Last night I finished streaming that 3-part Netflix documentary about Aaron Hernandez.
It was hard to watch it and not compare it to that ESPN OJ Simpson multi-part documentary, which I found uniformly excellent and enthralling. This somewhat paled in comparison.
It's an undeniably fascinating story, but the problem I had with it was that there was far too much psychologizing by people who had no training, knowledge, or insight to do so. This is especially detrimental because there was a long list of factors that may, or may not, have contributed to his (allegedly) committing the murders, and to his suicide. This includes the potential effects of CTE; the fact that he was likely a closeted gay man, or at least bisexual; the fact that his father was physically abusive and his mother was emotionally abusive (and they play excerpts of phone conversations with his mother while he was in prison that are heartbreaking, since she's still going at it; and the standard macho football culture, with the attending privileges granted to athletes.
Worst of all, to my mind, it's never revealed why he murdered Odin Lloyd, nor why he may have murdered the other two men. The fact that he was guilty of murdering Lloyd was very well established, and, of course, he was convicted. And it seemed clear to me, despite that fact that we was acquitted, that he murdered the other two men. But it's never explained, or even suggested, why. And the same goes for his suicide. Of course, the reasons why some people choose to kill themselves remain inexplicable. But despite the life-sentence, he had a potential appeal in the works, and everyone who spoke with him in the final days of his life saw any indication that he would kill himself.
In short, too many questions, and not enough answers.