One of the most compelling aspects of true-crime stories, particularly ones that involve conmen, is that the more outlandish, the more extreme they are, it’s easy to tell yourself there’s no way you would have been fooled by this. It’s certainly easy to feel like that while watching Netflix’s riveting new true-crime docuseries The Puppet Master: Hunting for the Ultimate Conman. In terms of the villain at the center of it, here’s a normal-looking guy who could be anybody, who burrows his way — slowly and insidiously — into the confidences of his victims. Then, once they trust him? He is the one who sets the tone.
More or less, he breathlessly tells them a whopper of a lie: I’m actually an undercover MI5 agent. You and all your loved ones are at risk of being assassinated by the IRA.
You must come with me. You must leave everything behind. Now is the time.
Puppet Master Netflix
The seriesThe conman, known as Robert Freegard, went on to extort them of tons of cash once they had complied. Sometimes, he even made them suffer abuse. It’s a jaw-dropping ploy, made all the more so by the fact that it only works if the victims take this guy at face value. They did it at least six times.
From a distance, of course, it’s a heck of a thing to be asked to take at face value. You can tell yourself you wouldn’t fall for this kind of thing. That you would have Googled this guy much sooner than one of the victim’s family members did (by which point, the victim was too far down the rabbit hole, and didn’t believe the truth on this guy that a simple Google search turned up).
You may find yourself wanting more than just to watch this three-episode series. What is the point of being so stupid? We also recognize that ignorance can take many forms. All conmen don’t come with shifty eyes and ridiculous stories. Maybe it’s a bank executive with the terms of a loan that, if you paid close enough attention, would sound too good to be true. Maybe it’s a political conspiracy, born out of the ravings of a shadowy leader known only by a single letter of the alphabet.
Rating and reaction
Point is, this is actually the most fascinating thing about Netflix’s The Puppet MasterThat is at least what I believe. We can fall for lies, and we lie to ourselves when we should know better.
The current audience score is 86 per cent. Rotten Tomatoes. IMDb gives it a strong score of 7.2/10. True-crime fans will enjoy this film. Moreover, it’s only been available on Netflix for a week now. But, as you can see below, people are still gobsmacked by the audacity behind what the conman herein was able to get away with — for so long.