The Most Dangerous Animal of All Review: True Crime Docuseries Gives Clout to an Undeserving Story

True crime has a way of making its viewers feel slimy. There's a particular brand of guilt that comes with being titillated, scandalized, and ultimately entertained by what's sure to be the most tragic event in some other human being's life. FX's first true crime series, The Most Dangerous Animal of All, brings a new type of grossness to the genre -- one in which the audience feels shameful simply because viewing the docuseries makes us complicit in stroking the ego of its subject, Gary L. Stewart.

The first three episodes of the four-part series cover what readers of Stewart's best-selling 2014 book of the same name already know: Stewart, who was adopted at 3-and-a-half months, is convinced his birth father, Earl Van Best Jr., is the Zodiac Killer. In case you're not up on your serial killer knowledge, the Zodiac Killer is the self-given pseudonym of an unidentified person responsible for several murders in California in the 1960s and 1970s.

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We quickly learn that Stewart was 39 when he was first contacted by his birth mother, Jude Gilford, in 2002. After an emotional but positive face-to-face meeting, Stewart asks Gilford for details about his birth father. When Gilford is evasive, telling her son that she would rather forget about that time in her life, a frustrated Stewart decides to investigate on his own.

He soon discovers that his birth parents' illicit relationship was reported in the San Francisco press and dubbed the "Ice Cream Romance." Gilford was only 14 when 27-year-old Van Best courted her at an ice cream parlor in 1961. It didn't take much for Van Best to convince Gilford, who suffered physical abuse from her father at home, to run away with him, and she became pregnant with his child at 15. The pair's cycle of life on the lam and subsequent arrests were covered in the local papers. Through a police report, Stewart learns his birth father abused him as an infant, allegedly keeping him in a foot locker while Gilford was at work. A Baton Rouge newspaper article informs Stewart that he was abandoned by his father on a stairwell of an apartment building when he was just a month old.

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Given the traumatic circumstances in which Stewart was born, one might assume that he'd understand why his birth mother had been reluctant to share the tragic details. Instead, the docuseries finds Stewart seemingly unforgiving, saying things like, "It was very clear to me that my mother wasn't being truthful to me," and, "I didn't want to hear 'I don't remember.'" He challenges inconsistencies in his mother's recollection of events without acknowledging that his birth was decades ago, when Gilford was just 15 years old. She too was just a child then, forced to endure horrific abuse at the hands of Van Best, so it's nearly impossible to muster sympathy for Stewart's feeling that he'd been deceived. Allowing Stewart to call out these contradictions on camera feels like yet another way to attack a woman who's already experienced so much pain.

The docuseries does a decent job of making Stewart's outrageous claim that his father is the Zodiac Killer somewhat sound. Visual overlays of Van Best's handwriting samples seem to match with the Zodiac Killer's menacing letters to the press, and Stewart's discovery that Earl Van Best Jr. was an avid codebreaker neatly aligns with the Zodiac's habit of sending messages in complex codes.

But it's hard to get swept up in Stewart's quest for truth simply because it is so egocentric. He argues with trolls on Zodiac Killer forums, boasting about his booked public speaking engagements. Two of his four ex-wives sadly relay the toll Stewart's obsession with his father took on their marriages. Only once in the docuseries does Stewart express sorrow for the Zodiac Killer's victims, making it clear that getting closure for the people whose loved ones died at the hands of the killer is not a driving force for him. When Stewart's adult son points out that, in a way, Stewart is lucky that he was abandoned by Van Best and instead raised in a loving, adoptive family, Stewart seems unmoved.

Stewart is at his most graceful during the vulnerable, tearful moments in which he opens up about his life-long identity crisis. As an adoptee, he struggles with feelings of inadequacy and fear of abandonment. Stewart often reminds viewers that his main motivation in learning more about his father comes from a need to better understand his genetic predispositions and to further develop a sense of self. But the fact that he took his story to Harper Collins without even giving his birth mother a heads up makes it hard to overlook the obvious monetary incentive Stewart has by taking his story public. While the FX series eventually challenges Stewart's claims in its final and best episode, Stewart's vast control of the narrative once again victimizes his birth mother, who never wanted to talk about her abuser in the first place.

TV Guide Rating: 2/5

All four episodes of The Most Dangerous Animal of All premiere Friday, March 6 at 8/7c on FX. The series will arrive on FX on Hulu the following day.