In the four-part docuseries The Judd Family: Truth Be Told, Wynonna and Ashley Judd take an honest and unsparing — and often emotional — look at the life of their mother Naomi, who took her own life in 2022. If you recall, it was the night before The Judds — Naomi and Wynonna’s hit-making country music duo — was to be inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Opening Shot: News footage of Naomi and Wynonna Judd recording. The voice of Phil Donahue says, “This is a great story: A mother and daughter on top of the country charts. The first time ever in the history of country music.”

The Gist: In the first episode of the series, director Alexandra Dean mostly starts from the beginning, detailing Naomi Judd’s childhood. Born as Dianna Ellen Judd, she was the oldest of four siblings, and generally had to care for her youngest siblings when she was a preteen. She also had a difficult relationship with her mother, whose approval she always sought. She lost her younger brother to lymphoma when he was a kid. She got pregnant with Wynonna when she was 18, married a man she thought would provide, but ended up being a single mom soon after Wynonna’s half-sister Ashley was born.

This story is told through home movie footage, some reenactment footage, audio from Naomi’s books, and interviews not only with Naomi’s daughters and husband Larry Strickland, but with her younger brother and longtime friends. We also see intimate moments between the Judd sisters and Strickland as they go through Naomi’s saved photos, audio recordings and home movies after they sold the house where she and Strickland lived for many years.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? You may not remember this, but Naomi and Wynonna did a reality series called The Judds in 2011.

Our Take: Despite the history of recent Lifetime docuseries about notorious celebrity lives and deaths, The Judd Family: Truth Be Told doesn’t take a tabloid approach to the life and death of Naomi Judd. Instead, it’s a very intimate and emotional view of Naomi’s life, how she recognized Wynonna’s singing talent and used to to create The Judds, the strained relationships she had with her daughters, and the depression that eventually led her to take her own life.

Even though the first episode mainly covers Naomi’s life as a child and a young single mother, basically until she and Wynonna start recording together as The Judds, there are still plenty of moments that speak to the rocky relationships Naomi had throughout her entire life. Wynonna has never read Naomi’s second book, because she felt it was going to be too hard for her emotionally, and there’s a passage where Naomi explains that Wynonna never visits, despite living only a few miles away. But the sweet look both daughters have when they listen to a song Naomi and Wynonna recorded on a demo in 1982 shows just how complex their relationship with their mother was.

The interviews with Naomi’s brother and longtime friends also reveals that Naomi was determined to make a name for herself in some way shape or form. She was willing to move from Kentucky to L.A., then back to Kentucky, then to Tennessee. She wasn’t necessarily looking to be a famous singer, but recognized that if she could harmonize with her extremely talented daughter Wynonna, they could definitely go somewhere big.

Given the intimacy of this series, we’re sure that Dean will go into some dark times with Wynonna and Ashley Judd, especially when it comes to Naomi and Wynonna’s rocky relationship, Naomi’s mental illness, and the harassment and sexual assault Naomi had to face as a woman in 1980s Nashville. Because the series is four parts, there is plenty of time for all of them to get into Naomi’s complex life and the complicated relationship they had with her.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Kodi Chandler, Naomi’s manager for the last year of her life, says that she was determined to make her and Wynonna into The Judds, “And she wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of that, even the truth.”

Sleeper Star: Chandler must have been a fan of Naomi’s, because he knows a whole lot about her and The Judds, given the fact that he only worked for her for a year.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Wynonna is listening to excerpts from Naomi’s second book, there are cutaways to a tape player being used, as if the recording wasn’t being played on the director’s phone.

Our Call: STREAM IT. We appreciate that The Judd Family: Truth Be Told doesn’t go into salacious territory about the life of Naomi Judd and just does what the title indicates, giving Wynonna and Ashley Judd to tell what they know about their talented and determined, but deeply troubled, mother.

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