Netflix's Trainwreck: P.I. Moms advertised the true story of a group of suburban mothers who moonlighted as private investigators (P.I.s) in a reality TV show, one that quickly found itself buried under heaps of criminal corruption, scripted stings, and even a missing teenage girl.However, instead of a shocking or comprehensive investigation, most viewers were left baffled at what many described as a shallow, muddled, and oddly paced documentary.Trainwreck: P.I. Moms revolves around the true story behind a former police officer, Chris Butler, who established a firm called Butler and Associates and employed a team of soccer moms as P.I.s. Whether the work was authentic P.I. work or allegedly incorporated staged P.I. antics, Lifetime brought the idea for a show called P.I. Moms.Shortly before P.I. Moms was to begin filming, Butler's empire dissolved when insider Carl Marino, a former P.I. himself and the only male P.I. of Butler and Associates, kicked the dirt over Butler's drug trafficking and fraud. Trainwreck: P.I. Moms promised viewers a detailed look into the cancellation of the Lifetime show.A Reddit user kicked off the discussion by stating his disappointment in Trainwreck: P.I. Moms."I knew nothing about this case beforehand so I was very excited by the premise, but it seemed very rushed and I thought more would happen. The story seemed quite interesting in the trailer but everything unfolded in the last 20 mins… def feel like they cut out a lot of info," the user commented.Trainwreck: PI Moms byu/Legal-Mood-3526 innetflixMany other Reddit users commented on the quality of Trainwreck: P.I. Moms."The quality of documentaries has gone down on Netflix," a user commented."I felt like I was going insane watching this. Everyone involved with the show seemed more upset that Carl called the police before the PI Moms, than seemed upset the girl was missing to begin with," wrote another user."They cram 20 minutes of content into 2 hours. I watched the poop cruise one and it showed so much footage just over and over and over and over and hung on to the smallest, stupidest details I don't think i could inflict another one on myself," another netizen remarked.Other Trainwreck: P.I. Moms viewers pointed out the lack of detail in the plotlines."They didn't even come back to the corrupt cop. Did he get busted? Did he go to jail? They said they were planning a sting with Chris and the corrupt cop but then only ended up busting Chris and the doco never told us what happened to the cop," a Reddit user shared."Yeah this one lacked a real villain and a real tragedy. Such a snore. So some dude went and got his own fame after he was shunned - yawn," another commented."This was the only one I felt didn't really have an ending, I was waiting for the part 2 where "Carl" finally gets whats coming to him," another user wrote.The true story behind Trainwreck: P.I. MomsTrainwreck: P.I. Moms looks at the unraveling of the proposed Lifetime reality show P.I. Moms, about women who balanced domestic life with stakeouts and surveillance. Their employer was Chris Butler, a former Antioch police officer who generated a lot of media attention with his all-female P.I. break into the world.The show's early buzz led to national coverage and a greenlight from Lifetime in 2010. However, everything fell apart once Diablo magazine journalist Peter Crooks was alerted by a source using the alias "R. Rutherford," who turned out to be Carl Marino, Butler's number two. Marino disclosed that Butler's firm was staging cases and was involved in a drug distribution ring with a dirty cop.Marino was a confidential informant who recorded their phone calls and ultimately aided in bringing down Butler and narcotics officer Norm Wielsch. Butler pled guilty to several felonies in 2012, ultimately including drug trafficking, grand theft, and wiretapping, and was sentenced to eight years in federal prison, as per NBC. The show never aired.Watch Trainwreck: P.I. Moms streaming on Netflix from July 22, 2025.