Will We Ever Know What Ghislaine Maxwell Knows?
There are two ways to try to answer the question of who is Ghislaine Maxwell, the defrocked British socialite now sitting in a Brooklyn jail awaiting trial for sex crimes related to her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. One is to focus on the personal, on her life of startling wealth and elite social connections that transformed into something far more sinister. The other is to look at her alleged criminal activity: the charges that she abused and trafficked girls as young as 14. Either line of questioning leads to some grim truths about how power and wealth corrupt and how they help shield people from justice. But its the latter anglethe criminality, the flows of money and favor-trading, the purported blackmail operationthat offers more insight into Maxwell, and what role she served in the plans of people even more powerful than her. Epsteins Shadow: Ghislaine Maxwell, a new three-hour docuseries debuting on NBCs Peacock streaming service on Wednesday, tries to split the difference between the two angles. But it ends up swerving toward the former, offering a biographical treatment of Maxwell as a survivor in her own rightof a difficult upbringing, of her own crooked relationship with Jeffrey Epsteinand as a murky co-conspirator in some heinous crimes. There are occasional mentions of what was, according to many reports (including from Epstein victim Maria Farmer), a blackmail operation centered on capturing powerful men in sexual positions with underage girls. Theres an allusion to a romantic relationship between Maxwell and President Bill Clinton. There are possible intelligence connections. But ultimately, Epsteins Shadow prefers the safer path of the personal, interviewing former Maxwell friends (they are always former) who express shock that their dear Ghislaine, so full of life, could go so astray. In this way, the series leaves much out, while serving as an indictment of the debauched social milieu from which Maxwell hailed. Yet even in its voluntary redactions and lacunae, Epsteins Shadow manages to be revealing: The pressures, formal or financial, to not explore Maxwells political and intelligence connections must be enormous. Hence we have a documentary that feels heavily lawyered, loathe to offend potential co-conspirators and beneficiaries of Epsteins services. Surveying a series of scandalized members of the ultra-rich sitting in their drawing rooms, the documentary dwells on Prince Andrew as Maxwells principle political connection without paying much heed to the numerous other royals, CEOs, and politicians with whom she regularly socializedsome of whom were explicitly named by their victims as abusers. (Notably, Alan Dershowitz doesnt appear in this documentarya rarity in Epstein-related media.)