The Hulu docuseries Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke, available in three 40-minute episodes on Hulu, explores what happens behind the scenes of the infamous YouTube channel. In 2015, Ruby
Franke started her channel to share her family’s everyday experiences. By August 2023, after gaining more than two million subscribers, her channel was deleted following child abuse allegations, leading to Franke’s arrest.
Episode one
Episode one begins with the doorbell footage of the youngest Franke son, Russell, who looked concerningly skinny, asking a neighbor in a hesitant tone to bring him to the nearest police station. This was automatically intriguing and hooked me to continue watching. The episode also introduced all interviewees, including two of Franke’s six children, Chad and Sheri, her husband, Kevin and a few neighbors who knew the family well. The use of interviews with the kids, detailing what they had to endure, made it much more personal to watch. The docuseries also incorporated unedited clips that Ruby Franke didn’t use in her YouTube videos; these clips were frightening and gave viewers perspective on who she was behind the screen.
Episode two
Compared to the first, episode two of the series could only be described as boring. The first episode was so suspenseful, and I was on the edge of my seat anxious to see what would happen next; however, the second episode provided nothing new about the case except a deep analysis of the therapy that the oldest son, Chad, and the dad, Kevin, went through. The therapy was led by Jodi Hildebrant, who was portrayed as instigating Ruby’s downfall. The focus of the second episode lacked an essential connection to the plot of the previous episode. Although it gave background, the episode would have been greatly improved had it shortened the therapy talk and provided more information on how the two oldest kids and the father were kicked out.
Episode three
The final episode, episode three, was by far the best in the series. It was less about the
background and more about the details of what exactly Ruby Franke did to her kids. It showed live body cam footage of the police breaking into the house and the materials used to harm the children. This footage was suspenseful, and it was hard to peel my eyes away. It also showed footage of Ruby Franke and Hildebrant getting questioned in jail and again in court. The interviews with Chad and Sheri Franke continued in this episode, giving the arrest a new perspective because we got to see how the children felt seeing their mother in jail and how they still view her to this day, making the episode more emotional.
Not only is the docuseries fascinating to watch, but it also teaches that you can’t always trust what you see online, as you never know what’s happening behind the scenes. Overall, The Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke was exceptional, especially for anyone interested in true crime.
