Most mothers want to protect their child from danger, but when does it become deadly? “The Act,” on Hulu, retells the tragic 2015 murder of Dee Dee Blanchard and the imprisonment of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and her boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn.
This television series takes place a few years before the murder when Gypsy and her mother move to Springfield, Missouri.
Curious neighbors help unveil why Gypsy is in a wheelchair. Her mother’s answers changed with each person. Gypsy was believed to be a leukemia survivor, have severe asthma, muscular dystrophy, sleep apnea, epilepsy and the list goes on.
Michelle Dean, the author of “Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick, Gypsy Wanted Her Mom Murdered” said, “She would have been the perfect mom for someone that actually was sick.”
Gypsy had to live the lie of being sick to please her abusive mother. She was given medication that she didn’t need, she had to shave her head and live her days in a wheelchair. During the day, she lived in this abusive world. At night, she would walk around the house to test herself to see if she was actually sick. Through these midnight adventures, Gypsy unveiled all the lies that were told to her.
She wasn’t actually sick. She was older than what her mother had told her she was and her mother was hiding all the money, received through donors and nonprofit organizations, that was meant for Gyspy.
This series takes the audience through the abuse that Dee Dee inflicted on her daughter, the mental health decline of Dee Dee, Gypsy stealing money to buy a phone and a laptop, her contacting Nicholas through a dating website and her newfound steps to freedom of her mother.
This story is an emotional rollercoaster. The audience has an understanding of why Gypsy wanted her mother dead and why Dee Dee was pretending that her daughter was sick.
The Trendy interviewed Gypsy while serving her 10-year sentence in prison about how she feels about the Hulu original. According to the interview, Gypsy likes the way she is portrayed by Joey King. Her family has other opinions about the show, “The way they’re depicting Dee Dee is very inaccurate and very poor. They’re making her out to be this person who is very sickly and declining in mental capacity and that was not the case at all.”
Dee Dee was extremely intelligent. She convinced many people that her daughter was sick, even doctors and social workers. She stole prescription notepads from doctors to get Gypsy’s medicine. She did all this out of love for her child and never wanted Gypsy to leave her. How much love does it take before it becomes suffocating?
