markeliz bertyldah illani
Olympia Brackin
Writer and actor Richard Gadd blew people away with the retelling of his real experiences with a stalker in Baby Reindeer, detailing how she would turn up at his place of work and send him hundreds of emails every day.
Gadd's character was named Donny in the Netflix series and his stalker Martha was played by Jessica Gunning, but now a woman has come forward after she was accused of being the inspiration for the stalker.
I had the displeasure of watching the entirely of Baby Reindeer in one sitting over the weekend. Not that it was a bad show. I thought it was extremely well done, and I was deeply invested. But I was also deeply unsettled from start to finish. If you're unfamiliar, Netflix's Baby Reindeer is a show about struggling London prop comic/bartender Richard Gadd. One day he serves a random woman a free cup of tea, and that woman ends up stalking his entire life. The crazy shit that unfolds throughout the show, the way this stalker fucks up the already mentally unstable comedian's brain, and everything that happened over the course of Richard's Gadd's life in general is wildly disturbing. Not only was the show written by Richard Gadd himself, but he also played himself as the main character. So this whole thing was his baby. It was Richard telling the story of his fucked up life as it happened.
His stalker in the show is an unsightly woman named Martha. Martha is off-putting in pretty much every way imaginable. You really grow to hate everything about her when watching the show (although there is a part of you that feels bad, as she's clearly beyond unwell).
Following the release of the show, the real life Martha decided to speak up. Martha was pissed about the way she was portrayed and she's now threatening to sue Netflix. She claims that the show is full of lies, that there were scenes portraying moments that never happened in real life, and claims that Richard Gadd is now the one stalking her by making a show about her.
But if you watched the show, then read what real-life Martha says about the show, you can't help but think, "Yep, that's sounds exactly like something this crazy bitch would say." The show portrays her as so incredibly delusional that it's almost impossible to give any credence to her claims. But to be fair to her crazy ass, Gadd could have completely made up half of what happened. We'd have no way of knowing.
That's the breakdown of what's going on. Now might I say, this is going to be a shit show. Richard Gadd is a nutcase himself. According to his Netflix show, Martha is much more of one. Martha has also been arrested for stalking people (violently) multiple other times, so her track record automatically makes everyone more inclined to believe Richard's version of things. But still, this whole thing is just going to be one massive he said, she said between two mentally unstable people with insurmountable amounts of trauma in their lives that they're not even close to overcoming. I'm not sure either of them truly remember what happened. Both their versions of events could be so far removed from the truth. Nobody knows.
Martha is probably going to trot out their on Piers Morgan Uncensored and categorically deny every little detail Gadd included about her in Baby Reindeer. Then part of the internet will say "You dumb ugly bitch, I watched the show myself, you're nothing but a big fat liar."
Then another part of the internet will say, "Well, we don't really know. Richard Gadd could have made a bunch of stuff up to make a better show. Maybe he really did lead her on, maybe she's the victim, believe all women, Richard Gadd for prison, etc."
Kind of a crazy move by Gadd to put this show out there while his stalker still walks the streets. If she's as insane as he says she is, he had to have known this was coming. Martha isn't just going to say silent. She's going to be as loud as humanly possible and the whole thing is going to turn into some crazy internet drama. Richard can't handle that. The guy can barely leave the house without something catastrophic and mentally scarring happening to him. This whole thing has disaster written all over it. I'm pumped to watch it play out.
If I were Netflix, I'm giving Martha $1 million dollars to write a show detailing the entire saga from her point of view. I want to know what went down according to her brain. Her show likely wouldn't make a lick of sense, but who cares. That would do numbers. Netflix gave Richard Gadd the platform to tell his side of things. The least they could do is offer the same to Martha.
Murphy (played by Boyd Holbrook) and Pena (played by Pedro Pascal) are the two agents responsible for taking down Pablo Escobar. Their hunt for the notorious Medellin Cartel leader was told on the first two seasons of Narcos, where both agents serve as series consultants. The finale of the second season re-created the kingpin's final moments during a rooftop shootout in Medellin, Colombia. (Netflix confirmed the return of Pascal as Pena, while Holbrook's Murphy remains up in the air.)
