Rachel, Shelia, and Skylar were best friends, but not forever.
Friends Like These: The Murder of Skylar Neese
All three episodes will debut Friday, March 6 on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers in the U.S. and premiere on Disney+ internationally.
Unfolding primarily in Morgantown, West Virginia, a city of some 30,000, predominantly white people -- where writer/director Lawrence Kasdan grew up in the 1950s -- the docu-series follows three teenage girls who became the best of friends in high school.
After they met, the trio quickly became best friends, doing everything together -- after school, that is. They were not known as academic achievers; instead, they were part of the party crowd, following a well-worth path that led them to became indulgent in alcohol-drinking and illicit-drug using.
None of it was legal, but neither did it unnecessarily draw attention; they were teenagers who drew unusually close, but not beyond anything beyond the expected teenage kicks that are common to most every teenager.
In the summer of 2012, however, Skylar disappeared. Spotted on a security camera getting into a vehicle in the dead of night, authorities struggled to learn more: why did she clamber out of her room in her parents' house past midnight? Whose car did she get into? And what happened after that?
Following along with the weeks of investigation by the authorities, Friends Like These rewinds to explore the friendship between Rachel, Shelia, and Skylar. Both Rachel and Shelia maintained their complete ignorance about the night in question, and the authorities, despite their best efforts, did not speak the language of social media.
Yet the young woman were unusually candid in their social media posts, a reflection of a time when the dangers and consequences of such actions where much less frequently discussed. Eventually, the authorities are able to piece together a case that leads to a rather shocking realization for anyone who does not remember the specifics of the story, myself included, since I have no memory of that whole incident and the media attention that followed in its wake.
As directed by Clair Titley, the docu-series adapts modern TV-documentary style, which features many recreated scenes and diary jottings reproduced on-screen, which are take it or leave it, as far as I'm concerned, and somewhat jarring.
The series' strength, however, issues forth from the interviews conducted with Skylar's parents, several of her friends, one of Rachel's friends, and a number of law enforcement officials. Hindsight is 20/20, of course, and they've all had more than a dozen years to process their thoughts and speak clearly now about the case, and their reasoning at certain points.
Kudos to editors Kev Austin, Rachel Meyrink, and Jane Hodge, who weave the interviews and footage together under director Clair Titley's guidance over the course of three episodes.
Though three episodes may sound excessive, I found the series to be completely absorbing. The length allows for a longer look into the circumstances that led to the fatal moment when Skylar Neese lost her life -- no spoiler there, since it's in the title -- and allow for some reflection upon what happened.
The why of it all is something that we expect to have handed to us, as television viewers sitting comfortably in our place of abode. Really, though, it's not something that we should expect. Instead, it's more valuable to consider the causes and circumstances, and ponder the individual impact of a single death.
Especially when it's among friends.