Anonymous wrote:He's guilty.

It was a crime of passion, he didn't intend to kill her, but she was going to leave him. She was done with him and his kids sucking her dry and maybe she did find out about his sexual encounters.

He's a user and a grifter.

Anonymous wrote:I have to say I adore Colin Firth, even when he is cold and a jerk a la Mr Darcy (or Mark Darcy), but I had no idea he could be so effective as a sociopath. Jesus. That scene in the restaurant where Kathleen (Toni Colette) just goes off on him about how exhausted she is and tired from work and sick of supporting the family including his adult sons and fed up with him just puttering around the house and everything and then he just blinks at her and says "you used to be fun." I was ready to push him down a staircase. They are both so incredible this whole time. And Juliette Binoche!

Anonymous wrote:I haven't watched the documentary so this question comes just from watching the HBO series. Also, spoilers (sort of?).

That video of Michael on the day that he made the Alford plea, when is asked point blank if he killed her and he says that Kathleen's death was an accident, are we supposed to take away from that that he's admitting guilt?

Also, I really really hope that the series over-dramatized how much Sophie idolized Michael b/c man... that was painful to watch.

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Anonymous wrote:Does anyone think the eldest son did it? Seems like MP could have been covering for someone.

Isn't Todd the oldest son? The first episode shows him coming home from a party to discover the scene, so not sure how he would've done it.

No the eldest son is the one who was troubled. He was intentionally kept away from trial and discovered the blow poke. It just seems odd that he was kept away for what seemed to be a minor offense in his youth. It is also implied that the sons were financially dependent on their parents and that Kathleen was tired of providing support, as she was the only person working. He also said in the doc that he envied their relationship. The interpretation was that this was because the relationship was perfect but perhaps this was an issue.

How was he troubled and what was the minor offense? I haven't read anything about that.

Details were not provided but something about spring break and jail time was mentioned. This is why he could not testify regarding the blow poke even though he found it. They could not risk his incident being brought up on cross.

They mentioned the details. It wasn't a minor offense he planted pipe bombs at his school so he could break in and make fake IDs. They found more bombs in his room and he went away for 4 years to federal prison.

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Anonymous wrote:Okay, watched the HBO series -- after mistakenly watching the first episode of the Netflix doc and wondering when Toni Collette and Colin Firth were going to show up. LOL! Then I watched the Netflix doc. My thoughts:

Colin Firth is not likeable in the show but he has certain warmth that Mike Peterson lacks in the doc. I started to dislike Colin Firth when I saw how he treated his sons. The real Mike Peterson functioned very much on the surface and didn't seem authentic to me. I didn't like either one of them.

Despite the apparent character flaws of the real Mike Peterson, I don't think he did it - but if he did, there's not enough evidence to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

The most gripping part of the HBO series was the impact on the children. I was frustrated to find out later that some of what they went through was fabricated or not addressed in the doc, eg, Martha finding out her adoptive parents wanted to give her away and the competition between Todd and Clayton for their father's acceptance.

I also was annoyed that Sophie's relationship with Peterson is not addressed *at all* in the documentary. I wanted to know more about their relationship in real life. She said that she fell in love with him not through editing the documentary but afterwards when she started exchanging letters with him while he was in prison. But couldn't she see from the documentary footage that he was essentially a "surface" person (classic White Anglo-Saxon Protestant male - which I can say because that's my family background)? Those must have been some letters to make her fall in love with him after all that video evidence showing that he has difficulty expressing deep feelings.

And of course not knowing how Kathleen died will always bother me!

I didn't watch the documentary. Can you explain, is the story about Michael wanting to give Martha away and separate the sisters not in the documentary, or fabricated? If it's fabricated, that's pretty messed up. To me that was a huge part of the story.

Okay I should say that I don't actually know it was fabricated but it's not in the documentary. I've done some googling and it hasn't come up. Do you think they would go so far as to make that up? That would seem pretty extreme. But I still haven't found any evidence either of it existing or anyone saying it was made up. So maybe I spoke too soon.

The documentary was controlled by him and the editor was biased- she fell in love with him. I wouldn’t assume the documentary is fair.

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Anonymous wrote:Okay, watched the HBO series -- after mistakenly watching the first episode of the Netflix doc and wondering when Toni Collette and Colin Firth were going to show up. LOL! Then I watched the Netflix doc. My thoughts:

Colin Firth is not likeable in the show but he has certain warmth that Mike Peterson lacks in the doc. I started to dislike Colin Firth when I saw how he treated his sons. The real Mike Peterson functioned very much on the surface and didn't seem authentic to me. I didn't like either one of them.

