There’s More to the Story on Good American Family

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Hulu’s Good American Family is best described as two separate shows: a psychological thriller reminiscent of Orphan (2009), and a courtroom drama about buried family secrets. The premise is pure tabloid fodder. Kristine Barnett (Ellen Pompeo, shedding her Grey’s Anatomy persona), a self-styled “parenting expert,” adopts Natalia Grace (Imogen Faith Reid), a seven-year-old Ukrainian orphan with dwarfism. At first, Kristine and her lackluster husband, Michael (Mark Duplass), welcome the child into their family. But soon, Natalia’s behavior turns erratic. She decapitates a stuffed animal. She hurls her brothers’ toys into oncoming traffic. At night, she stands at the foot of Kristine’s bed, clutching a knife.

Kristine, a thriller heroine by any standard, warns her husband, the doctors––anyone who will listen––that something is wrong with Natalia. No one believes her––that is, until she uncovers a horrifying truth: Natalia isn’t a child at all. She’s an adult con artist posing as a little girl to exploit and manipulate the Barnetts.

Then, midway through, Good American Family plays a terrible trick. The narrative rewinds, reframing events through Natalia’s eyes. What once read as proof of her deception now feels murkier, and the story we’ve been following reveals itself as just that: a story, drawn from the testimonies of the real-life Kristine and Michael Barnett, who were charged with neglect for allegedly abandoning Natalia in 2013. (Michael was acquitted in 2023; charges against Kristine were dropped.)

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If the early episodes cultivate a mounting dread, the latter ones deliver the blow. Three years after adopting Natalia, the Barnetts changed her birth year from 2003 to 1989––making her a legal adult––and fled to Canada. Episode five opens with her (alleged) abandonment: Natalia, alone in her new apartment, instructed to say, “I’m 22. I just look young for my age.” From that moment, our allegiance to Kristine falters. Natalia’s health deteriorates; her hair mats, her feet crack and bleed. Left to fend for herself, she survives on canned peaches and dry noodles. It’s a brutal bait-and-switch. The villainous orphan plot gives way to a harrowing portrait of abuse, forcing the viewer to face an uncomfortable truth: we believed the Barnetts, too.

“When I started telling people I was working on this show, many had preconceived ideas that were maybe completely inaccurate,” says Christina Hendricks, who plays Cynthia Mans, a woman who later adopts Natalia. (Her real-life counterpart is also facing abuse allegations.) “Maybe they’d read an article or seen part of the documentary, and thought they knew the whole story,” Hendricks tells Paste. “When in fact, this story is wilder than you could ever imagine.”

For viewers familiar with Natalia’s case, through r/nataliagrace or ID’s docuseries, the shift in perspective may not be revelatory. But for those who’ve encountered her story peripherally, in a headline or tweet, it lands like a gut punch. That’s the point: Good American Family is about the power of narrative, for better or worse. “If you tell a story well enough, the truth doesn’t always matter,” a detective (played by Dulé Hill) tells Michael Barnett. The series examines how bias distorts our perception of truth, and how those with wealth and power control the narrative to serve their interests. “My hope is that the audience walks away understanding there’s always more to the story,” Hill tells Paste.“That’s what this show challenges us to do.”

In this context, it’s impossible not to recall other high-profile legal battles. Consider the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp trial, where media coverage largely favored the wealthier, more powerful party, or Blake Lively’s case against Justin Baldoni, who allegedly orchestrated a defamation campaign to discredit her, shaping public perception well beyond the courtroom. Good American Family lays bare that imbalance––and our own complicity in it. Later in the series, as the Barnetts prepare for court, a lawyer bluntly states, “We just need to make your version the loudest.” And they do. For four hours, we hear only the Barnetts’ story––and we believe it. After all, as Kristine Barnett reminds us, “Folks just love a good American family.”

Angelina Mazza is an intern at Paste.

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