Peacock’s Based on a True Story doesn’t try to reinvent serial killers. It does something nastier. It reinvents the people who consume them. Instead of yet another “cop versus murderer” procedural, this limited series hands the microphone to a broke married couple who look at a serial killer and see… content.
I talk in detail about the setup and key twists from Episodes 1–2 of Based on a True Story, but nothing beyond that. If you’re fine knowing how the podcast-from-hell gets started, you’re safe to keep reading.
When Your True Crime Obsession Starts Answering Back
Ava Bartlett (Kaley Cuoco) is heavily pregnant, flogging real estate in a market that’s eating her alive. Nathan (Chris Messina) is a former tennis pro whose glory days are now just Instagram memories and old trophies collecting dust. Their marriage is hanging by a frayed financial thread. Sex life on pause, bank balance in free‑fall, the American dream on Afterpay.
Enter Matt (Tom Bateman), their new plumber and occasional bar buddy. Blue booties, mysterious scratches, a sketchy backstory, and a murder pattern that lines up a little too neatly with his travel history. In a true crime landscape where everyone thinks they’re one Reddit thread away from solving a case, Ava does precisely what the internet has trained her to do. Of course, she connects dots that probably shouldn’t be connected, then monetises them.
Instead of calling the cops, she calls an opportunity.
The Serial Killer as Business Partner
The opening scene tells you exactly what kind of playground you’ve walked into. We get a sleek, slightly futuristic cold open with Chloe Lake (Natalia Dyer) doing a wall-mounted workout on tech. Almost Black Mirror, but not enough quirk. Then she’s stabbed to death, blood on white surfaces, and the credits roll. It’s brutal, but it’s also stylised, as murder shot through the filter of an Apple commercial.
From there, the first half of Episode 1 staggers a little. Mother of Movies watched it thinking, “This is flapping around like a fish, and I’d like to get to the point.” Ava’s fantasies about humping Nathan (another key player in real estate) in staged open houses. Her fixation on how much more sex her sister gets, and how little she wants… it all feels tonally scattered rather than deviously sharp.
But once the West Side Ripper enters the chat, the show sinks its teeth in. Who doesn’t love Tom Bateman? He’s the perfect serial killer.
A news report mentions a blue, blood‑soaked shoe cover left at a crime scene, the exact kind Matt wears. He has scratches he blames on a cat. He used to live in Pomona, where a string of murders went down. Now he’s in West LA, and the killings seem to follow him like a grim little tour.
Ava doesn’t just panic. She plots. True crime is her main squeeze, and along with dropping all the tight names, she knows she’s onto something people would love to hear.
Nathan’s first instinct is still vaguely moral: he goes to dial 911. But by the time the dispatcher calls back, Ava has pitched a new kind of hustle. What if they didn’t turn Matt in? What if they made a podcast about him instead?
In a world where true crime podcasts get snapped up for tens of millions, it’s disturbingly plausible. The show knows this. It weaponises that against you.
True Crime Fans, Meet Your Funhouse Mirror – “Based on a True Story”
Episode 2 is where Mother of Movies got hooked. Nathan takes Matt surfing, and the beach confession scene is the series finding its groove. With the waves crashing behind them, Nathan basically says, “We know. You’re the West Side Ripper. Let’s make a show.”
Tom Bateman plays Matt with a charisma that should immediately worry anyone who ever defended a serial killer in a Facebook thread. He’s disarming and boyish, more “guy who’d help you move house” than “guy who randomly follows a woman home and stabs her.” And that’s exactly the point.
He doesn’t threaten murder. He doesn’t deny. He just… smiles and heads in for a surf.
Both Ava and Nathan think their number is up. He is obviously going to kill them next. Instead, he rewrites their podcast plan, takes control of the equipment, sorts burner phones, and immediately makes them complicit by using Nathan as his alibi. There’s a grim little sequence where he’s stalking a supermarket girl, and you see the horrifying disconnect. Matt agrees he won’t kill anyone else. But the ease with which he killed the victim we saw in the opening scenes shows he loves a good stabbing. Would a podcast really stop Ava and Nathan from being
Meanwhile, Ava and Nathan are so busy dreaming about Sisters in Crime‑level success (a rival podcast that sold for $60 million), they barely notice the ethical floor disintegrating beneath them. When they finally upload their first episode, they wake up to the cold shower of reality: 113 downloads.
They’ve sold their souls, and they don’t even have enough listeners to crash a server.
The series is at its best when it leans into this horror‑comedy tension. The banality of modern hustling smashed against serial murder. We’ve built an ecosystem where normal people genuinely might think, “This could go viral” before they think, “This is a crime.”
