SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from Episode 5 of Hulu‘s Good American Family.
The latest episode of Hulu’s Good American Family challenges audiences own biases by flipping the script on the dominating narrative in the Natalia Grace case over the past decade.
After four episodes of seeing Natalia through the eyes of Kristine and Michael Barnett, Episode 5 begins to show us what life was like from Natalia’s perspective during the years where she was abandoned by her adoptive parents and forced to live on her own as a child.
“I think that there’s a lot to say about her experience and what it reflects back on society. I think that what happened to Natalia would not have happened had she not had dwarfism, had she not had a disability, and had people not made assumptions based on growth patterns in people of average stature,” creator Katie Robbins tells Deadline of Episode 5.
Natalia’s experience is so at odds with everything that the Barnetts have alleged about her that it brings up a whole host of questions about how and why their narrative prevailed above her own — and why they levied any of those accusations in the first place.
Those answers will become more clear as the series progresses, teases Robbins. In the interview below, she unpacks Episode 5’s complete tonal shift and explains how she balanced these warring perspectives to tell this story.
DEADLINE: The Natalia in the first four episodes is so villainous, and the show has a very melodramatic tone. But, Episode 5 completely changes that. How did you go about making that shift in tone feel authentic and not gimmicky?
KATIE ROBBINS: So those the first four episodes are told from the Barnetts’ point of view and are inspired by allegations they made about Natalia, and when you read those allegations, they are incredibly heightened. They are incredibly melodramatic. They are the stuff of horror films. And so, in telling those episodes from their eyes…we wanted to portray Natalia as that, as the way that they had described her, because so much of our experience [interacting]… with this story was through the way that the Barnetts were talking about it. So that’s the version of Natalia that we see, the melodramatic, almost camp kind of tone of those first four episodes. We close the door on the end of Episode 4, and the Barnetts are like, ‘Thank God, we got the hell out of dodge.’ And then we start the next episode on the other side of that door with Natalia.
So it’s the first time we’re in a scene by ourselves with Natalia. I don’t know if audiences will have realized that until they get to Episode 5, but up until then, you’ve never been alone with Natalia, because it’s always been about the gaze of Michael and Kristine. So all of a sudden, we’re with her by herself. She doesn’t have to be performing for anyone. If she’s an adult, she doesn’t need to be acting like a child. Yet she is. So there’s this kind of downshift in tone that happens. It becomes a bit more grounded. It becomes a bit more gritty, because suddenly, we are with Natalia, and we are in her version of her experience. There is both a shift in in tone and in camera language that our incredible director Liz Garbus and director of photography Carmen Cabana came up with to shift there. I hope that it feels authentic and earned, because we are now suddenly telling the story in a different way.
DEADLINE: I think the most heartbreaking part for me is the way that other adults interact with her, even those who she’s meeting after she’s been abandoned. I have to think if I met an eight-year-old and they told me they were 22, I wouldn’t necessarily take them at their word and act accordingly. How did you reflect on that as you crafted this episode?
ROBBINS: I also find it incredibly heartbreaking, and I think that there’s a lot to say about her experience and what it reflects back on society. I think that what happened to Natalia would not have happened had she not had dwarfism, had she not had a disability, and had people not made assumptions based on growth patterns in people of average stature. So I think that that says a tremendous amount about the bias around people with disabilities, and also I think it says something about our tendency as people sometimes not to ask questions and not to look deeper into things, because we’re all so busy, we don’t have time, we don’t want to be bothered. I think that when we do that, we stop interacting with the kind of empathy and humanity and curiosity that I think we all want to have. I do think that people want to behave in that way, but I think that bias often stops us from doing that, because we stop seeing people fully as people.
DEADLINE: What were your conversations like with Imogen to elicit that changing performance out of her? In those early episodes, she comes across as so evil, but in Episode 5 you can see how desperately she wants to just be a child and be loved and cared for.
ROBBINS: I mean, I can’t say enough about what an extraordinary actor and human being Imogen is. This was her first big role, and it asks so much of her in terms of playing these two different versions of Natalia, and also the very deeply emotional places she goes throughout the series, but particularly in Episodes 5 and beyond. She had a lot of fun playing the Natalia in Episodes 1 through 4. She and Ellen had this really fantastic chemistry that came out in their fight scenes, and she and Mark had a fantastic chemistry as well in their father-daughter scene. But I think she was incredibly eager to dive into the episodes that are from Natalia’s perspective, because she so deeply wants to do justice to this story. And at the same time, those episodes are harrowing for her and, like anybody doing something like that, I think she was nervous about it. So we had a lot of conversations about the script and about these moments like hat scene with her and Keaton on the bus, and — even in an episode like 105 that is really harrowing and heartbreaking — wanting to make sure that there are moments of joy, that you get to see her be a child, and the fun that happens with that.
I have two little kids, and even when they’re dealing with really hard stuff and are upset, they can turn really easily and really have fun and find ways of entertaining themselves. So those moments where Natalia is alone, but is talking into the fan or talking to a can of peaches, those are the kinds of things that kids do when they’re on their own. They find time to fill space. So we talked a lot about that. Also, Immy and our director, Liz, had such a great dynamic. There was so much trust there. Liz had also directed the pilot and had really wanted to direct Episode 5, too, because it’s sort of its own pilot, in a way. They had already had such a good dynamic from the first episode that carried in, and there was so much trust there that I hope she felt supported.
DEADLINE: How did you come to understand Michael Barnett’s position, specifically, in these moments? The scene where he comes back to the apartment is so heartbreaking, and it’s hard to understand at times why he would go along with this given his fondness for Natalia.
