Me Hereafter is a true crime docuseries where the victims of the murders profiled in each episode “talk” about their killings from their perspective. Of course, the person speaking is an actor portraying the murder victim, but the narration that actor gives tries to describe what the victim is observing or feeling, even though the victim isn’t around to see the aftermath of their murder. Sound strange? You don’t know the half of it.
Opening Shot: The view from inside a dresser as we see someone hammering nails on the outside. “Each strike of the hammer is slow and deliberate,” says a narrator. “Each nail in my makeshift coffin pounding softly so no one can hear. I’ve heard of missing and murdered Indigenous women. I just never expected to be one.”
The Gist: The first case is the 2017 murder of Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, a 22-year-old who was eight months pregnant when she was killed by her upstairs neighbors in Fargo, North Dakota. Through reenactments, archival footage and interviews with Savanna’s parents as well as the police and prosecutors that investigated the case, we get the picture of a vivacious young woman who was a nursing student and getting ready to welcome her baby daughter. When her upstairs neighbor, Brooke Lynn Crews, came down to see if Savanna would help her with a sewing project for $20, Savanna gladly went up to her apartment.
She disappeared after that. After being gone a few hours, Savanna’s parents called the police. Sergeant Sam Bollman of the Fargo PD went to Crews’ apartment and asked if he and his partner could look around. They couldn’t do a thorough search, but they were just seeing if Savanna was there. They found nothing. But Savanna’s mother knew she just didn’t walk away to go stay somewhere else; in fact, she was pretty sure that Crews might have done harm to Savanna in order to get the baby that she was a month away from delivering. Of course, that sounded like wild speculation, but a few days later, evidence came up that made that more of a reality.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Without the creepy and weird “dead person’s POV” narration, Me Hereafter‘s episodes are basically the same as a 20/20 true crime episodes.
Our Take: We’re not sure who had the bright idea to have narrators representing dead people narrating true crime docuseries episodes about their murders, but whoever it was should be fired.
You heard us. We never usually go this strong when we talk about bad ideas, but the conceit behind Me Hereafter is a really, really bad idea. The dead people narration adds nothing to the episodes, which are formatted like basic true-crime docuseries episodes. In fact, if there was no narration in the Savanna Greywind episode, and there was just audio from the interviews filling in the blanks, the episode might have been more compelling of a watch.
But every time the narrator comes back, talking in the voice of the victim and discussing something that they didn’t witness, we just felt creeped out all over again. The story itself isn’t as twisty as the show might have wanted it to be, especially given the fact that the title of the episode gives away the twist. The episode was mostly depressing, given the fact that the nature of Savanna’s murder was so depraved, and the thought that her daughter might be growing up with such a cloud over her head just made us want to sob in our pillows.
All that, though, is part and parcel of the true crime docuseries business. But that narration? Wow, just thinking about it now, days after we watched, still makes us shudder.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: “Nothing can bring me back,” says the narrator as Savanna. “But in a way, I’m still here.” We see a shot of Savanna’s daughter with her grandparents.
Sleeper Star: The interviews with Savanna’s parents, Joe and Norberta Greywood, would have been great to use in place of the creepy narration, because they talked about Savanna, about the suspicions they had of Crews, and even the consequences they would have faced as Natives if they acted on their anger towards Crews and her boyfriend, William Henry Hoehn.
Most Pilot-y Line: Seriously, who thought it would be a good idea to pretend the victims in these episodes were talking from beyond the grave?
Our Call: SKIP IT. Me Hereafter takes pretty standard true crime tales and tries to get cute by pretending the victims of the crimes are the ones narrating each episode, a gimmick that just doesn’t work and completely skeeves us out.
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.