Summary
The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox is surprisingly hopeful in Episode 6, with Grace Van Patten delivering perhaps her best work of the season.
I’ve been singing Grace Van Patten’s praises all throughout The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, but I think there’s a case to be made that in Episode 6, “Colpevole”, she delivers her finest work. It’s perhaps not as showy as the delirium she so effectively exhibited in earlier episodes, but everything from her reeling reaction in the immediate aftermath of her guilty verdict, to the steely determination she exudes after discovering a breakthrough in her case, and finally to the impassioned speech – in Italian! – at her appellate hearing, is absolutely top tier.
That’s the arc of this episode, by the way. Picking up right where the previous episode left off, with Amanda and Rafaelle being sentenced to 26 and 25 years, respectively, Amanda is dragged away to languish in prison, and languish she does. Despite her father’s reassurances about PR teams, independent DNA experts, and the Idaho Innocence Project, they both end up sobbing in each other’s arms. Amanda contemplates suicide. But she’s sustained by the thoughtfulness of Don Saulo, despite not sharing his faith, and the innate need to be the author of her own story. If she were to take her own life, the stories invented about her by the Italian police and judicial system would become who she was.
So, Amanda adapts. This is the first stage of her adjustment. She shares a cell with the only other American woman in the prison, and she’s helpful in reminding Amanda that she’s not the only one suffering. She makes her get out of bed and read her mail. Amanda learns Italian, makes friends, and gets by. It almost comes full circle, almost dulls her fight, since she’s close to having accepted that prison is where she will spend the next quarter-century. But a letter from an interrogation expert claiming to have followed her case and identified the police’s approach as a familiar style of manipulation designed to make people confess to crimes they haven’t committed ignites the fire in her eyes again. For the first time, she doesn’t just know she was wronged, but is hearing from someone else who not only feels the same way, but can potentially prove it. It’s a major turning point.
Time works differently in prison. Amanda’s looking at several years before an appellate hearing can be arranged, and even several months just to be able to call Raffaele. Her letter to him got there first. But he, too, has read the theories of Saul, the American interrogation expert. And he recognises the tactics from his own interrogation. The only problem is that the Italian courts wouldn’t allow testimony from a foreign expert, and there are no Italian equivalents. On the upside, though, Prosecutor Mignini has been found guilty of misconduct, so even though he’s pushing for a harsher sentencing in the appeal, his reputation is in the mud. There’s every chance that all of the previous cases he tried, including Amanda’s, will be looked at differently. It’s a chance for Amanda to finally be heard on her own terms.
The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox Episode 6 is very good at putting this fundamental change across. Van Patten plays it really well, but you can see it in the eyes and postures of her family and legal team, too. Enough time has elapsed that the early sensationalism that defined the case has waned. Rationality is winning out. Independent DNA experts are on hand to highlight how the supposedly damning evidence Amanda was convicted on the strength of was mishandled in the first place. Amanda can make her own case in fluent Italian. And she does, in one of the most strongly-acted sequences of the show thus far. It’s a very effective example of how the media frenzy defined the case in the first place; how the facts were manipulated to fit the story, and how the terms of the story were decided by the authorities. Symbolically, for the first time, Amanda is being allowed to tell her own story, openly and frankly.
Since the series began, I don’t think any episode has felt even half as hopeful as this one. It’s an impressive transition to make, given the circumstances, to use Amanda’s unjust incarceration as a crucible for her personal development, and Van Patten is superb at communicating each mile marker on the journey through her performance. The fight isn’t over yet.
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