Hulu’s new original TV show, The Act, follows the true story of Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee Blanchard’s toxic mother-daughter relationship. The show specifically examines the dark realities of Munchausen by proxy syndrome.

The full story of Gypsy Rose and her mother’s destructive bond that led to the murder of her occurred on July 15th of 2015 and  has been covered by various news outlets.

As a child, Gypsy had always been told by her mother that she was severely disabled, because of this her mother was very protective. From the age of only three months she had been “diagnosed” with several diseases including sleep apnea, leukemia, asthma, vision and hearing impairment, muscular dystrophy, seizures and had been told that she had lost the ability to walk and was forced to stay in a wheelchair.

Her mother made it seem like “being disabled” and having all of these daily tasks to manage was normal. She would give her various medications daily as well as feed her through a tube and restrain her from sugar since she had been “allergic” to it.

With all of these restrictions, in the show it had made Gypsy seem very alone since she was basically trapped in her house all her life, with no friends or anyone her age besides her mother.

Dee Dee had basically brainwashed herself as well as Gypsy to believe that she actually did have these diseases when in reality she didn’t.

Nobody was aware of these fake conditions besides Dee Dee.

She slowly began to figure out her mother’s lies.

It was hard to accept that her mom had been lying to her daughter all of her life about who she even was and how long she was able to keep it going.

Out of her ongoing grudge, Gypsy eventually went out of her way to find a way to stop the lying once and for all. This was a bold decision on her part and I definitely think that it was the smart choice because it brought her a step closer to exposing her mother.

Instead of finding a way to put a stop to it, she discovered sites to meet and video chat with random people on the internet. Even though she knew it was risky she still decided to keep video chatting. While on these sites she met Nick Godejohn who is someone she is very close with. He was determined to do anything to get Gypsy out of that house and away from her mother to be with her and that’s exactly what he did.

The two of them plotted the murder of Dee Dee Blanchard that would take place on July 15th, 2015.

In this case I do believe that murder was a very extreme way to handle this situation and it could have been dealt with in other various ways. If Gypsy wanted a way out of her and her mother’s relationship she could have told someone else she knew about it and handled it a completely different way. Because of the way she had been treated all her life I think that it fired her up to do something more extreme.

Later that night when her mother had fallen asleep, the deed was done.

Blanchard and Godejohn packed their bags and decided to flee to his hometown of Greene County to be able to be happy together and eventually get married.

Days later the house had been a crime scene covered with police tape and investigators all over. But nobody knew where Gypsy had gone. A search party for the murderer as well as Gypsy had gone in place.

The FBI had found Nick and Gypsy and forcefully took the two of them.

This is based on a true story so when finding out about their plans to murder her and how they were going to cover it up I was confused. Cleaning up the blood and fleeing just seemed not smart at all. I don’t think that they planned very well since they had been easily caught and tracked because of footage on security cameras and witnesses.

Nick Godejohn was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard. Gypsy Rose Blanchard made a plea deal with prosecutors and agreed to plead guilty to a second degree murder charge in exchange for a 10 year sentence.

I do think that Nicks sentence was appropriate for the crime he did commit especially because he was the one who stabbed Dee Dee but as far as Gypsys I did feel as if she was let off easier but she should have received a punishment just as extreme as him since she did have as much of a responsibility to the murder as he did.

Both Nick and Gypsy are both still currently in prison and she will be released in 2024.

Overall, I loved every minute of it and I would highly recommend it, it always kept me on the edge of my seat

I would have to say that my favorite part of the show was just observing Gypsys decisions and seeing how she handled everything that her mother threw at her throughout the entire series. She was a very outgoing person who wasn’t scared off by the consequences of her actions and was determined to get out of what she knew was a toxic situation.

I was constantly worried for Gypsy and wanted to always know what Dee Dee would do next. Since I had watched the show when it first aired on Hulu with new episodes weekly it was always hard to get to the end of the episode knowing that I would have to wait for the next one.