Despite the apparent character flaws of the real Mike Peterson, I don't think he did it - but if he did, there's not enough evidence to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

The most gripping part of the HBO series was the impact on the children. I was frustrated to find out later that some of what they went through was fabricated or not addressed in the doc, eg, Martha finding out her adoptive parents wanted to give her away and the competition between Todd and Clayton for their father's acceptance.

I also was annoyed that Sophie's relationship with Peterson is not addressed *at all* in the documentary. I wanted to know more about their relationship in real life. She said that she fell in love with him not through editing the documentary but afterwards when she started exchanging letters with him while he was in prison. But couldn't she see from the documentary footage that he was essentially a "surface" person (classic White Anglo-Saxon Protestant male - which I can say because that's my family background)? Those must have been some letters to make her fall in love with him after all that video evidence showing that he has difficulty expressing deep feelings.

And of course not knowing how Kathleen died will always bother me!

I didn't watch the documentary. Can you explain, is the story about Michael wanting to give Martha away and separate the sisters not in the documentary, or fabricated? If it's fabricated, that's pretty messed up. To me that was a huge part of the story.

Okay I should say that I don't actually know it was fabricated but it's not in the documentary. I've done some googling and it hasn't come up. Do you think they would go so far as to make that up? That would seem pretty extreme. But I still haven't found any evidence either of it existing or anyone saying it was made up. So maybe I spoke too soon.

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Anonymous wrote:Okay, watched the HBO series -- after mistakenly watching the first episode of the Netflix doc and wondering when Toni Collette and Colin Firth were going to show up. LOL! Then I watched the Netflix doc. My thoughts:

Colin Firth is not likeable in the show but he has certain warmth that Mike Peterson lacks in the doc. I started to dislike Colin Firth when I saw how he treated his sons. The real Mike Peterson functioned very much on the surface and didn't seem authentic to me. I didn't like either one of them.

Despite the apparent character flaws of the real Mike Peterson, I don't think he did it - but if he did, there's not enough evidence to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

The most gripping part of the HBO series was the impact on the children. I was frustrated to find out later that some of what they went through was fabricated or not addressed in the doc, eg, Martha finding out her adoptive parents wanted to give her away and the competition between Todd and Clayton for their father's acceptance.

I also was annoyed that Sophie's relationship with Peterson is not addressed *at all* in the documentary. I wanted to know more about their relationship in real life. She said that she fell in love with him not through editing the documentary but afterwards when she started exchanging letters with him while he was in prison. But couldn't she see from the documentary footage that he was essentially a "surface" person (classic White Anglo-Saxon Protestant male - which I can say because that's my family background)? Those must have been some letters to make her fall in love with him after all that video evidence showing that he has difficulty expressing deep feelings.

And of course not knowing how Kathleen died will always bother me!

I didn't watch the documentary. Can you explain, is the story about Michael wanting to give Martha away and separate the sisters not in the documentary, or fabricated? If it's fabricated, that's pretty messed up. To me that was a huge part of the story.

Anonymous wrote:Okay, watched the HBO series -- after mistakenly watching the first episode of the Netflix doc and wondering when Toni Collette and Colin Firth were going to show up. LOL! Then I watched the Netflix doc. My thoughts:

Colin Firth is not likeable in the show but he has certain warmth that Mike Peterson lacks in the doc. I started to dislike Colin Firth when I saw how he treated his sons. The real Mike Peterson functioned very much on the surface and didn't seem authentic to me. I didn't like either one of them.

Despite the apparent character flaws of the real Mike Peterson, I don't think he did it - but if he did, there's not enough evidence to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

The most gripping part of the HBO series was the impact on the children. I was frustrated to find out later that some of what they went through was fabricated or not addressed in the doc, eg, Martha finding out her adoptive parents wanted to give her away and the competition between Todd and Clayton for their father's acceptance.

I also was annoyed that Sophie's relationship with Peterson is not addressed *at all* in the documentary. I wanted to know more about their relationship in real life. She said that she fell in love with him not through editing the documentary but afterwards when she started exchanging letters with him while he was in prison. But couldn't she see from the documentary footage that he was essentially a "surface" person (classic White Anglo-Saxon Protestant male - which I can say because that's my family background)? Those must have been some letters to make her fall in love with him after all that video evidence showing that he has difficulty expressing deep feelings.

And of course not knowing how Kathleen died will always bother me!