Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance Of Sherri Papini’ On Hulu, A Docuseries About A Woman Who Faked Her Own Kidnapping

Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance Of Sherri Papini is a 3-part docuseries that examines Papini’s disappearance in November of 2016, and the revelations that came out when she reappeared on Thanksgiving Day, over 3 weeks later and 150 miles away from where she vanished. In 2022, Papini was sent to prison for lying to federal agents about the case.

PERFECT WIFE: THE MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF SHERRI PAPINI: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “Once Upon A Time…” We see a scrapbook-like view of various shots of Sherri and Keith Papini.

The Gist: In the first episode, we hear mainly from law enforcement, reporters, and Sherri Papini’s sister and best friends. When Papini, 34 at the time, disappeared while out on a run in Redding, California, police in Shasta County initially looked at Keith, despite him being the one who reported her missing when he found her phone with a hear stuck in the earpods. Papini was considered a “supermom” to her two kids, who overcame a rough upbringing and wild teenage-hood to settle into family life with Keith.

Neighbors reported that they would hear Keith and Sherri fight, and Sherri had told her sister and best friend that Keith was controlling and abusive. However, her friend acknowledged that Sherri could be dramatic at times, and when Keith agreed to a polygraph test, he passed it with flying colors.

It was then, about a week after Papini disappeared, that the theory that she walked out on her own took hold. It became more apparent when flirty texts between her and a man she met in Michigan on a business trip were found on her phone.

But, on Thanksgiving, Papini turned up, 150 miles south of Redding, with marks and bruises all over her body, including a mark that looked like someone branded her.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Perfect Wife is similar to other true crime docuseries, like Betrayal: The Perfect Husband. There have been other docuseries about the Papini case, as well as a Lifetime movie, Hoax: The Kidnapping of Sherri Papini.

Our Take: Something about Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance Of Sherri Papini feels oddly manipulative. The first episode of the three-parter talks about Papini’s disappearance as if it was a traditional abduction story, with the police questioning those closest to Papini, local and national news reports discussing the case, and dozens of volunteers searching for evidence or, heaven forbid, Papini’s body. Sheila Koester, Papini’s sister, starts shedding tears during her interview when she thinks back to the day Sherri disappeared.

But here’s the problem: Papini faked the whole thing. That’s what this show, and all of the other shows about this case, are about. She spent the three weeks she was missing living with an old boyfriend in Southern California, and went to prison on charges of lying to the FBI about her disappearance. It took law enforcement almost six years to sort through the case, given some of the vague descriptions she gave of her supposed captors.

So what we were wondering is: Given the fact that Papini was convicted in 2022, and the case was all over national media during that time, just who are the series’ producers and filmmakers directing it towards? People who know nothing about the case and don’t think to look it up? It feels like most of the first episode could have been spent discussing what happened after Papini reappeared, which seems to be a whole lot more interesting than what happened prior to that.

Maybe there wasn’t enough story to fill three episodes, or the filmmakers wanted to pull a twist as the series went on. But there was no need to show almost an hour’s worth of the cliched true-crime stuff, including the suspicion that briefly fell on Sherri’s husband Keith, before law enforcement arrived at the notion that Sherri faked her disappearance. Heck, the investigation into her claims by themselves would have been interesting to see by the end of the first episode.

What we wonder is what prodded Sherri’s sister — and at least one other person — into getting upset during their interviews. Don’t they feel betrayed by Sherri? Angry that she made them think someone had grabbed her, or even worse, killed her? Perhaps that’s where the tears come from. But making it sound like they’re recalling a day that is less sad in retrospect than it was when it happened feels like the filmmakers are finagling something for extra dramatic impact. Sure, that’s their job, but knowing what we know about the case, it feels disingenuous here.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Keith Papini, in an interview with the filmmakers, talks about the first time he saw Sherri after she reappeared. “The way she looked at me, in that moment, I felt like she was lying.”

Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Keith Papini; just seeing how strangely jovial he was during his interviews with police was off-putting, even though he had nothing to do with Sherri’s disappearance.

Most Pilot-y Line: There’s a hint that parts 2 and 3 will have animated reenactments of what Papini claimed her captivity was like. We saw a preview of that animation and just rolled our eyes.

Our Call: Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance Of Sherri Papini is informative enough that we would give it a STREAM IT to people who know nothing about the Papini case. But for those who are familiar with the case, the way the show manipulates the sequence of events leads us to say SKIP IT.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.