I usually don't write reviews. I will in this exception because the series, Tell Me Your Secrets, exposed a full frontal of a place that Maria and I visited in our travels.
The series is about a woman who is in prison for being an accomplice to a serial killer's brutal grooming and killing of at least nine females. She is released from prison and placed in witness protection due to her sordid past. Tell Me Your Secrets was originally supposed to air on TNT, from what I have read, but they did not air it. Amazon picked it up. It was written by Harriet Warner. I muddled through all ten episodes of the three internally tormented characters it followed. I say muddled because at times this series had a formulated feel, probably due to TNT promising to air it, I'm sure. It was more psychological, showing some of the crime, after it was committed, and slowly releasing detail. The crimes were given mostly in flashbacks by the main character Karen Miller, played by Lily Rabe (AHS). There were real time crimes committed by John, played by Hamish Linklater (The Crazy Ones), he gave the series a creep factor and his acting was chilling. Hopefully season two, if there is one, fixes the formulated feel. The series was shot in New Orleans which was awesome because I know a bit about New Orleans. I've been there three times in my adult life. We (Maria and I) were trying to identify locations that we might have seen and finally I did recognize one, in episode nine.
In 2016, Maria and I took a week long trip to New Orleans. I booked a room at a place called St. Vincent's Guest House. This place is the beginning of Magazine Street's massive history and rejuvenation. The hostel was reasonably priced, and had a great take out restaurant, Café Roma, in the lower rear quadrant. The staff were typically knowledgeable. It was an eclectic place to stay for weary travelers or young people needing a cheap dormer to sleep until they secured a life in the Big Easy. There were many bizarre sculptures scattered through the halls and a creepy one climbing the cupola which was created by a locally renowned artist, Randy Morrison. We spent many nights sitting on the front porch. I smoked cigars, drank beer and got to know some of the dormer tenants. They had stories, that I won't tell here, and those stories, in my opinion, would have been inspiration enough to write Tell Me Your Secrets. New Orleans tends to inspire me every time I visit. I never wrote a story about the city, but visiting the city strikes that creative nerve.
In, Tell Me Your Secrets, there's a home for foster children called St. Jerome's. This place had a past that unfolds throughout the ten episodes. Upon first visit, around episode one, two, or maybe even three, I thought for sure I'd been to St. Jerome's before, it was a moment of Deja Vu. By episode nine, I knew I'd been there. I paused the episode, took a snap shot, albeit not a very good representation, and gazed at my own photo of St. Vincent's Guest House. It was the same place. The comparison of the fictionalized St. Jerome's and the history of St. Vincent's were uncanny. St. Vincent's was a place that housed orphans whose parents died of yellow fever. St. Jerome's, in stark contrast were children of today neglected by a system of abuse, money and nepotism. Usually when Maria and I travel we go looking for a place that might have appeared in a movie, or might have been home to a serial killer, but rarely, if ever, have we stayed at a place that five years later shows up in a series. I hope the photos below do St. Vincent's / St. Jerome's justice. Thanks for reading!
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