Uncover The Village

In  Uncover: The Village , the journalist Justin Ling takes us back to 1970s Toronto, revisiting the cold-case disappearances of dozens of men from the city’s predominantly gay neighborhood. The show continues a theme that runs through some of the best true-crime podcasts released this year: It reveals how law enforcement can sometimes overlook the humanity of marginalized groups. While that won’t come as shock to many, it’s still startling to hear police in  Uncover  use terms such as “homosexual murder” indiscriminately. The big break, which is addressed early in the series, comes decades after the crimes when police charge Bruce McArthur in 2018 for the murders of eight of the men. Yet there are so many victims with a similar fate that McArthur  wasn’t  charged with killing. One detective implies the murders were unresolved in no small part due to a community that was too afraid to come forward; it’s suggested, and likely, that many men wouldn’t cooperate over fear of being outed.  Uncover  serves as a retort to the suggestion that closeted men stymied the investigation, arguing instead that society is safer when people can be who they really are.