Baby Reindeer - Netflix

[Spratt]

Got a day off today so I’m binging Baby Reindeer. Two episodes in and it’s great so far, I see that it’s previously been a stage show but I’ve never heard of it so looking forward to finding out what happens. It’s about a comedian being stalked by a woman in her 40s.

He didn't sleep with her - it was a fantasy. If he had, her voicemails would have mentioned it.

He needed to think about sleeping with Martha to get it up enough to sleep with Teri. That’s why it flashed back and forth so quickly.

Which again shows how much he needed her in his own way.

I saw an interview on This Morning and they were all describing it as funny and as a comedy. Wtf?!

I agree - there were funny bits but I wouldn’t characterise the story as a comedy.

I keep thinking about this series - I finished watching it on Sunday. It still unsettles me - not least because I think that we were watching the actor/writer going through some sort of healing process about this.

It's interesting to read some of the comments on X as well.

He also forced himself to watch and enjoy what I assume was gay porn after his assult. As a way to deal with it.

I am watching and finding it fascinating. I expected it to be a straight up stalker story like Misery or Fatal Attraction but this is much more real and interesting but definitely disturbing and a hard watch. I agree that the way his feelings aren't black and white about Martha (or indeed Terri) feels very real. Unfortunately I do identify with the he way he felt and behaved after he was assaulted.
I kind of wish I didn't know it was a true story

@Neveralonewithaclone I did also wonder why she had to be fat and if that is a lazy way of depicting unattractive and erroneously conflates those two things. He says that when he first saw her he felt pity and I think it is suggested that this is because of how she looks. I kind of wished they hadn't relied on that but it might just have been the truth. I mean it is a way that a lot of people do think. I expect if he did find her unattractive because she was fat he felt bad about it!

I think he felt pity for her because she was crying. I doubt she was the only overweight woman that had ever come into the pub he worked at.

Making her overweight and middle aged /frumpy with a nice smile meant we the audience didn't have to wonder why he didn't fancy her.

Later on we learn he was confused about his sexuality and why.

If she had been presented as a normal looking woman his age we'd have wondered why wouldn't he date her? (As he is fairly average looking himself)

Not just sexually, I don’t want to post any spoilers but by the end it’s clear she was not always a terrible influence in his life (obviously overall she was). I like that nothing is clear cut - it’s a very authentic telling.

Yes, i don't want to bash Jessica Gunning at all (am a fat woman myself) and I hate that I'm even mentioning that she's fat. I feel quite conflicted, she's a fantastic actress, i don't want to call her a fantastic fat actress. But I'm almost disappointed that the character is fat. Perhaps the problem is my own? If you had Julie Hesmondhalgh, for instance, as his stalker there'd be no focus on weight. Equally I want Jessica Gunning to have lots of work.

I also identified with the way he behaved, the self 'reabuse' which was worse than the reason for the self flagellation. I don't think I've seen anything else that has spoken to me so much about that. I felt that the show had an exceptionally feminine voice to it.

Me too.

I'm starting this tonight, really intrigued!

Finished all of this now, and I have to say it does pick up half way through the series - so stick with it! It's very good. 8/10 overall. Heart-wrenching.

Genuinely brilliant from start to finish. I wish I still had it to watch, it's that good.

Oh my, I've just watched episode 1, it's a really stressful watch. I don't really want to watch any more, but I also feel completely compelled to! Episode 2, I'm going in!

I'm halfway through episode 4, I don't think I can take any more.

I literally stopped watching ep4 halfway through about 20 minutes ago. I don’t ‘ow if I can go back to it

So now I have a right quandary. I'm already really disturbed, so I just leave it there, halfway through episode 4 and avoid any further horror, or go all the way through to the end?

Do it 🤣🤯

Some folk on this thread really don't understand abuse. There's some horrible victim blaming going on. Being a trapped wife with children isn't the only sort of abuse-victim who's 'allowed' to return to their abuser. Going back doesn't even make sense at the time, not even to the person who's doing it. But saying 'he's an idiot, he brought it upon himself' is misunderstanding the whole mindset of being abused. Many victims aren't actually physically restrained from leaving. It doesn't make the abuse their fault.

Just posted on the other thread. I’ve just finished the lot - started it yesterday. I was mildly bemused at the start but it does end up being very dark. It reminded me of ‘I may destroy you’ in the way that the writer is the actor and it is all written from personal experience. I really enjoyed it as an original but obviously the content would be very upsetting for anyone affected by the theme. Unless I missed them, I didn’t see any warning before any of the episodes which I would’ve thought NF would have provided.

Thought it was brilliant, put it on thinking I'd watch one episode and give up but ended up watching all episodes in one go!