The Thing About Pam Review: She’s a Star Witness (Season 1 Episode 3)

[Clears throat] I’d like to remind anyone planning on watching The Thing About Pam Season 1 Episode 3, “She’s a Star Witness,” to keep your eyes inside your head, despite the number of eye rolls you’re about to experience. 

Ah, small towns. You can’t live with ’em, but you can commit murder in them and escape charges for years. 

“She’s a Star Witness” is an incredibly dark episode of television, as its results and the impact these moments have will go on to hurt people for years to come. 

So Much Court, So Little Elle Woods

Most of this installment is spent in the courtroom, with Schwartz and Askey battling for control. 

Every courtroom scene is electric. The anger radiates off of Duhamel’s character as Greer has a complete lack of awareness. 

Forcing a teenager to testify; barring the jury from hearing significant evidence; snacking with the state’s attorney before a trial begins. These are all things that happened and probably still happen in small towns across the United States.

Maybe not to the degree of Askey and the judge, but still enough to be a problem. 

When you’re besties with a judge, and you win a frequent amount of your cases, it’s not necessarily because you’re good at your job; it’s because you’re besties with a judge. 

Reverse Doppelgänger

Even though Renèe Zellweger has been praised for being unrecognizable in her role as Pamela Hupp, the more I look at photos of Pamela Hupp, the more confused I am with people giving Zellweger praise. 

Respectfully, Zellweger’s version of Pamela Hupp looks like Renèe Zellweger in a fat suit and nothing more. Her accent, on the other hand, is stellar. 

As next week shows that the show will jump three years, I wonder how much they’ll work to make Renèe as Pam actually look different.

I must now follow my moral obligation and remind everyone that using fat suits in 2022 (or 2021, if it was filmed then) is disgraceful, fatphobic, and unnecessary. Carry on.

Lies and Lies and Lies

In court, it is revealed that Pam is keeping the money meant for Betsy’s kids for no legal reason whatsoever, and somehow the jury still finds Russ guilty. 

At some point during The Thing About Pam, and there’s no telling when, you’re suddenly hit with a feeling that this is a real family, and real lives have gone through this. 

Despite being portrayed by actors, the sadness that emanates from Mariah the defeat from Russ all come together during the guilty verdict and make your heart incredibly heavy for these people.

“She’s a Star Witness” is also the episode where Dateline finally makes their presence known. A producer attends the trial and tells Schwartz she’d like to keep in contact — Cathy Singer — and thus, a podcast is born. 

Speaking of the podcast, it is incredibly bold for NBC to place ads for the podcast in the episode as if some people won’t be tempted to give up on the show and listen to the podcast instead. 

It’s me. I’m some people. 

This episode is, at its core, a deeply upsetting hour of television that shines a light on injustice happening in the most common of cases. 

Stray Thoughts:

• Finding out that Blumhouse produces the show is very disappointing, given that I’ve always loved a lot of Blumhouse productions. 
• In searching for confirmation of certain events that happen on this episode (confirmation I could not find), I found this article stating that NBC has denied sharing any profits from the show with Hupp’s victim’s families. Disgraceful. 
• I hope Pam is being dealt with nicely in prison. 

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The Thing About Pam airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on NBC.

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