I'm watching Unbelievable (Netflix) while Hec and Matilda are both out--it's incredibly difficult and enraging to watch, but so, so good. It's based on this ProPublica 2015 report on a successful rape investigation that uncovered the devastating aftermath of an earlier, utterly bungled rape investigation.

And I keep recognizing actors I've seen before and being utterly blown away by them--the snarky, socially stunted queer girl from Booksmart is riveting and gutting as the girl whom no one believed. Elizabeth, Schmidt's on-again-off-again girlfriend from New Girl who dragged the sweetness of Fat Schmidt back out from under his layers of asshole, is a bright and directed and deeply compassionate detective. Willowdean from Dumplin' has such broken, resilient depth. And Toni Collette is, of course, Toni Collette.

There are small, heartbreaking grace notes--it's unbearable to watch the young, broken girl being broken more and more by angry, doubtful questions from increasingly irritated male detectives, and then watch as the detective in the second case, speaking to the survivor, asks her permission to swab her face for possible DNA samples. No inside the cheek swabs or anything--after getting permission, she very gently brushes a pair of swabs down one side of the survivor's face and then the other. She's likely the first human being to touch the survivor since the rapist, and she is so very careful to make that touch careful and non-invasive and only after obtaining consent.

I almost can't stand to watch it, it's so angering, but it's also so well-written and every single performance is so smart and deeply felt.

JZ - I had to take breaks watching "Unbelievable", also. So painful, but so well written, acted, and directed. Kaitlyn Dever, the actress playing the girl who nobody believed, was also excellent as Loretta on the second season of "Justified".

bennett, yeah. Hard to watch, hard not to watch.

Seriously, you have to watch Justified. Everyone who's on it is amazing, but Kaitlyn Dever is part of the extraordinary S2.

Margo Martindale, also part of S2 Justified, can go toe to toe with Dench, Smith, or Mirren, any day. She's just been given different material.

Margo Martindale, also part of S2 Justified, can go toe to toe with Dench, Smith, or Mirren, any day. She's just been given different material.

and how!

I thought Unbelievable was so so good, but I had to fast-forward through a lot of early scenes, because the way the character Marie was treated was just so awful I couldn't handle it. Once I got through the first 2 episodes, though, it was much less difficult to watch (although still enraging).

I just got to the (spoilerfonting just in case anyone who hasn't seen it yet is planning to) rape forensics textbook and all the awful implications thereof, and also Rasmussen's husband refusing to cut a hundredth of a corner and, when she says, "When he rapes again, it'll be on your conscience," shrugging, "No, it won't" as he strolls off to pick up his lo mein. Both sickening.

I love Kaitlyn Dever and Margo Martindale. I had to give up on Unbelievable because I was too sad.

If Justified has both of them, that's good enough for me.

Also, despite the overwhelming sadness, there's something incredibly nourishing about seeing so many gifted actors with great character faces and normally proportioned human bodies and crow's feet and neck wrinkles and none of the women looking any more polished or made up than any regular not-on-television woman.