It's time for Ghislaine Maxwell's reckoning in the "Surviving Jeffrey Epstein" docuseries - Salon

When Jeffrey Epstein was at the height of his power and seemed untouchable, he and his web of enablers, including Ghislaine Maxwell, reportedly were trafficking five or six girls a day.

Kelly" in granting a safe, supportive forum to the eight women who agreed to go on camera and recount their stories of being sexual exploited by Epstein and Maxwell, including Virginia Giuffre, perhaps the most prominent accuser associated with this case.

Filmmakers Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern edited these four hours in a way that locks our focus on the lives and bravery of these survivors, capturing their determination and refusing to turn the lens away from moments in which the lasting ache of what they've gone through and continue to live with surfaces anew.

But what Sundberg and Stern argue quite powerfully over the course of their series' four parts is that the only way that the world's most prolific serial sex offender and child molester could have operated so successfully, and trafficked girls from around the globe for so long without facing consequences, is that he didn't operate on his own.

Stern and Sundberg also lay out the web of co-conspirators named in a 2008 federal case brought against him, including Sarah Kellen, Nadia Marcinkova, Lesley Groff ,and Adriana Ross, none of whom have ever been charged with a crime, and Jean-Luc Brunel, a former modeling agency scout who has denied any wrongdoing and, like the others, has not been charged with any crime.

Every episode includes multiple reminders to viewers of each named co-conspirators insistence on their innocence, including a card from Kellen identifying her as a "potential co-conspirator" in a non-prosecution agreement between federal prosecutors and Epstein in 2008 that adds,.

But Sundberg and Stern are unsparing in terms of pointing out, by way of survivor testimony and ample photographic evidence, how many famous, powerful people were close enough to Epstein and Maxwell to have some idea of what was going on, and yet did absolutely nothing about it.

But those photos of Epstein and Maxwell cozied up to Donald Trump and Melania at various parties over the years granted him a new level of national celebrity, and his suspicious death made him even more famous.

When it became clear that Epstein was not going to wriggle out of his 2019 arrest and the resulting charges stuck, suddenly Trump claimed wasn't terribly close with the man.

Sundberg and Stern stressed in their interview that for most of these people, being seen in photos with Epstein and Maxwell does not mean that whatever relationship each of these public figures had included participation in any kind of sexual abuse or recruitment of young girls.

Regardless of each person's level of actual culpability, this visual evidence of their relationship with Epstein means, as Sundberg puts it, that each "either knew, felt or sensed" that the whisperings about his criminal behavior had to be true.

In this way, "Surviving Jeffrey Epstein" becomes a study of the multiple ways that these women – and the scores of other victims whose names and faces we don't know – were failed by the justice system and the people around Epstein and Maxwell.

Since Sundberg and Stern also are contending with a moving target with this case, that could turn around at a moment's notice.

"Surviving Jeffrey Epstein" airs over two nights, with its first half debuting on Sunday, Aug