Anatomy Of Lies is a three-part docuseries that’s based on a Vanity Fair story by Evgenia Peretz; Peretz and David Schisgall directed the series for Vanity Fair Studios. It examines the complex web of lies that Grey’s Anatomy writer Elisabeth Finch told about her life and how those lies weaved themselves into stories on Grey’s. A 2022 email, sent directly to Grey’s producer Shonda Rhimes from Finch’s then-wife, Jennifer Beyer, tipped off the people at Shondaland that much of what Finch was saying about her life wasn’t true.
Opening Shot: Los Angeles scenes, namely the Hollywood sign, palm trees, etc. We hear the voices of people online reacting to the Elisabeth Finch story.
The Gist: The first episode of Anatomy Of Lies chronicles much of Elisabeth Finch’s rise through the ranks of TV production, from her beginnings in Cherry Hill, NJ to her time as a writer on True Blood and Vampire Diaries. One of the shows she always wanted to work on, though, was Grey’s, to the point where she became an obsessed fan after being turned down for a job there.
When she was diagnosed with chondrosarcoma, a rare cancer for someone her age, she wrote about it for Elle. That article got the attention of someone at Shondaland, and Rhimes hired her for Grey’s for its tenth season, with the idea that her experience will help them craft some interesting storylines. In fact, Finch’s battle with chondrosarcoma made it directly into the show, with Debbie Allen’s character Catherine Avery fighting the disease. Her coworkers admired her for working through treatment.
When she was on the chopping block at the show, her Elle article was brought up with the showrunner at the time, which resulted in her coming back. Then she wrote an article about sexual harassment she experienced on the Vampire Diaries staff; she ended up needing a kidney transplant; she took weeks off of work to get cancer treatment. She also flew off to Pittsburgh after the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, claiming that she was there to clean up the remains of a friend, with the FBI’s permission. Then went to a treatment center where she could deal with the trauma of that event; it’s there she met Beyer, and it’s also there that she started telling people that her older brother physically abused her when there was no mention of that before.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Anatomy Of Lies has much the same story as the upcoming ABC docuseries Scamanda, though this story has the added intrigue of the person’s lies making it into plots of a hit series.
Our Take: Anatomy Of Lies plays out like an empathetic portrait of Finch in its first episode, taking its time to lay out exactly where Finch’s story went before and during her time at Grey’s. There are times where you want to just get to where Beyer outs her and her web of lies starts to fall apart. But then Schisgall and Peretz lay out all of what Finch supposedly went through and how coincidental some of those stories were to what others were going through, and the complexity of her lies becomes breathtaking to watch.
They do drop clues about Finch’s credibility, like when a fellow writer discussed with her a very personal story about finding out her biological father was her mother’s rapist, only to see that story be the topic of a Grey’s episode involving Finch’s favorite character, Jo Wilson, played by Camilla Luddington.
Then, as she’s in PTSD treatment under the name “Jo”, she seems to reveal similar traumas that Beyer revealed to her, while not telling Beyer much about herself. As the narrative plays out, from the audience perspective, it feels like someone should have caught on before Beyer did. But, via the various interviews with former Grey’s writers, Finch’s friends, and archival interview footage of Finch herself, you can see how people bought into the vulnerability she projected. Heck, much of that vulnerability might have been real, but the structure on which it stood likely wasn’t.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Finch, in an archival Zoom interview, talking about a treatment that Jo Wilson got on an episode of Grey’s that she wrote, interspersed with scenes from that episode and Meyer, who is the one who got that treatment, using similar language.
Sleeper Star: Aurora Lee Passin, Finch’s college friend and one-time girlfriend, was loyal to her for so many years, to the point where things like Finch telling her to wait outside at the Mayo Clinic while she got hours of chemo treatment didn’t ring any warning bells.
Most Pilot-y Line: None we could find.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Anatomy Of Lies deliberately goes about the business of laying out Elisabeth Finch’s elaborate lies and just how they affected people in her life, but just how elaborate those lies are is astonishing to watch.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.