The Jinx Part 2 is not interested in the criticisms of the first part.

Hey, remember The jinx? In the early months of 2015, HBO's docuseries became a phenomenon, with director Andrew Jarecki leading audiences increasingly firmly toward the conclusion that wealthy, eccentric real estate heir Robert Durst had murdered three people and gotten away with it. She even played a role in finally bringing Durst to justice. More than 30 years after his first wife, Kathy, disappeared, Durst was arrested on March 15, the day before the show aired. The jinxEpilogue, in which Durst is shown confessing his crimes.

If you're struggling to remember all of this (and to be fair, 2015 was at least two years ago), don't worry: The jinx part two We've got you covered. Jarecki's sequel Nine Years Later, which begins airing on HBO on Sunday, opens entirely in “previously on…” mode, and not only recaps the contents The jinxThe conclusion but the reaction to it. From police investigators to crime reporters to Durst himself, the subjects of the new series constantly reference the old—or at least to the footage Jarecki and his editors chose to use. “The stupidest thing I've ever done is do a Jarecki series,” says Durst, who spent 20 hours interviewing for the original series. “Oh, my God: The jinx“.

Jarecki, who managed to uncover evidence that police and the FBI spent decades searching for, arguably deserved to win. But maybe not six, which is the number of episodes The jinx part two It lasts. (HBO gave critics four in advance.) The climax of the first episode was titled “Why Are You Still Here?” It's not a bomb of new information: it's a room full of people watching The jinxpanted while Dorset seemed to mumble Hot mic confession“I killed them all, of course.”

Although Jarecki presents his methods as investigative, they are in fact pretentious. Durst's defense attorneys appear The jinx part twoBut they are there to complicate the plot, not to provide alternative points of view. It's a colorful collection — David Chesnoff's Las Vegas office includes a giant painting of Elvis leaning against the wall — but it's not particularly credible. (Chesnoff doesn't seem to believe himself when he makes the argument that in a sensationalist environment, the rich and famous are the rich and famous.) TRUE Underdogs.) Jarecki showed his hand years ago The jinxThe first episode, when he dramatized Dorset's story in the 2010 film titled All good stuff, in which Ryan Gosling plays an heir named David Marks, who, by implication, murders his wife, best friend, and neighbor, in circumstances that parallel the deaths of Kathy Durst, Susan Berman, and Maurice Black. The director had already settled on the culprit, and all that remained was to arrest him. (The second part Includes footage from the film, and Jarecki's production company called Good Things.) Every part of The jinx He quotes a character repeating the adage that homicide detectives “work for God.” Jarecki seems to think he's on a similar crusade.

Considering how often Robert Durst exploited his family's wealth to stay on top of the law, there's something poetic about Jarecki using his own resources — his father was a billionaire financier, and the two were co-founders of Moviefone, which was sold for nearly $400 million in 2016. 1999 – To compensate Dorset. But not everyone in their crosshairs has a team of high-paid lawyers to answer. The second partThe third episode, “Saving My Tears Until They're Official,” focuses on Durst's trial for the murder of Susan Berman, an old friend who helped prove his alibi at the time of his wife's disappearance. But a taped conversation with author Albert Goldman, who apparently recorded his phone calls out of habit, raises the question of how much Berman knew about Durst's actions. As Jarecki builds a case, he takes no risks in letting us hear the recording to form an opinion of our own. He keeps cutting playback so others can tell us what we're hearing, making sure we come to the same conclusion the series did: that Berman was complicit in some ways in her death. It is shocking to hear a director who has spent more than a decade pushing for Durst to be brought to justice, begin a sentence for one of his victims by saying: “It's a terrible thing for someone to be killed, but…”

For all the time Jarecki spends thinking about his own achievements, there is little evidence to suggest that he spent anything thinking about criticisms of the original. Jinx. Journalists who researched the series' account found that it had misstated key details, such as suggesting that a desperate Durst had only agreed to an interview after he had been detained by police, when in fact the interviews had taken place. The year before his arrest. The filmmakers raised problems with telling interesting stories in the series, which made both “Bad cinema And Bad press(The huge success of the series also led to the emergence of a large number of… A dirty and morally shaky tradition (And it helped make fast-paced true crime docs a mainstay of the streaming boom.) The only lesson Jarecki seems to have learned is that what he did worked, so he might do it again.

With the primary goal of putting Durst behind bars already achieved, The jinx part two It's more difficult than the six-episode first, and now that it's no longer a story about a eccentric who might be a murderer, but rather about a man we're convinced is a serial killer, the diversions to the entertaining side feel more like filler. Jarecki could be an angel of justice, or he could be the man who really wants to tell you the truth about the release of one of Robert Durst's closest friends. X-rated country music Under the name Chinga Chavin, but it's very difficult to do both.

Consider how diligent you are first Jinx He's probably handing out his surprises, given the way HBO is holding the final two episodes The second part Under lock and key, they have something similar in store. But the series no longer has the element of surprise on its side. Dorset hid in plain sight for decades, however The jinx It made him known enough to be parody on Saturday Night LiveAnd a lot of that The second part These surprises will be familiar to those who have followed the extensive coverage of the Durst trial. Given that Durst was convicted of Berman's murder in 2021 and died in early 2022, what does he have left? The jinx To accomplish?

Because of a timing accident like anything else, The jinx It is frequently discussed alongside series, but while Sarah Koenig's podcast questioned the workings of the justice system, Jarecki's series essentially works alongside the system: At one point, Jarecki and his team had to be warned about receiving an incriminating letter — one that Durst had mistaken for Beverly spelled incorrectly. Hills – straight to the police, fearing they would be profiled as Law enforcement agents. Classics of the true crime form are those, like Errol Morris The thin blue line Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky Paradise lost A trilogy that questions the authorities' rush to rule and pushes its audience to rethink its relationships with the official narrative. The jinx It exists to show that sometimes the authorities just need a helping hand.