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‘American Vandal’: True Crime That’s Fake, But No Less True

The whole joke of the show, of course, is how deadpan, how gravid, how rigorously precise it remains as, episode by episode, it documents the investigation of an act of phallus-themed vandalism. That’s the goof: All that effort, all that sober attention, all those technical resources that we’ve grown used to seeing employed to examine a heinous act of violence instead devoted to something so small, so dumb, so juvenile.

And it took mere minutes — minutes! — for me to manage to completely forget all that, and become entirely enmeshed, and stay up until 3:00 a.m. to finish all eight episodes.

Photo: Tyler Golden/Netflix

This show has infuriatingly good acting. If you haven’t seen American Vandal yet, check out this review. -Carla

I realized why I loved this show so much…I absolutely love crime documentaries precisely because I love a puzzle and figuring out a mystery. The one thing that bothers me about crime docs is, well, the crime. It’s often sickening and depressing. But this! It took all the aspects I love about crime docs and took out all the sad horrible stuff! Pure, hilarious entertainment and a riddle to solve! Brilliant.