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Dirty John Netflix SPOILERS thread

117 replies

Aberforthsgoat · 19/02/2019 07:49

As we were discussing on the other thread and a bunch of us had finished but didn’t want to drop spoilers thought I’d start one for spoilers

:)

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Whatififall · 19/02/2019 15:52

I’ve just finished this today. I knew there was a podcast first but other than that I knew nothing about it.

I was so shocked when he tried to kidnap Terra and she killed him. I’d thought it was gearing up for a court showdown. I’ve just read some articles about Terra and how she’s really struggled with ptsd after it.

I think Debra was just desperate for love so she overlooked the red flags. Maybe she felt sorry for him being alone and with helping him come off drugs she could change him. I did wonder about a woman who’d been married 4 times before... I thought it was plausible she ignored her daughters’ dislike of John as they’d probably disliked her other husbands. I also wondered whether Terra’s insistence John be kept away from the kids might be down to previous abuse in the family?

It was very interesting.

Budsbegginingspringinsight · 19/02/2019 16:09

Just finished it. Really enjoyed it but wow...the mum is like a vulnerable child.
Fall in love Etc yes but all done with zero protection of her assets for her kids!! No thought at all for her own children??!!

Utter madness.
The mum is vulnerable and needed protection.... she's not capable person

ElasticFirecracker · 19/02/2019 22:19

@Aberforthsgoat the MS was just a to gain sympathy.

He was never clean of drugs. His desire to quit was not genuine, but a function of his manipulation of her.

The doctor they visited to supervise his detox was the same doctor we saw John Meehan visit to sell drugs to, and who actively partook of the drugs he was buying.

So the detox was just designed to further manipulate Debra.

Original poster
Aberforthsgoat · 19/02/2019 23:10

Thank you @elasticfirecracker I had got a few of the details mixed up in my mind, there were so many twists and turns!

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RomanticFatigue · 19/02/2019 23:43

I thought that her mother forgiving her at the end was a really important part in understanding Debra. Her mother will forgive someone killing her daughter. That's the message Debra was bought up with, and I think why she forgave John for such awful behaviour.

Roussette · 20/02/2019 07:23

The doctor they visited to supervise his detox was the same doctor we saw John Meehan visit to sell drugs to, and who actively partook of the drugs he was buying

Thank you Elastic, I missed that bit! All manipulation then for sure.

I felt uncomfortable with Debra moving out of her home where her DD lived and moving into the waterfront property with John. How naive and stupid and how awful for the daughter being dumped just like that, for a man she'd known weeks. As I said before, she's lucky to still have a relationship with the DDs although I've never seen the older one in real life interviews, only Terra.

Look at this pic, it blew my mind! Tonia (John's first wife) their 2 daughters. Posing with the actor who played John Shock

www.instagram.com/p/BqLljkmga4h/?utm_source=ig_embed

Roussette · 20/02/2019 07:27

And this is pretty interesting.. regarding why Debra has got involved in all of this.
“Some of the family members were not for this. So it was really hard being able to know if we should do it or not. They were going to do it without us so we felt like, ‘Wouldn’t it be better if we were able to have an opinion or share our story?’ At that point it was pretty easy.”

But then this...

"Terra's sister, Jacquelyn – renamed Veronica and played by Juno Temple in the show – has retreated from the public eye and has not appeared in any press around the televised version of her family’s events"

Something tells me Veronica has not bought into all this publicity...

Original poster
Aberforthsgoat · 20/02/2019 08:02

Woah that picture and caption... that blew my mind too! It also blew my mind that Terra has set up a blog and Instagram and has run discount codes with the code dirtyjohn
I know he was an evil fecker but it all feels a bit weird!

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Roussette · 20/02/2019 08:19
Shock

Have to say... I find it all a bit distasteful!

IStillMissBlockbuster · 20/02/2019 08:29

Hmm it is weird.

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Aberforthsgoat · 20/02/2019 08:40

Distasteful is the word!

I’m fascinated by the whole thing, there are so many levels to it

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Inkanta · 20/02/2019 08:45

Yes I don't know what to think Hmm I know this all happened quite recently - only 2 years ago. They must be still processing it I expect, particularly Terra. It does comes across a bit like they are dancing on his grave!