So the pair blew off forthcoming offers, until they met with those who would become the creators of Narcos. "The only stipulation Javier and I have is: Whoever we do this with cannot in any way glorify Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel," Murphy recalls telling showrunner Eric Newman during a dinner in Washington, D.C. "We just hit it off. Eric has lived up to his word 100 percent."
The second season opens with the above words from narrator Steve Murphy as played by Holbrook. Pablo Escobar is then shown in the wilderness, where a group of Colombian police who are frozen with fear simply let him pass. Thus, the 18-month manhunt for Escobar ensues.
"That's pretty accurate," Pena says of the blunder. "When Escobar surrendered, many of the original Search Bloc guys got foreign assignments, which is what everybody aspires to, as a reward. So after Escobar escapes, those guys weren't there."
In the beginning of season two, Connie Murphy (played by Joanna Christie) left Steve Murphy behind in Colombia. Fed up with the danger, she took the pair's adopted daughter and abruptly flew back to the United States.
Connie, whom Steve calls "one of the bravest women I've ever met," actually stayed at their home in Bogota while the agent spent most of the 18 months covered on season two hunting Escobar from Medellin. (The pair also have not one but two adopted daughters from Colombia.)
As the season progresses, more than one of the "good guys" reveal themselves to be in cahoots with Los Pepes, the death squad led by right-wing vigilantes the Castano brothers. Trujillo (Jorge Monterrosa), it is discovered, has been feeding Los Pepes information to aid in the hunting of Escobar and his men.
"There was a lot of corruption," says Murphy. "The corruption was even worse in the military. We worked primarily with the police, and they were the guys that we trusted with our lives. They kept us alive when we were out doing operations."
The real leader of the Search Bloc, Hugo Martinez, is still alive today. "Colonels Carrillo and Pinzon are both based on Colonel Hugo Martinez," Newman has explained. "In reality, Martinez and his son catch Escobar, but we liked the idea of killing Carrillo [Maurice Compte]. Carrillo's death, in episode four, is my favorite, I hope it really surprised people."
Judy Moncada (Cristina Umana) was a major player in the alliance of enemies who formed to take down Escobar, until her own partners took her out. Betrayed by Don Berna (Mauricio Cujar), the narco is shipped off to the United States and Pena's plan to bring her on as an informant is foiled in the season finale.
"We never signed him up as a DEA informant, but he was at the base and I could always tell there was something weird," he says, adding that after Escobar's death, Don Berna went on to become a trafficker and is now in prison in the United States. "After Escobar is killed, maybe two or three years later, we find out the real truth that one of our officers at the Search Bloc was hand-in-hand with Los Pepes."
As for the Narcos storyline that shows Pena having a relationship with Don Berna, the agent says he was fine with the drama: "We never crossed that line, but that's what makes the show exciting and interesting."
The penultimate episode sees Escobar retreating to his father's farm. With the walls closing in and only his driver, Limon (Leynar Gomez), left alive, he knocks on the elder Escobar's door and enjoys an extended stay with his estranged parent.
Newman has said the storyline was fictionalized (though Escobar did predecease his father, who was a farmer and estranged from the family) and Murphy says they weren't sure of his whereabouts at that point in the timeline.
Pena adds of Escobar's final days: "He was running out of money and he was running out of time. We put a lot of pressure on and it was that relentless pressure that we later learned is what really got him killed."
Newman also said little was known about Victoria "Tata" Escobar (Paulina Gaitan) at the time. Murphy says they didn't focus on her, but that her portrayal on the show was aligned with what they could piece together.
The finale shows Tata Escobar swallowing her pride and attempting to appeal to Gilberto (Damian Alcazar) for compassion when she asks her husband's enemy for help getting her family out of Colombia. On the series, Gilberto agrees, as long as she hands over all of her assets.
The family did ultimately leave Colombia for Argentina. They changed their names but shortly after, their identities were discovered and Tata was arrested on suspicion of money laundering. "Juan Pablo writes that they were trumped-up charges and says they were dismissed." (The 1999 charges were dismissed, according to a BBC News report, and not much is known about her life beyond that point.)
Pablo Escobar died in a rooftop shootout in Medellin on Dec. 2, 1993. He was shot three times: in the leg, torso and fatally in his ear. Since that day, theories have proliferated as to who fired the fatal shot; Newman has shot down every single one, including Juan Pablo's claim that his father turned his gun on himself.
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