Hulu’s Phony, a 93% RT Mystery Series, Hilariously Debunks an Unrealistic Crime Show Trope

A mystery begins at home

Sonny, played by Sam Nivola, wakes after a car accident and believes his mother, Ellen, has been replaced by a convincing imposter. Connie Britton plays Ellen, while Grace Brennan plays Sonny’s friend Mal.

The series first establishes the close relationship between Sonny and Ellen, then shifts toward psychological mystery. Sonny remains a sweet, awkward teenager as the situation unsettles his world.

The photo stays blurry

In the second episode, Sonny’s only picture of his real mother is on her Costco membership card. Enlarging it digitally only makes it more blurred. Mal has no special software to improve the image, so she draws over it instead. The result resembles a blurry photograph wearing drag makeup, turning a standard crime-show trick into a joke.

Amateur sleuth faces resistance

Sonny has no investigative training or technology skills, and his social approach can be awkward. When he speaks to a student rumored to have found a dead body, the student assumes Sonny is gathering information for his mother, the high school principal.

Sonny does go to the police, but his claim that Ellen has been replaced makes him seem increasingly unstable. Almost no one else believes there is anything wrong with her, leaving him to pursue a suspected crime that others say has not happened.

Crime-show tools stretch credibility

Crime procedurals often portray technology as able to sharpen blurry images, identify people through facial recognition, or access databases with ease. The story points to NCIS as a series that repeatedly magnifies low-resolution pictures, including an image reflected in a woman’s eye.

Criminal Minds character Penelope Garcia’s hacking is described as seeming superhuman. NCIS also showed Abby and McGee typing on one keyboard together in an attempt to stop a hacker, an example of the genre’s technological excesses.