Unbelievable

This article takes the miniseries Unbelievable as its case study to explore how television series can use expectations toward the first episode for rhetorical effect. The first episode portrays the rape of a young woman and her ensuing encounter with male police officers who do not believe her, in line with rape myths. Yet this series sets up expectations in the first episode only to break with them. In the second episode, a pair of female detectives is introduced, and slowly and meticulously they connect the dots to find and prosecute a serial rapist. I argue that the marked change from the first and the second episode works as a plot twist, frame shifter beginning to articulate a feminist vision of police response to rape.