some degree. I understand how many other reasons there are for people having to lead lives of deception; I'm only talking about the gay and bisexual community, for which I have great sympathy for their struggles.

My point was the life he felt he had to lead wrt deception (whether he deserved to feel that way or not) might have influenced some of the way he comes across IRL, which in my opinion is very dishonest overall.

In any of these true crime scenarios where I don't really know the answer but am trying to weigh all sides, I try to sort through things I feel might make me lean more towards guilt when it's really just them being a horrible person in general. The other thing I do is to try to parse it out in my mind if they deserve incarceration even if they didn't do that particular thing or the degree of the particular thing in question. Of course that's not how the justice system works thank god. It's just my way of feeling better or worse about innocent or possibly innocent people doing time. If he actually didn't cause it but let her die, he's served his time for that and he deserved that time. If he's just an asshole, then he probably served too much time (which also clearly didn't change him). If he full on planned it and killed her then he should still be in prison. I'm just trying to sort it out trying to be as objective as I can because it's not exactly clearcut from what I've gathered.  

Edited June 15, 2022 by BC4ME

[poeticlicensed]

Overall I thought this miniseries was a bit slow and plodding and I was dissapointed. Maybe because I know the story so well, I wanted some insight that just wasn't there and maybe that was unfair of me. Or maybe because I find Michael Peterson so repugnant I couldn't bring myself to care about him. I watched Candy on Hulu and although I know that story too, I found it much more compelling. I dont think focusing of the POV of the documentary crew added anything and took away from the series. I was glad when it was over. 

[Turquoise]

On 6/9/2022 at 4:22 PM, Bobcatkitten said:

So does anyone know if the part where Michael admits Kathleen didn't know about the men was true? 

It's true...was part of the original documentary. 

I had the misfortune of having a "Michael" in my life at one time...some very eerie similarities. But thankfully I got away before being found at the bottom of the stairs, and he is dead now so he can't bother me anymore. But I may have yelled at Michael while I was watching the documentary, for myself and Kathleen.

[Milburn Stone]

On 6/9/2022 at 10:02 AM, MrsR said:

and then the fake out conversation as if Kathleen had lived...

Was that an "if she had lived" scene? I thought it was more a "Michael's deluded remembrance of how the final swimming pool conversation went." But heck, you could be right.

Edited June 14, 2022 by Milburn Stone

[Milburn Stone]

On 6/9/2022 at 4:16 PM, Kirsty said:

I guess Michael fucked his way back into Kathleen's good books. Or maybe it was the alcohol and the black tie ball in addition to the orgasms. I find that believable...

My mind went to the possibility that his motivation was to put her in a good mood so that she'd behave lovingly to him at the ball, and he lovingly to her, so that there'd be dozens of witnesses to their mutually loving relationship, so that no one could believe he'd ever do a thing like kill her.

I speak here of the "character known as Michael Peterson," not the real Michael Peterson, since my only knowledge of the case comes from this show.

[Milburn Stone]

On 6/10/2022 at 9:59 AM, Kiddvideo said:

He got lucky the SBI analyst got caught lying.

I wished it had been brought out in the retrial hearing how that SBI guy had to do tests on like 5000 dummy heads before he found one that got him the result his bosses demanded.

Even someone guilty of murder deserves a not-guilty verdict when the state's evidence is that fake.

[MollyB]

On 6/12/2022 at 2:32 PM, Cinnabon said:

he absolutely had the choice to be honest about himself but chose a life of cheating and lying

And that's what I don't like about him.  I don't care what his sexual preferences are, when he committed to a marriage he shouldn't have had outside sexual relationships, same sex or otherwise.  That's part of the deal.  He goes beyond just being a cheater and a liar.  He used all the women in his life to support his entitled life and didn't give a rat's poot about their feelings.  And if they happen to die, well, he was sure there would be another to take care of his needs.  A$$hole.

18 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

Even someone guilty of murder deserves a not-guilty verdict when the state's evidence is that fake.

Gonna have to disagree.  What he deserves is another trial, after the guilty verdict has been vacated, without the fake evidence.  At a new trial, if the jury finds enough evidence of guilt without reasonable doubt, then he is guilty. (Which would probably have been the case since he took an Alford plea.) This is why we have an appeals process-to remedy the kind of crap that the investigator pulled-but it doesn't negate all the other evidence.

[peachmangosteen]

Several posts talking about other true crime shows were moved to the Small Talk thread. Please take any further discussion of that over there.

[larapu2000]

On 6/11/2022 at 12:51 PM, Ms Blue Jay said:

This was 2001.  I'm sure there were many people who didn't even have email addresses then.

Old person checking in.  Graduated college in 2000.  While I had a personal Hotmail account, I didn't use it at all because my work email was more convenient, AND, if you can believe it, lots of companies restricted internet to email only, so you couldn't even go online at work to access your personal email, that's why you ended up using your work one.  I planned several bachelorette parties from a work email, lol.

[Ms Blue Jay]

35 minutes ago, larapu2000 said:

Old person checking in.  Graduated college in 2000.  While I had a personal Hotmail account, I didn't use it at all because my work email was more convenient, AND, if you can believe it, lots of companies restricted internet to email only, so you couldn't even go online at work to access your personal email, that's why you ended up using your work one.  I planned several bachelorette parties from a work email, lol.

This makes so much sense.  It reminds me of when I was in university we had to join Facebook using our university email address -- and only certain universities were allowed!  So incredibly snobbish.  And I think you might have even had to be invited by someone else.  You couldn't even join Facebook when it started if you weren't part of that.  

Edited June 24, 2022 by Ms Blue Jay

[tres bien]

I finally watched this. I think it would have made a better 90 minute movie or a half hour episode of Forensic Files 

Edited January 30, 2023 by tres bien

[WendyCR72]

4 hours ago, tres bien said:

I finally watched this. I think it would have made a better 90 minute movie or a half hour episode of Forensic Files 

Forensic Files had already covered it!