I'm not surprised Veronica chose to retreat from the public eye - though I'd be very intrigued to hear her perspective. She seemed to be the grounded one in the family with her head screwed on. I kind of assume she doesn't want the story of John and her mum's mistake defining her life.

Inkanta · 20/02/2019 09:01

Yes the sister is Jacquelyn not Veronica.

This story also fascinates me on many levels. I've now watched the Podcast on YouTube. The casting of Connie Britton to play Debra was a good match. The real Debra comes across very much as she was portrayed in Dirty John.

Roussette · 20/02/2019 09:05

Sensible girl!

I was a bit confuzzled waching it because she was the dead ringer of a friend of mine's DD. Facially, body wise and even the handbags!

Original poster
Aberforthsgoat · 20/02/2019 10:02

Jacquelyn was in the podcast wasn’t she?
And then retreated from everything after that?

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Inkanta · 20/02/2019 10:48

Yes Jacqueline's voice was in the Podcast. It's quite an assertive voice - similar to her Veronica voice in Dirty John.

Roussette · 20/02/2019 10:48

Was she? I didn't listen to it, so could well've been!

Inkanta · 20/02/2019 11:06

I've not heard of a Podcast before. It's on youtube - there's nothing to see - it's like listening to the radio Smile

RhymingRabbit · 20/02/2019 12:42

She is a fucking nightmare. I can hear what people are saying about being a victim of abuse - but I am finding it hard to see it like that. She KNEW everything, he threatened her child, and she went back!

It would have been interesting to find out what Debra's relationship was like with her Dad and to what the daughter's relationships were like with their Dads. Toward the end Terra was starting to talk of forgiveness and how it was possible that John could change - that's three generation of women forgiving male violence and deception. Whereas Veronica was completely unforgiving.

Inkanta · 20/02/2019 13:00

On the Podcast - Jacqueline (Veronica) talks about the nasty texts and emails she got from John - like he told her he wished she would fall off a building head first. He also said she had no mum anymore - which she responded to and said she was sat with her mum right now - reading his email. The mum then said (on the Podcast) in a drawl - what an awful thing to say to your daughter. The mum's tone was still passive. No anger at all. .

Uptheduffagai · 20/02/2019 15:56

Well my mind is BLOWN! Married 5x?! The grandma forgiving the son in law for her own daughters murder and hugging him at church? The absolute psychotic mastermindedness of John. If he hadn’t of died it’s terrifying how far this could of gone.

Uptheduffagai · 20/02/2019 16:18

Reading more up on this I can’t believe how the family reacted to the sisters death. Here’s a little bit from an article I was reading:

Her testimony stunned the prosecutor, Thomas Avdeef, who regarded it as a cold-blooded execution. As he interpreted it, the mother’s testimony — and that of other family members whose names he doesn’t recall — portrayed Cindi as having mistreated her husband.

“They threw her under the bus,” Avdeef says. “I don’t know the dynamics of the family. I could never understand that. Why say bad things about the victim?”

www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-dirty-john-forgiveness/

Roussette · 20/02/2019 17:13

Uptheduff gosh, that article says it all.

Totally agree with recent comments on this. But that's evangelical christianity for you...

This is a very interesting read.

You need to brace yourself to read it. It talks of the psychological harm of evangelicals... Debra was repeating her Mother's behaviour, she had indoctrinated her daughter with the idea of absolute forgiveness

Apparently Cindi (Debra's sister) had told her mother that her husband (who ended up killing her) had become increasingly controlling. What she wore, where she went etc. She feared for her life. And did her mother support her? Like hell she did.

"Hart’s unbiblical doctrine of absolute forgiveness seized the justice that Cindi’s life deserved. Many believers have been taught that they must forgive any and all grave offenses immediately, even in the absence of repentance. Moreover, this ideology of absolute forgiveness forsakes that the act is not intended to justify or deter the natural consequence of transgression"

Worth a read.

IStillMissBlockbuster · 20/02/2019 18:48

Inkanta Podcasts are like downloadable radio. It is best listened to through your mobile phone. You use a podcast app. On IPhones the app is just called i podcast and comes preloaded on to your phone. On Android phones you'll have to go to the play store and download an app like podcast addict, or stitcher. You can find squillions of podcasts from crime to philosophy to anything you can think of.

Inkanta · 20/02/2019 18:54

Thanks IStillMissBlockbuster - I need to keep up Smile

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