Scorchin' Summer Streamin' 26 - Black Bird - Miniseries

Black Bird is my last binge from Fiji. I started this 2022 true crime drama miniseries developed by Dennis Lehane, based on the 2010 autobiographical novel In with the Devil: a Fallen Hero, a Serial Killer, and a Dangerous Bargain for Redemption by Jimmy Keene with Hillel Levin. 

The six-episode miniseries originally streamed on Apple TV back in July, 2022.

I've always wanted to watch the series, which received critical acclaim with particular praise toward Keene's original story and its cast.

When high school football hero and decorated policeman’s son Jimmy Keene (Taron Egerton) is sentenced to 10 years in a minimum security prison, he is given the choice of a lifetime — enter a maximum-security prison for the criminally insane and befriend suspected serial killer Larry Hall (Paul Walter Hauser), or stay where he is and serve his full sentence with no possibility of parole. 

Keene quickly realises his only way out is to elicit a confession and find out where the bodies of several young girls are buried before Hall’s appeal goes through. But is this suspected killer telling the truth? Or is it just another tale from a serial liar? 

This dramatic and captivating story subverts the crime genre by enlisting the help of the very people put behind bars to solve its mysteries.

Alongside Egerton & Walter Hauser, Sepideh Moafi, Greg Kinnear & Ray Liotta also star.

This was top notch TV and the one Apple TV series that got away from me for some time. I have always wanted to watch it, finally I have gotten around to it. It only took me a brief trip to island paradise, Fiji.

If like me you have still yet to watch the series, maybe don't read below the trailer.

In the finale, You Promised, Larry draws a map of where all the bodies of his victims are buried, Jimmy snaps and reveals to him that he was sent to get him to confess, causing Larry to have a violent reaction. 

Larry's therapist has Jimmy put in solitary for upsetting him, where he is forced to try and recreate the map with his own blood after being denied a writing utensil. 

His FBI contact eventually realises what is happening and that Jimmy has gotten new evidence to secure Larry Hall's conviction and frees Jimmy, and Larry Hall is denied his appeal. 

Jimmy is freed and completely cleared and he meets Miller, who personally thanks him. 

Larry's brother, disturbed after talking to McCauley and Miller, urges his brother to confess to his crimes.

In the closing titles, it reveals that Larry confessed to fifteen murders but later recanted, James died of a heart attack five years after Jimmy's release, and Jimmy went on to have a successful business career while still helping law enforcement profile serial killers.