By Robert Scucci
| Published
A common pitfall in modern documentary filmmaking is the need for streaming platforms to milk the content for all its worth by making multiple 45-60 minute episodes when a simple hour-long special is all that’s needed to give viewers the information they need to feel informed. Jared from Subway: Catching a Monster is no exception, and I’m glad it was made to expose the “Subway Guy” for the monster that he truly is, but felt like its sensationalist approach – featuring plenty of dramatized reenactments – to such delicate subject matter undermined its efficacy quite a bit.
Placing a tremendous amount of focus on Rochelle Herman, a radio host turned FBI informant who was close to Jared Fogle during the height of his popularity, I felt like I was hearing her story in Jared from Subway: Catching a Monster, which seemed just a little too well-rehearsed despite the fact that I have good reason to believe every single word she says.
The Portrait Of A Predator
The late 90s and early aughts saw Jared Fogle living the high life; turkey clubs flowed like wine, and he was at the height of his popularity after losing 245 pounds between 1998 and 1999 eating nothing but Subway sandwiches. Building up a net worth of $15 million thanks to his partnership with Subway, Jared Fogle lived a second, secret life, fueled by his desire to have sexual relationships with children, leading to his downfall when he was finally arrested on child pornography charges in 2015 after being investigated on and off for nearly a decade.
The first 45-minute episode of Jared from Subway: Catching a Monster does an excellent job explaining Jared’s evolution from a soft-spoken, morbidly obese outcast to an overnight sensation, and how the fame quickly got to his head, making him feel unstoppable while also giving him the resources that no pedophile should ever have access to. What I found most fascinating about this installment is how different people from around the time he became a household name saw his shift in personality– he transformed from an awkward nobody, to somebody who came off as a little too full of himself, and, finally, to a kind and magnanimous health influencer who aimed to teach children about the importance of making healthy choices.
Little did everybody know that it was his goal to get close to children the entire time, and he used his foundation as a means to that end.
Not Just About Jared Fogle
At the center of the investigation that’s laid out in Jared from Subway: Catching a Monster is Rochelle Herman, a radio personality and journalist/reporter who befriended the world-famous Subway spokesman. Having met Fogle in 2007, Herman felt compelled to get the Sarasota, Florida police department involved after Fogle made lewd comments to her about children at one of the health events he was hosting at a middle school. Taking it upon herself to gather as much incriminating evidence as she could, Herman slowly gained Fogle’s trust, and recorded countless hours of phone conversations about his desire to engage with minors.
The problem, however, is that recording somebody without their knowledge is non-admissible in court, and Herman had to find more concrete evidence if her end goal was to get Jared Fogle locked up for good, resulting in her setting up a sting operation as an FBI informant when she sought help for her investigation.
While I can’t deny that Herman is a hero of the highest order for letting her own personal and professional life get torn apart by her unwavering commitment to exposing Jared Fogle as the worst kind of sexual predator, Jared from Subway: Catching a Monster loses some points because her interviews felt like they were rehearsed, planned out, and used to make the story more sensational than it needed to be.
Loses Points For Sensationalism
The end goal for a docuseries like Jared from Subway: Catching a Monster is to remove any sliver doubt from the viewer’s mind that Jared Fogle is dead to rights after a litany of evidence was collected to put him behind bars for distributing child pornography, and engaging sexually with minors.
And while there’s a damning amount of evidence displayed throughout the series in the form of recorded phone calls and text messages laying out his deepest, darkest, desires, I felt that this series specifically could have benefitted from focusing on the evidence and the subsequent trials rather than Herman’s story because her personal investment in the case, as well as her journalistic instinct makes the entire thing seem like bad theater with its reenactments of her drops to the FBI that were probably shoe-horned into the series to stretch out its runtime.
Is Jared from Subway: Catching a Monster worth your time? Absolutely. But be warned, because the way the entire saga is stretched out across three episodes, it’s a lot of depravity to take in if you’re one to binge a series that could have better gotten its point across with a single, in-depth episode without all of the extra fluff and drama peppered in throughout its run.
As of this writing, you can stream Jared from Subway: Catching a Monster on Max.
