I MAY DESTROY YOU - mon and tue bbc 1045

[Blondeshavemorefun]

New dram series starts tonight on bbc 1

With only hours left to deliver a draft of a book to her publishers , writer Arabella is tempted into a night out with a friend ........

the series is set in London and centers around the story of a young woman who must rebuild her life after her drink is spiked with a date rape drug

Hhhmm, I think they are leading us to believe it was Ben, but we are seeing him through the eyes of Arabella, who has got more and more caught up in her social media profile where she is following the hashtag #ihswg

I think after ep 10 where we saw Arabella make peace with other people's mistakes, we will see her look at how she has led herself to become suspicious of Ben as a straight white guy. I suspect he knows more about what happened that night than Arabella realises, but perhaps he thinks she knows what he knows and just doesn't want to talk about it.

Ah, that makes sense!

I wonder if we will actually find out who Bella's rapist is. The case has been dropped by the police and her memory is extremely fuzzy because of being spiked. Will be fascinated to see what happens in the final episodes

Chienloup yes that sounds like a good theory.
Lottapianos you’re probably right actually. It’s more about her unravelling and processing it than about who did it.
I am pleased that she told Terry that she had been a good friend. She has been an amazing friend. No way is it even partly Terry’s fault. Simon is a shit for trying to pass the blame onto her. What kind of a douche calls someone else to ask them whether he should look after his friend anyway. And even if Terry had said stay with her, I bet he’d have gone over to his gf’s anyway.

@Lottapianos

I wonder if we will actually find out who Bella's rapist is. The case has been dropped by the police and her memory is extremely fuzzy because of being spiked. Will be fascinated to see what happens in the final episodes

I agree. I also think it wouldn't be fitting to find out in some sense. In real life some people don't find out or get any justice. Or maybe we (the viewers will find out) but Bella will not.

@Shedtheload I think Terry has been a good friend but, if a mutual friend called me and said the other was completely out of it, I wouldn't advise just to leave them. I definitely agree about Simon though. He was very quick to shift the blame when he was completely at fault.

Totally agree that Simon is a plum. Did it seem from the last episode that he has lost his job and his marriage? He said he wasnt working at his old workplace anymore, and said his current situation wasnt too bad because his mum's cooking was good

FTMF30 you’re right. In a way it’s a bit unrealistic that she said that to Simon, given how close she and Arabella are. Maybe her loyalty throughout the series is just prompted by her guilt and I am misreading what a good friend she is. But I still don’t know why a grown man would need advice from someone’s friend as to whether he should leave that person alone when she is out of it. Very odd.

Maybe Simon was expecting/hoping that Terry would offer to come check and meet Arabella and can take care her home, so ringing her was his way of letting himself off the hook.

Sorry, that made no sense - hopefully you get the drift!

Yeah I reckon you’re right. If it were me, I’m not sure I’d come out late at night to bring someone home but I’d definitely tell him not to leave her on her own.

@Shedtheload

FTMF30 you’re right. In a way it’s a bit unrealistic that she said that to Simon, given how close she and Arabella are. Maybe her loyalty throughout the series is just prompted by her guilt and I am misreading what a good friend she is. But I still don’t know why a grown man would need advice from someone’s friend as to whether he should leave that person alone when she is out of it. Very odd.

I think Terry telling Simon to just leave Bella stemmed from underlying and unaddressed anger she had at Bella that time they were in Italy. Bella got wasted and left Terry to walk home by herself. So I think she was annoyed at how wasted she (Bella) got but also that she ended up having that threesome which ended in her actually feeling quite used. I think she had some (somewhat misplaced) resentment towards Bella.

When Terry and Simon recall the night Bella got raped, it turned out that Terry said something along the lines of "just leave her, this is what she does". So I think that was in reference to that time in Italy.

[quote PerditaProvokesEnmity]Wonderful, gritty MC interview published today in New York magazine.

www.vulture.com/article/michaela-coel-i-may-destroy-you.html[/quote]
This is such a great read! It makes me appreciate I May Destroy You on a different level.

