On Hbo S The Jinx Billionaire Robert Durst Is The Anti Adnan

• HBO
• Trouble always finds Robert Durst—or is it the other way around?

It’s been a few months and I’m ready to be honest about something: I didn’t love Serial as much as everyone else did.

As a subject, Durst couldn’t be further from an Adnan Syed. This is not a charming, well-liked high school athlete—he’s a rodent-eyed, antisocial old billionaire whose only hope of earning our sympathies is a genuinely sad story from his childhood and our better natures, which encourage us to think the best of people. And for better or worse, The Jinx presents us with a much bigger and more sensational story than Serial did, but in HBO’s hands the presentation is tasteful, reenactments and all. The three episodes that have aired so far have me hooked—even if I can be pretty sure Jarecki and I aren’t going to solve a damn thing here.