The limited television series, “I am the Night”, premiered on TNT several weeks ago. This six episode series was based upon the true life memoirs of Fauna Hodel. I, personally, had never heard of Fauna Hodel or her story. Of course I immediately set about doing research and looking into her real life and events. While she was a producer on this series until she passed away in 2017, due to breast cancer, the series does vary from her real life events.

The characters are intriguing and it does start off a true mystery with many dark and twisty angles. The acting is excellent, although it is a darker story to tell, but there are definitely a lot of fictional elements as well. George Hodel, Fauna’s grandfather, is the main villain of this series and in real life he was a genius but also a sociopath and most likely a serial killer as well. Both his daughter Tamar and his granddaughter Fauna, believed that he was the Black Dahlia killer, although he was never convicted. If you intend to watch this series, here are some notable differences you should be aware of. First, although Fauna’s adoptive mother, Jimmy Lee, is portrayed as kind of an abusive drunk, in real life she and Fauna were actually very close for their entire lives. Also, the character of Jay Singletary, played by the incomparable Chris Pine, was not a real life person at all. Instead Pine’s role was devised by putting together several different personas that helped Fauna at the time. Although Jay, and his relationship with Fauna, are very compelling and intriguing, it is completely fictional. However, his character does add a lot of drama and help the plot develop for the television series, so it was a smart play to create him.

Also, the television series insinuates that George Hodel was Fauna’s father, in fact her real life father was an Italian man that her mother, Tamar, was introduced too. The real life story is actually even more salacious than the fictional rendition. Definitely worth reearching and investigating on your own. Although the series started out very intense, I did feel like it dwindled towards the end and was a little disappointed with the finale. Fauna has a final encounter with George, after she has been imprisoned by him, and she is able to over come him and injure him. They show him actually being scared of Fauna (who is only 16 years old). It is a powerful scene, but not very realistic and not something that actually happened. From there Jay apparently disappears to live out his years in Hawaii, and Fauna goes back to Jimmy Lee and resumes a normal life.

I would have liked more of a conclusion. More details of what happened to George and Tamar, or more of an inclination of Fauna’s future. Instead, after her final encounter she parts from Jay and the series fades out to Jay reading a letter from Fauna in the future. Poetic, but also a little vague and not as compelling as it could have been in my opinion.

I also felt like the series focused almost more on Jay, Chris Pine’s character–who was fictional, and developing his back story and his inner demons, than it did on Fauna herself. Seeing as this is her real life memoir, I would have liked more insight on her and what happened to her in her twenties and thirties. Overall, it is still an interesting series to watch if you are okay with darker issues and facing some of the horrible atrocities that happened during this time period. Definitely a story that needed to be told, and Fauna Hodel was avery impressive woman who did great things, especially considering where she came from.