I loved the argument at the art class, it was like a real argument, not several people shouting at it each other but Kwame and Terri shrinking back but doin their best to hold their ground reasonably. Crap reference point but I’ve only seen authentic arguments like that on Big Brother! Every episode I watch it and think about it for ages. It’s just brilliant.

I've just caught up with the last two episodes. Honestly I think I need about 24 hours to work out what I think.

I keep thinking I've know what someone's story is only to then change my mind, keep swinging from (mildly) disliking to likening characters.

Felt the mum was full of rage not that she was telling Bella not to tell her dad.

I'm hoping Ben isn't dodgy- would be good to have one straight male as a decent person. But he did feature a lot in the last episode, more than usual 🤔

iTunes frustratingly slow to release Ep 10 this week - but it was worth the wait. I'm glad we finally had a family episode, it had seemed a strange omission. And the fact that it came after we've really got to know Bella meant every tiny bit of familial interaction was weighted.

Surely doing the casting for the different iterations of Bella and Terry must have been the most fun a casting director could possibly have? All six are amazing, but I especially love the way little Bella has the beginnings of adult Bella's eyes.

I just wanted to cry at Bella's adoration of her father. (I wonder if he and Lenora have children, too.) And the way memory is just attacking her now seems particularly pertinent after too much lockdown thinking time.

Did Terry actually do the audition??? It would be good if by the end of the series she has something of her own. I'm finding their co-dependence a little suffocating - it felt as if Bella had to forgive/brush aside Terry's mistake because she needs her so much.

I love Kwame so much. Surely "I need a hug." will be the line of the entire series?

and the food in that episode! Especially the meal Kwame's date made him. Also loved "I need a hug", a fantastic moment.

When Bella hugged her dad at the end of their scene, it's so clear he's her hero regardless of what he did to her mum. I agree that her mum was hiding her fury at what had happened to Bella.

Great episode - are there any more?

Two more to come ...

Ahhh. That'll be why I felt so unsatisfied at "the ending"

I'm only 3 episodes in.

Thanks to whoever mentioned Terry's feelings as she realised the two men knew each other. I'd thought it was a set up from the start but hadn't thought she realised that.

I was watching with my son and had to explain about the removal of the condom and how it was rape from that moment on. It was weird watching him realise that (especially after he looked up stealthing - does anyone else's child think their mum knows nothing and has to double check with Google?!)

I felt 'less is more' could've worked as a motto for the writer. There were two rapes, one immediately after the other. I know if you were showing it in a class you could stop the recording and say "Zain is raping her just as the guy is raping that man" (sorry, looked at the cast but can't remember the young man's name.) However, showing them together like that was too much to absorb, I thought - there wasn't time to concentrate on what happened to Michaela. Of course I don't know whether she brings that up again - last I saw she was cheerfully walking down the road with Zain. I would have liked him to try to use his education to 'prove' to her that it wasn't rape and that she consented.

Also I felt the male publisher was uneasy with Michaela - he knew she was hot on Twitter. He didn't understand her writing. He didn't know whether that meant she was really good or awful. He knew he was much older. He knew she was cool and he wanted to be, too, but when he looked at her he felt old. I thought that's what was happening.

But I also thought that this is what happened with the story itself. Her work needed to be cut. She was too heavy handed - two rapes, one after the other, three (potentially) threesomes, half a dozen sitting-on-the-loo moments. It needed a cut and I felt nobody dared to cut it because she was cool and they weren't etc etc.

Also - sorry! - I felt the issue of her self-sabotage could've been looked at in more detail. It's so prevalent in working class writers and it would've been good to have seen it explored.

Here's an interesting article about how Michaela Coel turned down Netflix.

I didn't realise she'd forgotten she'd locked Kwame in the room.

Good to see her family life

She adores her dad who is a low Life Cheat and he blames her for his theft - where as if he hasn’t if lied she wouldn’t have gone there for clothes

Simon did seem to push blame away

And yes kwame wanting a cuddle 😍