With the latest instalments of the documentary anthology series Trainwreck, Netflix appears to be trying to grant us a brief summer pause from its usual run of true crime horror. Previous episodes included the Woodstock 99 riots and Astroworld festival crowd crush, in which 10 people died, including a nine-year-old child. Now, it has pivoted in tone.
Last week it gave us Mayor of Mayhem, the tale of Rob “I am not a crack addict” Ford, the crack-addicted mayor of Toronto and his very un-Canadian way of doing municipal business. In coming weeks, there will be accounts of the balloon boy’s story, a private investigation agency run by soccer moms, and “the greatest shitpost ever made”. Whether this tonal change comes as a relief from having your hopes for humanity further ground down, or feels as psychologically jarring (should such disparate subjects as child death and municipal confusion be yoked together in the same anthology series?), will vary.
