Share
by anna jane begley
TV has always been seen as the lesser art form. Asked about your favourite film and tens or hundreds of Oscar-nominated masterpieces may come to mind. Asked about a truly brilliant TV series – not your usual sitcoms or reality shows – and you may struggle to list anything beyond Breaking Bad.
Adolescence is as poignant and profound as the crème de la crème of cinema. In just four episodes, Jack Thorne and Steven Graham’s series provides a kaleidoscopic view of toxic masculinity, incel culture and the people these ideas impact in a way that is neither judicial or ostentatious.
We follow the arrest of Jamie (outstanding newcomer Owen Cooper), a 13-year-old boy accused of murdering his classmate Katie in a misogynist crime that shakes his family and community. The first two episodes focus on the immediate aftermath of the crime, showing the arrest and questioning of Jamie and the police visiting the school for evidence a week later.
It’s not really a spoiler to say that Jamie did it – that fact is given to us almost immediately and incontrovertibly. Episode three (along with the rest of the series, a one-shot take) is the strongest of the four episodes, superbly performed by Cooper and Erin Doherty, who plays a psychologist sent to examine Jamie before the court hearing. Here, we learn of Jamie’s struggle with self-esteem and the language systems teenagers now use to spread largely toxic theories on masculinity and gender. Maybe that’s over-complicating the matter: in short, we learn how most boys now view girls.
In a recent interview, Doherty described the series as a “why-dunnit” and its this episode that fully fleshes out the tragedy of Jamie’s life and therefore his motive – and yes, it’s fair to say Jamie is to some extent a victim of forces larger than him, or indeed as Doherty’s character realises, larger than many of us. Misogynist influencers such as Andrew Tate are merely the tip of the iceberg for what is going on in young people’s minds today, and Adolescence holds up a mirror to the parents, teachers and law enforcers who simply aren’t aware enough of the dark “incel” world teenagers are exposed to and engaging with.
There has been some criticism of the final episode which revisits Jamie’s family a few weeks before the court hearing: a moving scene between Jamie’s dad Eddie (an ever-brilliant Stephen Graham) and mum Manda (Christine Tremarco) reveals Eddie to be painfully aware of different notions of masculinity, with himself striving to be kinder than his physically abusive dad. And yet both parents question whether the situation is in fact their fault. It’s heartbreaking to watch the family struggle for answers; the scary truth is, this could happen to any child. And more women and girls will suffer the consequences until us adults figure out how to stop it happening again.
