Little Miss Innocent: Passion. Poison. Prison., directed by Sara Mast, is a 3-part docuseries where Kaitlyn Conley, currently serving a 23-year prison term after being convicted of manslaughter in the 2015 death of Mary Yoder, continues to maintain that she did not poison her old boss, and talks about the people that she still thinks did it.
LITTLE MISS INNOCENT: PASSION. POISON. PRISON.: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A phone-shot video of Mary Louise Yoder attempting a dance she learned.
The Gist: Kaitlyn Conley’s case, which has garnered national attention, has split Conley’s hometown of Sauquoit, in central New York; Mast talks to people in town and some of them feel Conley was unfairly targeted, while others have grown tired of her constant appeals and her “little miss innocent” act.
Conley was close with the Yoder family, having worked at Mary and her husband Bill’s chiropractic office in nearby Whitesboro for a number of years, even after she stopped dating their son Adam. In July, 2015, Mary Yoder — a healthy and vivacious 60-year-old — told people at the office that she was sick, and within two days she was dead. The medical examiner eventually determined that she was poisoned by an overdose of colchicine, a medication normally used to treat gout.
Mast interviews members of both Yoder’s and Conley’s families, as well as police, prosecutors, and journalists who pursued the case. But the centerpiece of the story is Conley herself. She continues to maintain that either Adam or Bill knows more about Mary’s death than she does. Conley goes on to detail how her relationship with Adam Yoder soured over his increasingly obsessive communications with her, his drinking, and her claim that he sexually assaulted her.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Conley case was featured on Dateline, and Little Miss Innocent essentially comes off like an extended Dateline or 20/20 episode.
Our Take: Mast doesn’t try to get clever in Little Miss Innocent; the biggest stylistic decision she makes is to use standard-grade reenactments, but only sparingly. She decides to lay out the case in a straightforward manner, giving both Conley and the Yoder family plenty of opportunity to make their respective cases.
There is a temptation to lean the narrative Conley’s way, given the fact that she’s sitting for an interview and comes off as calm and collected, displaying emotion when talking about Mary’s death as well as the rocky relationship she had with Adam. But there’s also the perspective that she seems too cool, calculating every move she makes in front of the camera.
What’s fascinating is that either — or both — can be true, and Mast tries to keep the viewer guessing. If you watch Little Miss Innocent and keep going back and forth about Conley’s guilt or innocence, then Mast has done her job. That’s what we found ourselves doing, first buying into Conley’s claims of innocence in light of Adam’s behavior, then wondering if we were wrong when we hear about the police getting an anonymous letter to search Adam’s messy Jeep for the colchicine.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: The first episode ends with police finding colchicine in Adam’s Jeep, right where the letter said it was.
Sleeper Star: Mary Yoder’s daughter Tamaryn gives the most passionate interview, but also acknowledges how close Conley was to the family and how she supported them after Mary’s death.
Most Pilot-y Line: None we could find.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Little Miss Innocent: Passion. Poison. Prison. is a straightforward, well-paced docuseries about a case that’s anything but straightforward.
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.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Little Miss Innocent: Passion. Poison. Prison.’ On Hulu, Where Kaitlyn Conley Speaks Out From Prison About The Killing She Still Claims She Didn’t Commit appeared first on Decider.
