The standouts of the Durst prosecution team are John Grisham protagonists run through a Workaholics filter.
One does not expect to laugh during The Jinx: Part Two, director Andrew Jarecki’s return to the orbit of eccentric and ominous accused serial killer Robert Durst. But that’s before “Wonder Twins” Michael and David Belcher, two goofy bro-dogs who are essentially John Grisham protagonists run through a Workaholics filter, show up to talk about their work on the prosecution team.
The Jinx: Part Two initially feels too self-congratulatory, like Jarecki returned to Durst’s story solely to take another victory lap for capturing his confession on a hot mic years ago. But the second episode, “Friendships Die Hard,” devotes more time to the Los Angeles prosecution team, led by deputy district attorney John Lewin, as it chases Durst’s allies to get one of them to crack, and that’s where the Belchers come in. They’re the first figures we see in the episode, seated next to each other and introduced as law clerks on Lewin’s team. Their goofy energy is immediate. Michael recounts how he got recruited by Lewin in March 2016 to work on “the Durst case,” which he initially thought was related to Fred Durst (does Gen Z roll with “Nookie” like that?), and convinced Lewin to hire his twin brother, David, too.
The twins serve as excellent audience stand-ins, people who learned about Robert Durst through The Jinx, became investigators of Durst afterward, and operate at enough of a remove from the case that they can criticize Durst’s wackiness — the same stuff that fascinates and repels us. They also feel like extras from the first season of American Vandal, giggling about who drew the dicks, or the braggadocian sons of camera-loving FBI agent Doug Mathews from McMillions. They are incongruous to The Jinx: Part Two’s otherwise cheerless tone, and they are delightful. I have so many questions.
1. The Belchers talk about how they broke up the monotony of paperwork by listening to Durst’s phone calls from jail. The twins do an admirably over-the-top imitation of Durst’s uniquely foghornlike way of saying “Bob” to introduce himself on the phone calls, and it’s such a practiced thing that I’m assuming they bust this out all the time. How many hundreds of times do we think they’ve said “Booooooob” to themselves or others? Their parents have to be sick of it, right?
2. Lewin nicknames the Belchers “the Wonder Twins” for getting to the office earlier and staying later than anyone else. Did the twins commute together? Share an office? Did they ever do the twin thing of switching places without telling anyone? What level of Dead Ringers derangement are we dealing with here, if any?
3. Relatedly: Do the boys share ties? In one scene, Michael’s wearing a red patterned tie and David’s wearing a blue one; in a picture we see of them with Lewin, Michael’s wearing a blue tie and David’s wearing a red one. The idea of a shared accessory wardrobe feels cute and Sweet Valley High to me, and these two have such puppy-dog energy that this seems like something they would be excited about. I hope they do it.
4. The Belchers talk about how their initial responsibilities included sorting through 150,000 pages of discovery, and a picture shows that they were part of a larger group of law students helping with the case. But none of the other clerks is featured in The Jinx: Part Two so far. What do they think about the Belchers? I crave Suits-like drama!
5. In one of the series’s (too many) re-creations, we see the twins passing out files while gathered at a table littered with coffee cups, highlighters, cellphones, and … doughnuts. Michael is the more gregarious twin, so I’m going to guess he’s a sprinkles guy. David is a comparative mystery — does he go with powdered-sugar cake? Raspberry jelly? Maybe even a dark-horse cruller? Thankfully, the twins do show up in future episodes of The Jinx: Part Two, so we’ve got time to figure this out — a mystery whose goofiness is a welcome respite from every awful thing Durst (allegedly) got up to.
6. Jarecki made The Jinx after he directed the film All Good Things, starring Ryan Gosling, Kirsten Dunst, and Lily Rabe as fictionalized versions of Durst; his disappeared wife, Kathleen; and his best friend, Susan Berman, both of whom he’s suspected of killing. If we go full circle and The Jinx becomes a film, who plays the Belchers? Iron Claw boys Zac Efron and Jeremy Allen White are at least a decade too old for this, but I nominate them.
7. If the Belcher brothers were to be cast as relatives of the Bob’s Burgers Belchers, are they rich kids from King’s Head Island? Are they twin lawyers with a funny billboard offering their services? Put your Loren Bouchard hat on, folks.
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