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Nine years after we first heard Robert Durst mutter “Killed all of them, in fact,” “The Jinx” is again, with a brand new, six-episode Part Two that premiered Sunday on HBO. And why not?
Maybe it feels unseemly, or like outdated information, with Durst having died in jail in 2022 after the unique sequence helped convict him of homicide. But loads occurred within the meantime. You can think about that the filmmaker Andrew Jarecki, who directed each components, felt a duty to a narrative he has now lived with for 20 years. And since “The Jinx” has successfully erased the road between itself and the case it chronicles, you can hope that he felt a duty to look at his personal position within the prosecution and conviction of Durst, the rich and eccentric New York actual property inheritor.
That examination doesn’t come within the 4 episodes HBO supplied for assessment, however Jarecki acknowledges the present’s persevering with affect in a wry, “Can you imagine that occurred?” style.
It is famous, as soon as once more, that in 2013 “Jinx” producers shared with prosecutors proof relating to the disappearance and two deaths by which Durst was implicated, kick-starting the investigation that led to his conviction and life sentence in 2021 for the homicide of his good friend Susan Berman. The influence of the unique broadcast on the favored creativeness is conveyed when a younger legislation clerk remembers exclaiming “Killed all of them in fact!” on the point out of Durst’s identify, quoting his unintentionally recorded phrases from the unique sequence’s chilling remaining moments.
This theme reaches an early peak in a scene filmed at a screening of that remaining episode in March 2015 in Jarecki’s house, on the identical day the fleeing Durst — who had been watching the present together with the remainder of us — was discovered and arrested in New Orleans. Relatives of Durst’s first spouse, Kathleen McCormack, who had disappeared 33 years earlier, hearken to his obvious confession with outstanding composure, in all probability aware of the cameras a number of ft away ready to catch their reactions.
That scene, extra subdued than you anticipate it to be, is attribute of the impact of “The Jinx Part Two,” which is as fluidly and handsomely made as the unique however, within the early going, lacks its strangeness and its surprises. Taking place after Durst’s apprehension, the brand new episodes are largely a law-enforcement procedural and courtroom drama, relatively than a twilight-zone exploration of Durst’s life and consciousness. (Durst sat for 20 hours of interviews for the primary sequence, however declined to talk with Jarecki for Part Two.)
Even extra constricting is the self-consciousness practically each character — prosecutor, protection lawyer, witness, journalist, Jarecki himself — brings to the display. Everyone has seen “The Jinx”; everybody is aware of the way it contributed to Durst’s downfall; everyone seems to be in on the joke. And the wholesale intrusion of the present into its personal narrative, whereas it may be attention-grabbing and generally amusing, is just not, in these episodes, dramatic or transferring.
Jarecki addresses this downside in a number of methods. One is to play up Durst’s comedian potential. The oddity that may very well be creepy and off-putting within the first sequence performs right here, primarily in jailhouse movies, as extra childlike and puckish. Durst fashions his jail uniform for a customer, or gingerly demonstrates his exercise routine. Everyone, together with the prosecutors, calls him Bob; clerks chill out by listening to his jail cellphone calls, guffawing as every begins, “This is a pay as you go name from …” “Bahhhb.”
Another, extra central, tactic is a deal with the Durst demimonde — the gathering of aspiring scenesters, hangers-on and enablers who agglomerated round him due to his cash (with which he may very well be beneficiant) and the cachet his cash conferred. Proclaiming their loyalty, abetting Durst in his machinations, barely suppressing their internecine jealousies and hatreds, and finally ratting out each other and Durst himself, they supply a lot of the new installment’s dramatic and emotional excessive factors.
There are features of Part Two which might be each acquainted, within the wake of the unique, and formulaic; easing our progress by them is the mastery Jarecki and his crew train over their specific model of true-crime documentary. The melding of casual narration (typically by the previous New York Times reporter Charles V. Bagli) and dwell footage with meticulously staged snippets of dramatic re-creation is seamless. The materials will not be as absorbing as that of the unique, however the modifying nonetheless offers it a tempo and magnificence that may very well be referred to as rigorously hypnotic.
With HBO having held again two episodes (in 2015 it held again 4), there may be the possibility that Part Two will provide a shock of the magnitude of Durst’s seeming confession, although it’s arduous to see how. We can assume that the final two episodes will embrace Durst’s testimony on the Berman trial, and the taking part in of the “Killed all of them” tape for the jury. Perhaps we’ll see Jarecki’s unsuccessful try to speak to Durst outdoors a Louisiana jail, which he filmed together with his cellphone. Perhaps we’ll hear Jarecki say one thing extra introspective concerning the influence of the present. In any case, it appears virtually sure that we’ll be again right here in six weeks, speaking about “The Jinx.”
