Evil Genius: The True Story of America's Most Diabolical Bank Heist: Full Season

May 31, 2018 3:11 PM - Season 1 (Full Season)

2:28pm. August 28, 2003. A man walks into a bank with a bomb locked around his neck. This is a true story. The extraordinary story of the "pizza bomber heist" and the FBI's investigation into a bizarre collection of suspects.
posted by catch as catch can (7 comments total)

I really enjoyed this series, but there were some weird unanswered questions.
posted by drezdn at 10:48 AM on June 1, 2018

that's v on-brand for Netflix murder documentaries tho
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:46 PM on June 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

I got sucked in while my husband was watching the first ep. Watching Brian Wells interact once he'd been caught by the police, I was convinced he was in on the plan - his whole demeanor was so calm and seemed to lack any urgency. That opinion changed by the last ep, but it's impossible to tell whether everyone was lying in their confessions, so who knows. I did wish we got more back story on Marge and Bill's history, both as a couple and as kids - that seemed like a missing piece that got hinted at but not fleshed out.
posted by catch as catch can at 2:30 PM on June 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

The original case haunted me, and now that I spend at least two weekends a month in Erie, it's eerie (see what I did there?) to see so many familiar places as the setting for this bizarre story.

I agree that Wells's extremely relaxed demeanor initially made it seem like he was in on it. But he also seems to have been a bit neuro-atypical, so who knows if eating a lollipop while robbing a bank would have been normal for him?

I really could have done with a warning before the actual bomb explosion scene and later close-up footage of him lying there dying and dead though.

Marge and Bill were definitely bizarre characters, who seemed to be a very real threat to anyone coming into contact with them. I've known people somewhat like that and afterwards you can't quite believe you interacted with such people, it's almost like it was a dream.

I thought this was a really compelling watch. It's just such a weird story (the cane gun in addition to the bomb collar, the insanely detailed notes left all over), all the more so because we still don't really seem to know what actually happened.
posted by biscotti at 1:51 PM on June 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm a true-crime junkie so I really liked this series but, yeah, did not need to see that bomb going off. And I thought the series in general was quite disrespectful to the victims throughout the series. Like did there really need to be scenes of Wells dead in his underwear on the road, multiple times? There were other instances in further episodes as well.
posted by LizBoBiz at 4:56 AM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

This was a very compelling watch. I still wonder about the role of the pizza store co-worker who also ended up dead.

I definitely think Wells was in on the plan. He was so relaxed that it was just odd and disturbing. He may or may not have expected to die, but a normal human who wasn't in on the plan would have been begging for their life.
posted by hydra77 at 3:39 PM on June 11, 2018

I don't think we can determine Wells' guilt based on whether he acted like we would have expected. It is strange, but different people have different reactions to situations (I even know of a case where a teenage girl was not believed that she was kidnapped because the police thought she was too calm about it.)
posted by LizBoBiz at 1:22 AM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]