The Hulu series, which debuted this week, is an adaptation of co-creator Michelle Dean’s instantly viral 2016 BuzzFeed story, “Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter to Be Sick, Gypsy Wanted Her Mom Murdered.”ĭee Dee Blanchard likely suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, in which sufferers feign or induce symptoms of physical or psychological illness in another person-in this case, her daughter, Gypsy Rose. The Act is a story as repellant as it is enthralling-a tale of mother-daughter tension at its most gruesome extremes.