Evil Genius: The True Story of America's Most Diabolical Bank Heist

I've been struggling to get into shows of late, so was happy to find myself hooked on this documentary series, watching it all in just over a day.

Its just mind-blowing. Each episode has its own strong stories that would work well as a stand-alone event, except that they are all related in complex ways and tell this insane over-arching plot. The mystery that unfolds from the bizarre SAW-like first episode is so unpredictable and twisty, right up to the very last moments.

Its fascinating watching interviews, hearing bits of pieces of information, and finding your mind folding in on itself as you try to suss people out, think about motives, all the 'what ifs' etc. There is something always eerie and atmospheric about seeing evidence, street footage of locations, news footage, tying it all together like you're a voyeuristic detective.

I thought it was brilliantly researched and edited, and never a dull moment. I'd have loved for a body language expert like Paul Ekman (or someone like his fictional protege Cal Lightman from Lie to Me) to analyse the interviews for 'tells' as they were plentiful.

With incredible true-stories like this, brilliantly told, I struggle to justify why I'd want to watch a made-up story with self-conscious actors and gimmicky direction. There's so much more to learn, and substantial food for thought from real life.

The thing is true yet is filled with twists, the ending is surprising, and it's never slow or dull. I don't understand how anyone can rate this thing below 9. In my opinion, a lot of Netflix content is subpar, but this is outstanding.

A perfect storm of doc-making. You have a researcher who's spent 15 years of his life getting close to every character, you have a compelling edit that never drags and creates more twists and suspense then 99.8% documentaries, and last of all you have one of the weirdest and most dumbfounding crimes ever undertaken. Blown away by this series and a huge congrats to everyone who worked on it.

There are a lot of good intentioned police officers and a lot of smart ones too, and theres a lot of average intelligence. But there are a lot of officers who are incredibly dumb. I get that this bomb was a situation they didnt know how to handle. The thing that is so interesting, is how basic many peoples interpretation of emotion is. I have seen many people (not officers - anyone) comment on videos of criminal interviews for example. They often think that if the person isnt responding in the most basic way that they are lying.

These officers were explaining how this man wasnt panicking as a sign that he was lying about the bomb strapped to him. It doesnt even cross their mind that people respond unusually in unusual situations. Police are so utterly untrained in psychology, yet that is the main aspect of their job. 99.9% of the time theyre not having a wild west show down, they are talking to people. They could not tell that this man was so scared that he couldnt even panick? They cannot even imagine being so terrified you feel like stone that you could hardly move properly let alone communicate normally? Literally the directions he was under was all about not panicking as well. So he is obviously trying to follow their instructions.

This reminds me of an interview I saw of a murder suspect. She did yoga when the police officers stepped out of the room. So after being questioned for hours in a single room, and youre trying not to lose your mind, yoga seems like a strange choice? Thats literally what yoga is for. People including officers are incredibly dim to not be able to imagine that people have different ways of reacting and different situations create different reactions.

Then this continues showing the police officers having caused a traffic jam. Of course they have motorcycles, but for the bomb officer to get on a motorcycle and speed towards the scene, that is too hard to figure out? I mean this is beyond stupid.

How is it anyone claims that people are the smartest animal? I mean... they assume that the reason the man is not running around freaking out is NOT because he literally has a bomb strapped to him, NOT that hes trying to hold onto his sanity in order to guide these incredibly dim officers into actually being of service, NOT because he is in total shock from fear... no they assume its because the bomb isnt real and he is just lying -- with no game plan- he is just lying while sitting in handcuffs. And this is after they see its a real bomb.

And they have him in handcuffs with guns pointed at him and no one helping whatsoever. They werent even like, "hey most of the officers here arent doing anything, we dont need 10 guns aimed at this guy, how about five of you guys try to follow the directions and get the keys? Just in case it is a real bomb and we really can get keys to get him out of it."

Obviously the hostage could see that his words were not reaching any human of normal intelligence. He was crying for help to animals who did not comprehend language. Of course he lost the spirit in his voice. He is about to die and these cops are just staring back at him blankly, blinking and pointing a gun. They are literally staring at him and ignoring him completely 100%. What do you do if you are being ignored? You completely lose all hope. He could see that these officers were completely missing intellect. He was talking to a blank wall. A blank wall that was aiming multiple guns at him.

Its really hard to keep hope for humanity when we have a system that sends these very very stupid creatures running around pointing guns at people. They are so incredibly stupid its terrifying. We would be safer if we gave a bunch of monkeys guns. The monkeys would be able to sense peoples emotions they would not just aim at someone in such severe distress that they were freezing up from the completely demoralizing situation they were in.

We need officers who for one have at least average intelligence. They have emotional IQs high enough to tell when a person is in distress, not just blindly read the stereotypical signs like "is screaming and crying". That is something that a lot of people who are autistic are not capable of. They cannot read emotions. Some have to be taught if someone is yelling they are angry, if someone is crying they are sad. Its a mental handicap. Most people can realize human emotions beyond the level of severe autism.

We also need officers who are trained in psychology. They also need to have some training for all situations like bombs.

We also need people to divert from their standard system when necessary. To problem solve. To say hey maybe we should use multiple strategies at the same time here, some officers monitor, some follow the directions. Not go interview the pizza shop manager?????????????

There are not enough words to describe the stupidity of a lot of people. Sadly those officers and others who are incredibly stupid are not kept out of officer positions. Read up on how they are selected to be kind of dumb. They also have to work under sociopath corrupt leaders. We need a revamp of humanity.

SPOILER: In recent years Netflix has really been building out a niche for itself creating solid, interesting documentaries. 'Evil Genius' continues that trend with a truly haunting story of murder and betrayal that leaves you breathless, with a spotlight on how far a human soul can sink.

In 2003 a man robbed a bank while wearing a bomb collared around his neck. He was stopped outside the bank by police and gave himself up without a fight, claiming that he had been assaulted and forced into the robbery by unknown black assailants.

The story was, to say the least, sketchy. Police didn't believe him, thinking that his story and the supposed bomb were part of a ruse to escape punishment if he got caught, right up until the collar started beeping and exploded, killing him. Investigation revealed bizarre scavenger hunt style notes in his car giving him instructions for dropping off the money and retrieving keys to unlock his collar, which seemed to support his claims.

Suspects were identified and interviewed, but via a chain of police and FBI screw-ups, no one was charged for the crime for many years. However, a frozen body, seemingly unrelated to the "pizza bomber heist", put the spotlight back on a group of suspects. Gradually, over years, investigations and confessions revealed the deeper story surrounding the crime.

At the center of all of this is a woman named Marjorie emerges as a central figure in numerous deaths and murders. She is smart, beautiful (when she was younger), manipulative and conniving, and about as close to the definition of evil as you can get.

This story is simply depressing as layer after layer is peeled back to reveal aspects of human nature most of us don't want to admit are possible. The final confessions of one of the tangentially connected conspirators, revealed in the last minutes of the final episode, is really just heartbreaking.

This story won't leave you with a warm, fuzzy feeling. Justice is often incomplete or absent altogether, and sometimes bad things just happen to people who don't deserve it. How sad the ending is will kind of depend on how you interpret all of the evidence; the series really prefers to present the information and leave the conclusions to the audience. But it's a fascinating, if unhappy, journey of discovery, and one I think is well worth the 3 hours or so it will take to watch all of the episodes.