In Mommy Dead and Dearest, provocative documentarian Erin Lee Carr (Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop) again explores a crime in the age of social media. Things are not always as they appear, especially in the case of Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose, and what starts out as a grisly tale of matricide morphs into a rabbit hole of deception. Child abuse, mental illness and forbidden love converge in this mystery of a mother and daughter who were thought to be living a fairy tale life that turned out to be a living nightmare.

Dee Dee Blanchard and her ailing, wheelchair-bound daughter, Gypsy Rose, were beloved members of Springfield, Mo., but the tight-knit community was rocked when Dee Dee was found murdered in her home, and Gypsy was missing. Investigators tracked a graphic Facebook status stating, “that Bitch is Dead,” to Wisconsin. What unraveled next was a disturbing sequence of events that nobody saw coming.
 

"HBO's Mommy Dead and Dearest is a perfect storm of true crime, pageantry, and southern gothic tropes. This is a story that needs to be seen to be believed. A must-watch for any fan of true crime." - Aja Romano, Vox 

A twisted and twisty documentary that's as unsettling as it is absorbing - Brian Lowry, CNN

Some true-crime documentaries havae to embellish and overstate to justify giving so much attention to a garden-variety criminal case. Not Mommy Dead and Dearest. The strangeness of this killing speaks for itself, and the director, Erin Lee Carr, largely just lets it do so - Neil Genzlinger, New York Times