Was this series truly needed, given how ubiquitous the Blanchards' story has been in the media landscape of late? Maybe not, but standout performances by the always-solid Patricia Arquette as Dee Dee, and a mesmerizing Joey King as Gypsy make it a compulsively watchable guilty pleasure. Adult characters smoke and drink, and there's some rough language as well. There's a brief shot of an erect penis shown when a character receives an unexpected 'dick pic' online, and someone is nude in the bath.

Viewers should expect mature content, from simulated sex and masturbation to a copious amount of abuse (both emotional/verbal and physical). The details of this case have been well-documented elsewhere The Act lightly fictionalizes the tale, showing the years of abuse and abnormal behavior that led up to its violent conclusion: Dee Dee's brutal murder at the hands of her desperate daughter and her online boyfriend Nick Godejohn. The show examines the dark realities of Munchausen by proxy syndrome, a psychological disorder wherein a caregiver or parent fabricates or even induces illness or injury in a person under their care (in this case, Dee Dee's daughter, Gypsy Rose).

Parents need to know that The Act is a true-crime miniseries based on the story of Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose Blanchard, the mother-daughter duo profiled in the much-lauded 2018 HBO documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest.

The true story of the act