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Back in January, I wrote enthusiastically about The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst. At the time, it was an upcoming true-crime documentary series HBO was scheduled to air in February.

I'd seen the first portion and even then there was something unnerving about it. Specifically, there was something chilling about its subject, Durst himself. Further, it was deeply perturbing to discover that Durst had admitted to the murder and dismemberment of a neighbour in Galveston, Tex., in 2001. He was acquitted after a bewildering trial. What was even more disturbing was the realization it was the third time that he had been linked to a serious crime. He was questioned, but never charged, in the disappearance of his first wife, Kathleen McCormack, and in the killing of his friend Susan Berman.

At the time, I found it hard to convey the strangeness of it – the looming inevitability of something about to go appallingly awry. HBO had made a point of gathering critics together and screening the first hour to us. They don't do that often. Something was afoot.

Then the series began airing to laudatory reviews, but to an audience that was somewhat puzzled by the intricate tale. Last week, the short-run series ended. And it ended with what seemed to be a sputtering confession from Durst: "What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course." He muttered that while in the bathroom during a break in a final interview but while still being recorded. Then, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office charged Durst, 71, with first-degree murder in connection with Berman's death.

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst is repeated in its entirety (Saturday, HBO Canada, 9 p.m.) and is available on demand. It's a stunning work. There is layer upon layer of intricate meaning and the theatre of it is astonishing.

The start is as bizarre as the ending. A segment of the Durst story was the basis for the 2010 movie All Good Things. (Handily for all of us, Bravo! airs the movie Sunday, 4 p.m.) In it, Ryan Gosling plays a Durst-like man and Kirsten Dunst plays his wife, a woman who disappears and her husband is the suspect. Director Andrew Jarecki was amazed that, a few weeks before the film opened, he heard from Durst, who wanted to talk. Previously, Durst had declined to talk to any media. To say that Jarecki, more famous for his documentaries than his feature movies – he made the classic Capturing the Friedmans – was intrigued, would be an understatement.

So began an elaborate dance as Jarecki interviewed Durst and probed deeply into this complicated man's history. Durst, it seems, was enchanted by the idea of manipulating his way to a certain kind of stardom. As the heir to a Manhattan real estate fortune, he had, among other escapades, enjoyed a period as a cross-dressing alter ego named Dorothy Ciner. Notorious in certain New York circles, he had evaded criminal conviction thanks to a cunning and deadpan public persona.

What viewers see is what Harvard law professor Noah Feldman has called, "The fascinating human strangeness unleashed by the era of reality television." Feldman has written about the matter because, as he and other legal experts see it, it is possible to argue that Durst was giving a performance, conducting an act in adherence with the norms and rules of reality television. He was, perhaps, embellishing and heightening to make a better TV production. The case for the defence, maybe?

At some point, all of this will be pored over in court. But for now, the circumstance of The Jinx is mind-boggling. Anyone who watches it – and everybody should – gets an illumination of that peculiar place where fantasy, fact and fiction blend together. And they blend, you could say, because we all intuit certain things about reality TV – it's only sort-of real. It's perfectly possible that Robert Durst – this odd, cold, wealthy and charismatic man – avoided conviction for serious crime and then set about another intricate strategy of avoidance while hogging the spotlight. It is all beyond belief. Durst cannot be categorized and neither can this stunning series about him.

Also airing this weekend

Neighbors with Benefits (Sunday, A&E, 10 p.m.) is not a new sitcom. It's a new reality series. Here's the official description: "Swingers Tony and Diana attempt to recruit new neighbours to join their freewheeling lifestyle; Eric and Lori go on a date with a new couple; Brittany sends sexy text messages to another woman's husband." You have been warned. Possibly, it's what everybody will be talking about on Monday. Also, possibly not. But in a world where the Durst story unfolds, you never know. And don't forget the deranged drama The Royals (Sunday, E! Canada, 10 p.m.), which continues its baroque journey into fantasizing, in fiction, what the Royal Family are really like.

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