TL;DR: Who Hired the Hitman? is a witty, self-aware true-crime docuseries that embraces both the gravity and absurdity of real-world murder cases. It isn’t prestige television, but it delivers snappy pacing, memorable interviews, and a refreshingly honest sense of humor. An easy, enjoyable watch for true-crime fans craving something familiar but sharper than average.
Who Hired the Hitman?
Who Hired the Hitman? didn’t so much arrive in my streaming queue as ambush me from behind the algorithm. One moment I’m scrolling, the next I’m staring at a title that sounds like a punchline from a rejected Coen brothers script. It felt like the kind of true-crime show you throw on ironically and then realize, fifteen minutes later, you’re fully invested and hovering over the remote like a gambler at a blackjack table. I wasn’t expecting quality; I was expecting background noise. But within minutes, this thing managed to side-eye me with a level of wit I wasn’t prepared for, the kind that whispers, You thought I was going to be dumb, didn’t you? Joke’s on you, nerd.
I went in assuming it was one of those slick prestige docuseries with cinematic lighting and a think-piece lurking underneath. Instead, it revealed itself as an Investigation Discovery production — the comfort food of true-crime television — which initially made me consider ejecting from the experience entirely. I know the ID formula like I know the Konami code: soft-focus reenactments, ominous narration, B-roll that looks like it was shot by a Roomba with a GoPro strapped on. But then the opening montage deployed a level of snark I wasn’t ready for, like the show nudging me in the ribs and whispering, Relax, we know exactly what we are.
That’s what ultimately hooked me: the unusual blend of genre familiarity and self-awareness, a docuseries that isn’t trying to revolutionize true crime but also isn’t content to merely color inside the lines. It’s not prestige TV, and it’s not pretending to be. It’s something better — a show that understands the assignment and still chooses to have fun with it.
From there, the story of Ernest Luttrell’s 2010 murder opens up with the same mix of humor, tension, and small-town emotional clutter you’d expect from a paperback thriller left behind in an airport lounge. Ernest himself is presented with both affection and honesty, described as a blowhard with a decent heart, the sort of guy people tolerated until they realized they actually liked him. Interviewees speak of him not as a sanitised victim but as a real, complicated human. One neighbor casually drops a line so vivid I had to pause and take a breath: Ernest could be rough and gruff and what have you, but his wife always drove a Cadillac. It’s a whole biography in twelve words.
And then the reenactments arrive, crisp for once, as if the production team found the only camera at ID headquarters that isn’t allergic to focus. They’re dramatic, yes, and maybe even a little theatrical, but that’s part of the charm. The show seems fully aware that reenactments are the reality TV equivalent of garnish — unnecessary but fun if you commit. These feel like winks to the audience, reminders that we’re all in on the same joke about the tropes of true-crime storytelling.
As for Loretta, Ernest’s wife, the show treats her with a mix of compassion, confusion, and narrative suspense. Was she struggling with early-onset dementia, or doing her best Vincent Gigante impression to keep investigators off her trail? For a while, the episode hovers between tragedy and performance art. It’s a tricky tonal balance, but the show walks it confidently, offering enough ambiguity to keep you guessing without exploiting her vulnerabilities.
The pacing is sharp, and every segment has an energy that suggests the producers know exactly when viewers will start formulating theories and when they’ll need a twist, a reveal, or at least a ridiculous character moment. At one point, the narrative pivots to the triggerman himself, described by various talking heads as a goofball and a serial screw-up. And then comes the moment that true-crime fans live for: he calls a friend during a TV news interview the friend is giving and blurts out a confession. Not dramatized. Not embellished. Actual documented chaos. You simply cannot script that level of bizarre authenticity.
This is where the show really distinguishes itself. It embraces the fact that real crimes — and real criminals — are deeply weird. People do things that make no psychological sense, no narrative sense, no cosmic sense. Instead of forcing coherence onto the messiness, the docuseries lets the strangeness be part of the texture. It respects the life lost without sanding down the absurdity of human behavior that surrounds it.
Even the procedural elements get a comedic undercurrent, including the plotline involving a disastrously negligent notary. Few things make a crime feel more painfully human than realizing part of the investigation hinges on paperwork handled with the precision of a raccoon rummaging through recycling bins. As someone who has personally watched a government employee misspell my last name so badly it became an entirely new consonant structure, I felt spiritually aligned with the investigators’ frustration.
Who Hired the Hitman? isn’t reinventing anything. You will not walk away a more enlightened citizen. It’s not trying to be a sociological deep dive or a commentary on systemic inequity. But what it does offer — which is surprisingly rare — is a true-crime docuseries that understands tone. It knows when to be serious, when to let the absurdity of the moment break through, and when to give viewers a little narrative elbow-nudge to acknowledge the inherent weirdness of the genre.
The real triumph is its honesty. It doesn’t pretend the case is more mysterious than it is, nor does it drag out reveals for artificial suspense. It’s confident enough in its material to let the story breathe, and funny enough to avoid the suffocating solemnity that plagues many modern crime shows. There’s joy in its craft, even if the subject matter itself is dark. That joy becomes contagious.
And I’m not leaving until I see the episode about the real-estate broker. Real-estate professionals in true-crime shows are like human catalytic converters: expensive, mysterious, and always involved in some kind of smoke. If the premiere is any indication, that episode is going to be a feast.
If you’re looking for a true-crime show that’s smarter than it needs to be, lightly chaotic, and perfect for background viewing while you fold laundry or craft holiday gifts, this one comfortably earns its spot. It’s the kind of docuseries you promise you’ll only watch one episode of — and then suddenly it’s three hours later and you’re Googling negligent notary laws.
