I always find true crime dramas infuriating because, while in fictional crime dramas the police work can be shoddy and annoying, when you know the actual police work in real life was this shoddy and ridiculous it make you so angry for the victims involved.

Four Lives follows the four victims of a serial killer from England called Stephen Port a.k.a. the Grindr Killer. He used gay dating apps to find men to meet up with and then would kill them with an overdose of a drug that is predominantly used in the gay community. Each of these men were unknown to Stephen apart from meeting up that one time, and far too often, despite the evidence at hand, the police ruled the deaths as inconclusive or suicide.

The most frustrating thing about this case is that Stephen Port was actually interviewed after the first murder of Anthony Walgate. Anthony met Stephen on a gay escort site under a fake name but the police were able to decipher that this fake name was in fact Stephen Port, and Stephen Port was the one who called the police anonymously to let them know that Anthony’s body has been found outside his building. It’s disgusting that if they just dug a little deeper into this one murder than the other three men’s lives could have been saved.

That’s the most frustrating thing about this series is the police work and how rubbish they were. The theory that they were uncaring with this case was because the victims were gay, there is a big issue with homophobia even in the 21st-century, and to see these men being murdered and the police having no care for them or even their grieving families was horrific. The family liaison officer that Anthony Walgate‘s family were given clearly had no care at all for what had happened even to the point where he continuously got Anthony’s name wrong despite being corrected many times.

This is a fantastic show to watch if you have an interest in true crime or in Stephen Port and his murders. However it is super frustrating and these families deserved so much better than what they got, not only from the police and their work, but also the fact that Stephen Port could’ve been sent down so easily for what he did to Anthony and that these other men could’ve survived. I really enjoyed it and it’s a brilliant recreation of the crimes themselves, the actor of Stephen Merchant as well, being known as more of a comedy actor, really played the killer perfectly and it was quite terrifying to watch him and so infuriating at the same time.

It’s disgusting how people can get away with this sort of stuff because of the ridiculousness of the police and all I can hope for now is that the family have found some solace in Stephen Port being locked up for these matters and that the men can finally lie at rest knowing that justice has been served, even if the justice came too late.

What do you think of Four Lives?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding