Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Alison Lanier | TV | August 20, 2025
Jennifer Love Hewitt’s true crime docuseries, Murder Among Friends, for which Hewitt produces and narrates, is a return to true crime at its trashiest. Well, maybe not trashi-est. It’s not scraping rock bottom, but it’s certainly deep in the barrel.
Maybe I’ve been spoiled by prestige true crime docs and docuseries, but there’s usually a certain level of care in how these stories are told, even if that bar doesn’t necessarily get that far off the ground. To communicate a sense of responsibility on the part of the filmmakers, that these are real and re-traumatizing stories that real people are coming forward to tell. Murder Among Friends, in the tradition of background noise TV, does not really seem to try.
Each of the first season’s six episodes closely follows the same path: We set the stage with a group of friends and their particular relationship and setting, in a tide of stock-video-looking montages meant to depict childhood/teen/young adult life. Then, the murder. Then, the investigation. And — it was someone they knew all along!
The interviewees bring a level of heart and emotional vulnerability that is sadly not reciprocated in the care taken in production. It’s like watching two different shows. The interviews feel made for prestige TV true crime (even with their transparent formula of questions clearly meant to align in the same beat across all episodes).
There’s also some good ole (probably unconscious, definitely present) racism in how these cases are told. All but one of the victims are white, and none are Black—though two of the culprits are. The difference in how a white murderer and a Black murderer are portrayed feels very apparent, at least to me, in the season’s final episode.
But don’t worry, it misses the mark on quality as well. The editing feels kitschy and tasteless, with super-fast cuts and cringy voice-overs fit for Who The F*ck Did I Marry? The stories and the people involved are treated like so much content, rather than the whole human lives they were.
I can recommend Murder Among Friends for a night when there’s truly nothing else to watch.
It’s streaming on HBO Max.
