Less than 30 days after Dahmer premiered and Netflix came under scrutiny for it, the streaming service released another Ryan Murphy series titled The Watcher. A seven-part mystery thriller, The Watcher is based on a The Cut article titled "The Haunting of a Dream House" by Reeves Wiedeman. The article tells the true story of Derek and Maria Broaddus who, in 2014, bought their dream home at 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey, only to receive threatening letters from someone who called themselves "The Watcher."
In the series, Bobby Cannavale and Naomi Watts play the married couple (renamed Dean and Nora Brannock) who move into the beautiful house with their son and daughter, Carter (Luke David Blumm) and Ellie (Isabel Gravitt). Comedy queen Jennifer Coolidge plays an insufferable realtor (aptly named Karen), and other familiar faces, including Mia Farrow and Margo Martindale, star as strange neighbors with dark secrets. Predictably, The Watcher takes creative liberty in telling the Broadduses' story, vamping it up to Ryan Murphy/Ian Brennan levels of chaotic hilarity. But just how much of it is true?
The Brannocks vs The Broadduses
One major difference between the series and real life is that Derek and Maria Broaddus never actually lived at 657 Boulevard. They bought it in 2014 for $1.3 million (less than what Dean and Nora paid) and were doing renovations on it when they received their first letter. Derek found it and called the police while his family were living in their old home. Also, Derek and Maria had three children, not two, and they were much younger (5, 8, and 10 at the time) than Carter and Ellie. The real Watcher's letters are just as ominous, though. The first, which was addressed to "The New Owner," read:
"Dearest new neighbor at 657 Boulevard, allow me to welcome you to the neighborhood. 657 Boulevard has been the subject of my family for decades now and as it approaches its 110th birthday, I have been put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming. My grandfather watched the house in the 1920s and my father watched in the 1960s. It is now my time. Do you know the history of the house? Do you know what lies within the walls of 657 Boulevard? Why are you here? I will find out."
The following letters addressed them by (misspelt) name and were increasingly sinister. They complained about the renovations and made indirect threats to the Broadduses' children: "I would be very afraid if I were them. [The basement] is far away from the rest of the house. If you were upstairs you would never hear them scream." The Watcher also referred to the children as "young blood," which presumably inspired The Watcher's satanic cult subplot. (There is no mention of a cult in the real-life case). Like the series, however, Derek and Maria became increasingly paranoid.
They installed webcams, hired a private investigator, reached out to FBI agents, and eventually sought out therapy and medication to cope. They saw The Watcher in everyone and were so scared of him/her that they never moved in and instead rented the house to a family at a reduced price. In 2019, they finally sold 657 Boulevard at a loss of $400,000. Derek also regretfully sent letters to the neighbors, signing them not as The Watcher, but as "Friends of the Broaddus Family." He and Maria felt betrayed by their neighbors, who objected to their proposal to split the property into two houses.
The Neighbors and Suspects
The Brannocks have several creepy neighbors in The Watcher. There's married couple Mitch (Richard Kind) and Mo (Margo Martindale), who don't understand property lines, and siblings Peal (Mia Farrow) and Jasper (Terry Kinney), who are plain weird. Neither family understand boundaries — Jasper even breaks into 657 Boulevard to ride the Brannocks' dumbwaiter — and both are suspected to be The Watcher at different points. Coolidge's Karen is also suspected to be The Watcher, right up until the end when she becomes a target herself, as is Noma Dumezweni's Theodora Birch, the Brannocks' private investigator who falsely admits to being The Watcher on her deathbed.
The Broadduses also had some suspicious neighbors — the Langfords. The Langfords lived next door and consisted of Peggy Langford in her 90s and several of her adult children in their 60s. Another neighbor told Derek they were very odd. One of the younger Langfords, Michael, became an immediate suspect. The Watcher claimed to have been on the job for "the better part of two decades," while Michael was unemployed and Richard Langford, the family patriarch, had died 12 years earlier. Michael had also been diagnosed with schizophrenia as a young man and spooked neighbors out with his strange behavior (looking in windows and walking through people's backyards), but those who knew him didn't think he was capable of writing the letters. He was ruled out as a suspect, only to be replaced by his sister, Abby Langford, a real estate agent, after female DNA was found on one of The Watcher's envelopes. Her DNA wasn't a match.
The Broadduses continued their investigation, as outsiders developed their own theories. Suspects that made their way onto the show include a spurned realtor and a local teacher who was obsessed with writing letters to an unidentified house in Westfield. The Broadduses' private investigator was never a suspect, nor was the couple who sold them the house — though the Broadduses did file a complaint against them for not disclosing the letters. Another theory was that the Broadduses sent the letters to themselves, either because they couldn't afford the house, were involved in some insurance fraud, or wanted a movie deal. The latter, at least, is unlikely, as they actually turned down several offers, and according to Wiedeman, the money from Netflix didn't even cover their losses on the house.
John Graff vs John List
In The Watcher, John Graff is a previous owner of 657 Boulevard whose dark history is unearthed by Theodora in episode 3. John lived at the house with his mother, wife, and two children, and also received letters from The Watcher. He had a secret and The Watcher knew it; he'd been fired from his job and pretending to go to work while secretly draining his mother's bank account. John's shame and paranoia over being stalked turned into anger, which resulted in him murdering his family in cold blood.
John Graff doesn't exist, but he was based on real-life mass murderer John List, and the two even look alike. List has no connection to 657 Boulevard, but he did own a mansion in Westfield. In 1971, List murdered his mother, wife, and three children in said mansion. Like Graff, he also stopped to eat a sandwich between the murders (a particularly disturbing detail), erased himself from family photos, disappeared, and assumed a new identity. He was apprehended nearly 18 years later. When asked why he did it, he blamed the financial problems that came from losing his bank job and his family straying from their religious faith. His plan was to send his family to heaven, and he didn't kill himself because he considered suicide a sin. While John List is definitely not The Watcher, John Graff very well could be. Fingers crossed a second season will answer that.
The Watcher is available to stream on Netflix.