Unlike the book, Poppy Parnell (Octavia Spencer) plays the main role, as a podcaster who revisits the case that made her famous with the hope of finally getting to the truth.

In season 1, Oakland journalist Poppy Parnell restarts the true crime podcast that made her famous and reopens the 1999 murder case of Stanford professor Chuck Buhrman after new evidence suggests Warren Cave, the man she helped put behind bars, was wrongly convicted.

In season 3, Poppy works with a high school principal to investigate the disappearances of several young black girls in Oakland whose cases lack mainstream media attention.

Poppy takes the investigation into her own hands and grapples with whether she can trust Eva, a Black female principal of the local high school.

The show makes a startling turn when the vice principal, Eva, starts to use the dating app Questeur as "BOTTOM2TOPENERGY" to try to find out what is happening to these black girls.

[14][15] In June 2018, it was announced that Lizzy Caplan, Aaron Paul, Elizabeth Perkins, Mekhi Phifer, Michael Beach, Tracie Thoms, Haneefah Wood, and Ron Cephas Jones had joined the main cast.

[8][16][17] In July 2018, it was reported that Tami Roman and Moon Bloodgood had joined the main cast and that Nic Bishop, Annabella Sciorra, Molly Hagan, Billy Miller, Brett Cullen, and Hunter Doohan would appear in recurring roles.

[20][21] On October 8, 2018, it was announced that Katherine LaNasa had been cast to replace Bloodgood, and her character Cath Min, in the newly devised recurring role of Noa Havilland.

The site's critics consensus reads, "A twisty thriller that never quite comes together, Truth Be Told's commitment to the true crime at its center is less interesting or engaging than the family drama orbiting in the periphery.