Truth be told is one of the series of Apple TV + has the honor of being one of the flagships of the platform. But beyond that, it is one of the first television stories to analyze in depth the issue of contemporary morality. In its first season, Truth be told analyzed the implications of good and evil in our culture obsessed with communication. In the second, already available on Apple TV +, he dares to go further and reflect on what we believe to be real and fair.
The combination is of enormous intelligence. Especially when it must stand on what seemed like a simple premise. Once again, podcaster Poppy Parnell (Olivia Spencer) returns to be the center of a story in which her research skills are everything.
Unlike other series of the genre, the use of a relatively recent resource to understand the current view on critical issues is not effective. On its return, the series reflects once again on the possibility that a single voice is capable of being powerful. So much as to highlight the need for vindication. But it also puts the search for justice and the means we have to obtain it at the center of the debate.
If there is something surprising about the series, it is the way in which Olivia Spencer transforms her character in an interlocutor. One that elaborates an idea of how each of us has the ability, the resources, and the power to make ourselves heard. Poppy Parnell’s podcaster Truth be told it is a reflection of the impatience of our age for communication.
In the first season he showed the search and the need to turn the medium into something more powerful. For its new episodes, the premise changes and it does so by making the need for truth a clear goal. He also does it, with an ability that surprises for his good work and his ability to be something more powerful.
‘Truth be told‘and how to believe in good
Of course, the story of a podcaster who ends up risking her life by reporting and investigating real crimes is nothing new. And it’s something that Truth be told faces from its first chapters.
Olivia Spencer’s Poppy Parnell is the latest heir to great television characters. From Jessica Fletcher to Veronica Mars, the idea of research in the hands of an ordinary citizen it is a common point of pop culture. But unlike many other similar premises, Poppy Parnell is a small and forceful phenomenon. His willpower, in tune with his need to relate what happens, is the strongest point of a cerebral and complex character.
The series delves into her and her personal world. The search for justice this time includes facing the past and also test your limits. In the first few episodes, Poppy was engaged in something more than a token fight for the truth. Now you will have to put that conviction to the test by facing your own environment. How far does the need to tell the truth go?
The series does not fully delve into it, although it makes it clear that the clash of interests is of paramount importance. Truth be told, based on the novel Are You Sleeping? by Kathleen Barber, rework the literary material to support that idea. In its second season, in which Poppy faces a media mogul from her modest weapons, the condition of power is more apparent.
When the hero can be anyone
The second season of Truth be told try to create a look at what we consider valuable. Poppy, who this time already knows the risks of facing danger through her meager means, is a symbol. And it is that condition of being several things at the same time that makes the character powerful.
In the first season he had to fight against the notion of his fragility against aggression and violence. For the new chapters, power becomes a wall of questions. Especially when whoever exercises it is part of Poppy’s world. It is this singular controversy – how do we face our past in the pursuit of good? – the one that supports the premise. And he does so with the same sense of duty that he emphasized in his first episodes.
Truth be told bases its effectiveness on making the idea that we all fight for a greater good. And on this occasion, the gaze is so powerful as to make the vision of good and evil in the plot sensitive. Yes, collective morality depends on the media that debate it. But also the perception of how a new perspective on the individual is built. In a world in dire need of everyday heroes, Poppy Parnell is one consistent, bright and responsive.