Hulu original’s “The Act” is an eight-episode mini-series that follows the life and case of Gypsy Rose Blancharde. The case of Gypsy Rose Blancharde is about a young woman, Gypsy Rose, who was convicted of second-degree murder for killing her mother and sentenced to 10 years in prison, but when evidence came to light in the case about her home life and her mother, the case hit national spotlight. Gypsy Rose’s mother suffered from munchausen by proxy that caused her to believe that her daughter had an array of illnesses from leukemia to muscle dystrophy that made her daughter stay in a wheelchair, when her daughter was actually healthy and could walk on her own. The effects of her mother’s disorder caused Gypsy to try and find a way out of the life she was living, with the only way out that she could think of was having her mother killed.

Hulu’s “The Act” is a dramatization of Gypsy’s life with her mother. Joey King plays Gypsy, Patricia Arquette plays Gypsy’s mother, DeeDee, and Calum Worthy plays Gypsy’s boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn. The series follows the years before Gypsy had her mother killed by her boyfriend and what life was like for the young girl. Hulu dramatizes Gypsy’s life and relationship with her mother by showing the mental decline of DeeDee and moments where it looks like Gypsy could have left her mother and escaped the abuse. The show also shows characters in Gypsy’s life in a different way than they really were in real life. Although, the show did reiterate that a lot of the events and characters were dramatized for the show, letting viewers know that a lot of the scenes were over-exaggerated for the sake of the story of the show.

The show followed the life of Gypsy pretty well, except for a few things like Gypsy’s father and DeeDee’s mental illness. “The Act” also did not show a lot of the court trial, only showing a few scenes like Gypsy’s initial conviction and small pieces of her trial with her then-boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn, and only revealed what Gypsy’s sentence was at the end. A lot of the scenes in the show do match pretty well with the real-life events, such as the interrogation scene in the show and from the documentary about Gypsy’s life. No adaptation of a real life case or event is ever fully accurate when it is turned into a movie or TV adaptation, and the same could be said for Hulu’s “The Act.” The show itself is thoroughly interesting if true crime adaptations are one’s thing, but it doesn’t quite showcase all of the little things about Gypsy’s life and the case that the HBO documentary does. There are a lot of things that “The Act” got right about Gypsy’s life and a lot of things that they left out, but it was an enjoyable show for suspense. Just maybe not the whole truth about the case.