I Binged Netflix’s New #1 True Crime Series and, as a Wellness Reporter, I Have Thoughts

I binged Netflix’s new #1 series, the six-episode Apple Cider Vinegar, this weekend, and today, it’s all my friends and I can talk about. Here’s my review of why you should watch it immediately, with some special insight due to my status as a wellness reporter and a woman who has a personal special connection to the “healing journeys” referenced in the series.

In a nutshell, ACV tells the story of an Australian wellness writer and influencer who built a thriving business called The Whole Pantry (her app was on the Apple Watch!) in the 2010s. Her strong connection to her audience came via a blog in which she told her followers about how, through clean eating, she had recovered from a cancer diagnosis that had given her “six weeks to live, four months tops.” Except, it was all a lie that Belle Gibson (a real person, btw) resolutely defended even after her beloved online community, investigative media and the courts turned against her.

Same old, same old, right? It’s fake heiress Anna Sorokin crossed with Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy victim Gypsy Rose Blanchard, sprinkled with a little Instagram writer Caroline Calloway pixie dust, due to lead actor Dever’s tiny blond prettiness and the online startup culture backdrop. So why watch? Because the show’s compelling mix of poppy style, powerful acting and underlying social commentary combine to make this show a slow-moving car crash of mentally and physically ill people trying to get better through desperate means. You can’t stop cringing, but you can’t look away.

Each episode starts with a principal actor breaking the fourth wall and announcing that this story plays fast and loose with Belle Gibson’s real story—and that Gibson received no proceeds from the filmed drama. A jumbled timeline, bright online graphics and the sunny Australian setting, as well as an attractive cast, make this a fitting cancer drama for the Pinterest age. Belle’s story is contrasted with two real cancer sufferers, a fan and another wellness blogger with arm lesions, both of whom adhere to the “Western medicine is run by pharma giants and male doctors who are immune to our concerns and only want to make money and boss us around” online wellness chatter that’s become increasingly popular and legitimized by powerful vaccine skeptics.