Angela's Getaway

The Catfish documentary was about Nev falling for a woman, Megan, that he met online through a talented 8-year-old artist and her mother. When he and his friends receive recordings of songs that Megan “wrote,” Nev gets suspicious that Megan may not be real. They go to Michigan to see “Megan” and her family and suspect that the mother, Angela, was the mastermind behind it all. By doing some detective work, such as looking for the supposed gallery that Abby has her paintings showcased and the farm that Megan supposedly had, they found that those stories turned out to be false. Nev and his friends are now on a quest to uncover all the lies that Angela and “Megan” have been telling them. The group arrive at Angela’s house to see if any part of her stories is true. They meet Angela’s husband and his two sons who were mentally handicapped. Angela takes Nev to the neighbor’s house that Abby is visiting where Nev has an opportunity to question the little girl about her artwork and older sister. Abby has no idea where her sister “Megan” is and is confused about her being a painter. One can almost feel the desire for Nev to bust Angela out about her lies when the unexpected happens. He merely tells Angela that he needs to talk to her about things and she comes clean to him. Although she has lied and mislead Nev into thinking that she was a young woman looking for a relationship, you feel sorry for her because it appears she just wanted a friend. Through her alter egos on Facebook, she could deal with her life taking care of two handicapped adults and an 8-year-old child. She later explains to Nev that his photos took her to places that she could only dream of going and that she always wanted to be a dancer but threw it all away. Her husband, Vince, told Nev that when Angela is given a choice of pursuing an outside career or family she always chose family.

Although one would think that Angela did not really hurt anyone but was coping with a difficult life, she did hurt, but not intentionally, Nev. Nev thought he was talking to a young lady that he could have a relationship with. Angela never asked for money or anything material, but she did make Nev feel stupid for believing the lies that she told. She also never told her husband the things that she did on the internet and compromised her young daughter, Abby, by lying on her. To me, this was one of the saddest catfish’s I have seen because everybody involved was hurt although Angela did not willfully start out to hurt anyone.