Not Your Usual Cop‑Chases‑Killer True Crime
If you’ve been doom‑scrolling true crime for years, Based on a True Story offers something different to the usual Apple TV docudrama. This isn’t a forensic dissection of evidence and timelines. It’s more like a satire of what happens when regular people treat serial killing the way brands treat hashtags.
Instead of detectives painstakingly tracking a killer, we get a husband and wife podcast team adding to a heavy pool of true crime podcasters out there in the marketplace. Ava and Nathan are trying to out‑hustle all of them with the actual murderer as their co‑host. There are hints of law enforcement closing in, but they’re more of an off‑screen pressure system than the main act. The show’s focus is firmly on the bartering of ethics for listening figures.
Mother of Movies has watched enough true crime and real‑world serial killer docs to recognise the type. The show makes Matt perversely likable, yet never lets you forget he’s a guy who randomly follows a 20‑something home and stabs her. The tonal line is thin, and Based on a True Story wobbles, but it knows it’s playing with fire.
Is it comfortable? No. But if you’re tired of the same old “grizzled detective, traumatised town, three clues per episode” formula, this morally rotten trio might be exactly the change of pace you crave.
Pacing, Performances & That Moral Grey Sludge
Mother of Movies almost bailed halfway through Episode 1. The tone felt uneven; the sex jokes and financial bickering dragged like a filler TikTok before the main video loads. But Episode 2 is a solid handbrake turn.
Kaley Cuoco leans into Ava’s desperation with a jagged charm: she’s not a hero, she’s not a monster, she’s just a person who’s watched too many “How I built my empire” reels and decided the line between true crime fan and exploitation entrepreneur is negotiable.
Chris Messina’s Nathan is the unstable moral compass of the show. He pukes after making his beachside proposition, the one moment that reminds Mother of Movies, there’s still a human being in there somewhere. Watching him oscillate between guilt and ambition is where some of the best dark comedy lands.
Tom Bateman is the secret weapon. He has an unnerving knack for playing charming creeps. Here, he turns Matt into the serial killer version of that mate who somehow ends up leading every group chat. He’s in control quickly, and that’s where the tension lives. The podcast was Ava and Nathan’s idea, but the series is very clear: Matt is driving this car. And so he should.
By the time the couple ends up at a true crime convention‑style event, surrounded by booths pitching different serial killer pods, the point is sharp. We’ve built a marketplace where brutality is just another branding niche.
True Crime Addiction Turned Inside Out
Based on a True Story asks what happens when a financially desperate couple decide that a serial killer is their shortcut to going viral. It’s part satire, part thriller, and part mirror held up to anyone who’s ever binged a true crime podcast and forgotten there’s a body at the centre of it.
Rating & Verdict of Based on a True Story TV Series
Based on a True Story is rated:
3.5 Serial Killers With a Media Strategy out of 5
It’s a twisted, entertaining time‑passer with barbed edges. If you’re hunting for a true crime series that doesn’t just recycle the usual cop‑chasing‑clues script, this one definitely deserves at least the first two episodes of your life.
Where to Watch Based on a True Story
Similar Titles – Need More Killer Podcast Energy?
Need more? Shows like Based on a True Story are:
- Only Murders in the Building – Comedy‑forward murder‑podcast chaos, but with less blood and more theatre kid energy.
- The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window – Meta, genre‑aware thriller riffing on true crime voyeurism and suburban paranoia.
- The Flight Attendant – Another Kaley Cuoco dark comedy‑thriller where bad decisions spiral into bodies.
- You – Charismatic killer, social media era romance, and the uncomfortable thrill of caring about someone you know you shouldn’t.
- For something more serious and less podcast, Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy will give you that. Nothing like Based on a Story, except that it a true story.
Filmmaker & Cast Stamps Based on a True Story 2023 Review – Dark Comedy, Serial Killers & True Crime Obsession
Kaley Cuoco
- Has carved a second career wave in darkly comedic thrillers, especially with The Flight Attendant, where anxiety, humour, and danger share the same bed.
- Often plays women who are messy, flawed, and self‑sabotaging, which matches Ava’s energy here.
Chris Messina
- Known for emotionally vulnerable men barely keeping it together (The Mindy Project, Sharp Objects), he brings that same fragile masculinity to Nathan, a man whose identity is collapsing as fast as his bank balance.
Tom Bateman
- Frequently cast as charming but suspect figures in thrillers, here, he turns that vibe into a serial killer who feels disturbingly plausible as the “nice guy” with a dark secret.
Online chatter around Based on a True Story has largely circled its satire of true crime fandom. Some viewers lean into the dark humour, while others find the “serial killer as podcast partner” angle a little too close to how real‑world cases get commodified. That tension is exactly the nerve the show seems happy to press.
