On Monday, Jan. 28, TNT premiered its new limited series “I Am the Night,” based on the true crime of The Black Dahlia.
“I Am the Night” opens with a view of Reno, Nevada’s desert as it closes in on the household of Jimmy Lee (Golden Brooks) and her daughter Pat (India Eisley). It is morning, and Jimmy is trying to get Pat to get to school. What’s striking about the household is that Jimmy is colored, whereas Pat is white. After some fussing, the audience is transported to Pat’s school where it is made known that the integration of skin tones is still a relatively new concept in the world.
A new scene flashes by and the audience meets Jay Singeltary (Chris Pine) who is walking on the beach, attempting to catch a celebrity in the act of debauchery. He gets caught, his camera breaks and then the audience learns that he became a depressed drug addict after his coverage of The Black Dahlia disgraced him. He tries to find work, but the couple things the audience sees him attempt in the episode backfires big time.
Flip back to Pat, and curious about her origins she decides to sneak into her mother’s room after her mother drank herself into a stupor to steal her birth certificate. After obtaining it, she learns that she wasn’t really who she thought she was. Upon confronting her mother, she finds out she was adopted and that her real name is Fauna Hodel, the granddaughter to wealthy gynecologist George Hodel (Jefferson Mays).
This discovery, along with a couple of other events like Jimmy calling the cops pretending that she has died, causes Pat/Fauna to contact her grandfather who insists she come out to Los Angeles to meet him. All the while, Jay is learning that he may get a second chance at the case that ruined him.
“I Am the Night” tackles the true crime story of The Black Dahlia. The Black Dahlia case is an unsolved crime of a woman, Elizabeth Short, who was murdered by being cut in half in Los Angeles, California. Recently, it has come to light that the killer might have been Dr. George Hodel, and “I Am the Night” has seemed to take this idea and run with it.
The pilot episode is set up so that the scenes bounce back and forth between Eisley and Pine’s characters. Though the two don’t meet face to face in the first episode, it is clear that their paths will intersect at some point of the show. Both gave off a strong performance that makes the show very much worth continuing. Eisley makes the audience feel bad for her as Fauna discovers her true roots, and Pine makes us love but also annoyed at Jay for his reactions to situations he gets into.
The setting is also interesting enough. Set in the mid-’60s, “I Am The Night” not only discusses The Black Dahlia case but also themes of discrimination, family and discovery.
Another aspect television watchers may want to tune into the limited series for is that “I am The Night” brings Chris Pine and director Patty Jenkins back together after their previous work of “Wonder Woman.”
“I Am the Night” is a limited series that will run for only six episodes. It is a true crime story rated TV-MA, as in the first episode there are drugs and an almost attempted suicide. For those interested, “I Am the Night” will air Mondays at 9 p.m.
So, if one is looking for a new mystery to unravel, “I Am the Night” looks like the perfect way to spend the next few weeks.