ROBBINS: I love that scene so much. It was one of my favorite to write, and I loved talking about it with with Mark and Immy. Mark was really excited to dive into it, because it’s kind of like its own little one act play, that little scene. It does have quite an arc to it. I think that the Michael that we see come in to that scene is so much harsher than the Michael that we’ve seen in the first four episodes. I think some of that is because we’re seeing him from Natalia’s perspective, and so it’s a different version than the version of himself that he’s presenting. But I also think that at this point in our journey, he has made the decision to go along with Kristine and to make himself believe — whether he believes it or not, I don’t know — but to make himself believe that Natalia is an adult. There’s some spoilers here that I won’t get into in terms of where he stands on that, but he is putting up quite a strong front there and really trying to go along with the narrative that they are going with at that point. He succeeds pretty well for most of the scene, until there is this moment where she wraps her arms around him, and he breaks just a little bit. We get to see a little bit of a sliver of the Michael that we saw in the earlier episodes, and the bond there, and the yearning to have a daughter that we’d seen in those early episodes.
I thought a lot about that scene, not in a gross way, not in a literal way, but a little bit like a breakup scene, where two people love each other, but can’t be together in some kind of way. So that moment for him, I think, is like, ‘I’m not going to do this, but, I sort of want to do this, and I have to keep myself from from being with you.’ Again, not in a sexual way, but I think that we feel a little bit of that yearning from him, and it’s painful. I think it’s pretty damning when you see that little slice of understanding, and then it gets taken away. I think it tells you a lot, and I think it’s a pretty heartbreaking moment.
DEADLINE: This story doesn’t necessarily have a neat ending, since it’s ongoing. There are allegations on both sides and no further court determinations to decide who is telling the truth. How did you navigate that when exploring this story?
ROBBINS: Some of this is maybe better talked about after the finale has aired. But I think that on a macro level, the reason I think to tell this story is because of what you’re saying. There are some facts here, some things that we now know to be biologically true. So this is a story that has played in the playground of horror tropes, and yet, the thing that I think is, at the end of the day, the most horrifying about it is that there were facts, and that in the court of law it was decided that those facts couldn’t hold. We like to think that there is a sense of justice in this country and that, at the end of the day…you can reason with people. I think that we are living in a moment where maybe that’s less true than it used to be, and I think that this story really speaks to that. That is why it was structured in the way that it is, and why it ends in the place that it does. And it’s really sad. It’s really sad.
DEADLINE: You lend just as much credence to Michael and Kristine’s perspective in those first four episodes as you do to Natalia’s in the latter half. What was intriguing to you about this approach?
ROBBINS: This was the first true crime thing that I’ve ever done, and to take on a true crime story, I really wanted to have something to add to the narrative, a reason for doing it. There has been so much in the popular consciousness about this story, and that was less so when I first started writing it, but it’s just built and built and built. Yet, I think that there are elements of the story that really haven’t gotten the kind of attention that I think that they should, and I think that those are around what I was saying in terms of of facts not mattering as much as they ought and around bias about disability and whose stories are believed and whose are not. So in structuring it this way, I think that the fact is that the Barnett story has really been listened to. So to to start there, to start with our understanding of that, and then to pull the rug out from under, it felt like a way to allow audiences to go on this journey where they can confront and grapple with their own biases in these unexpected ways. I think if you had just done it in a direct path, from Natalia’s point of view, or from the Barnett point of view, or in a more kind of traditional way, I’m not sure that you would have had the chance to ask questions of yourself about why you’re believing what you’re believing. That’s what’s so interesting about this story and what’s so terrifying about it.
DEADLINE: What scene is in the fifth episode is most impactful to you?
ROBBINS: The version of Kristine that we see in this episode is so different from the version of Kristine that we see in earlier episodes, and was really harrowing for [Ellen] to do. It was really hard and upsetting. I think she really brought it, and does some exceptional work in this episode. I think that the one that gives me shivers every time I watch is actually a montage that then ends with Natalia looking in the mirror and applying lipstick, and just looking at herself and this moment of stillness of this person who we’ve all been looking at over the course of the whole season so far, looking at herself in the mirror and yearning to be seen and to be loved. Even just talking about it and thinking about her face in that moment gives me chills.
DEADLINE: When she’s looking in the mirror and reciting Kristine’s rules to herself, it’s really a gut punch.
ROBBINS: We were very lucky to be able to film this whole series in LA with LA crews, which was so important and really exciting to be able to do coming out of the strikes, but these are crews who have truly seen it all, been around the block, been working forever. I cannot tell you how many from every department, like these tough, seasoned pros coming up to me and saying watching Immy in this episode that they cried. There’s such vulnerability that she brings, and it got them. That felt really good, and made me feel like we’re doing something here that hopefully has some meaning.
DEADLINE: What can audiences expect from these final episodes and what are you most looking forward to about what’s in store for them as they wrap up the series?
ROBBINS: In Episode 5, we set up a mystery. We’ve been dealing with a mystery in the first four episodes of like, ‘Who is this girl and where did she come from? Why is she out to get the Barnetts?’ Now, suddenly, we’re set up with a different mystery, which is if Natalia is a child…how did everything happen? How were they able to get her re-aged? Why did they have these doctor reports? How did what we’ve been seeing these first four episodes happen? So that’s a mystery that we’re going to continue to unravel in these later episodes of like, how these two pieces of the puzzle speak to each other. I think some of those answers are really, really satisfying, and some of them are infuriating, and some of them are fascinating. I think that the show continues to be a wild ride into these later episodes.
