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As far as opening sizzle-reels go, the one in American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders is particularly exciting. Someone’s life is threatened, another person is driven to a secret location in blindfold. The ‘biggest conspiracy in history’ is teased. Produced by Jay and Mark Duplass, best known for their indie hits and a handful of true crime blockbusters, the four-episode series is an absorbing character study of a man possessed, and a gripping conspiracy thriller with far-reaching implications.
It begins with the death of an investigative journalist named Danny Casolaro. A jovial family man who’d recently devoted his life to uncovering what he thought was the biggest story of his career, Casolaro had warned his family to raise the alarm if he were to die. Casolaro was found with his wrists slit in the bathroom of a nondescript Sheraton in 1991. At first, his death was ruled a suicide, but almost immediately, the evidence begged a reexamination. Not only did his brother raise Casolaro’s recent concerns about his safety, investigating officers were quick to note unusual blood spatter on the bathroom wall. They also wondered how a man whose wrists had nearly been severed from his arms was able to cut himself 12 times.
These details are convincing enough to plant a seed of doubt in your mind as well. And this, broadly, is the central theme of the show. What’s the difference between utter disbelief and complete faith? As it turns out, the line might be blurrier than you’d imagine.
Casolaro’s body was quietly embalmed, making an autopsy difficult. And despite intense media scrutiny into the circumstances surrounding his death, nobody was arrested. But three decades later, a journalist named Christian Hansen found himself becoming as obsessed with Casolaro as Casolaro had become with his story. He decided that the only way to unmask the truth would be to complete Casolaro’s mission. Armed with thousands of pages of documentation, hours of his personal audio recordings, and a rolodex full of sources so sketchy that they might as well have walked out of a John le Carré thriller, Hansen began a years-long investigation. What he discovered is nothing short of extraordinary.
But more than the findings themselves, it’s director Zachary Treitz approach to the complex story that makes The Octopus Murders an uncommonly ambitious example of the true crime genre. He underlines the parallels between the two men — Casolaro and Hansen — through basic editing, but also by making the astute choice to cast Hansen as Casolaro in the dramatic recreations. Treitz approaches the story with a great deal of skepticism, which adds a dimension that might not have existed had he taken the more conventional approach. Certainly, Casolaro himself was seemingly prone to confirmation bias.
His investigation into a (rather boring) case of corporate espionage led him down a rabbit hole that ended with him dead in a bathtub. Casolaro perished having convinced himself of an llluminati-adjacent conspiracy theory — that a cabal of eight powerful operatives is secretly controlling the world. He called this group ‘The Octopus’, owing to its multi-pronged influence on the world of politics and business. Casolaro found that in the 1980s, the US government had recognised the true potential of a high-tech management software, hired a maniacal former prodigy to steal its source code, and subsequently used it to spy on not only enemies, but also its allies. For all intents and purposes, he’d stumbled onto the origins of mass surveillance.
The maniacal former prodigy, by the way, is a greasy little man named Michael Riconosciuto. Appearing occasionally in the series like some sort of spectre, Riconosciuto is a paranoiac who claims to be the fellow that the government hired to steal the software, but was arrested and imprisoned on drug charges after threatening to go public with this information. Hansen and Treitz are somehow able to document the immediate moments following his release from prison, over two decades after he was first sent in.
Casolaro was also led to believe that ‘The Octopus’ was involved in swaying the US presidential election away from Jimmy Carter and towards Ronald Reagan, who supposedly bribed the Iranians during the hostage crisis. By paying the new regime off to not release the American hostages until after the polls, the public’s confidence in Carter was severely dented. It’s mad enough to be true; after all, the CIA actually played a role in generating publicity for Doctor Zhivago after recognising its propaganda value. And it’s semi-truths like the ones Riconoscuito recites that make this show a difficult one to pin down, but enjoyable to unpack.
The Octopus Murders is replete with unreliable characters like him — assassins and drug kingpins, secret agents and dogged journalists. It’s a story about the freedom of the press and the power of lies, but above all else, it’s a story about maladjusted men going to incredible lengths to avoid therapy.
American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders
Director – Zachary Treitz
Rating – 4/5
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