Adolescence

[heartsinvisiblefury]

What an amazing piece of television. Stephen Graham is exceptional. Highly recommend this - on Netflix.

@glitterturd That could almost be another show really

For that one evening, yes parenting fail. But I didn’t get the impression that this was common. They didn’t know what he was doing in his room but I didn’t think that they weren’t paying attention to where he was.

Yep. We had a 13 year old boy in our Home Counties town stabbed at 3-4pm on a Sunday afternoon in a middle class neighbourhood. The boys who did it came from perfectly normal backgrounds. They apparently thought they were ‘gangsters’. There’s not been enough discussion of the influence of gangster culture on young people. I remember when the young boy was killed, my then 18 year old son said he was aware of a lot of young boys in our area carrying knives because they think it makes them ‘hard’.

Not their fault but my SD is 15 and I cannot imagine letting her be out on her own that late at night. You can be stabbed at any time of the day but I think it is more likely to happen in the evening when there's fewer people about. There's also more likely to be drugs and alcohol floating around groups of teenagers hanging out together late at night.

I'd be OK with her going to a set place, like the cinema or a restaurant, where she could be dropped off and picked up, and I trust her and know she wouldn't break the rules.

When she was 13, her Dad and I were checking her phone regularly. The only reason we don't now is because she's earned the privilege of privacy by being extremely sensible and safety conscious online. She still knows that we could ask to check at any time. If she was the type of child to put goady comments on other children's Instagram posts, or to pass around nude pics of other children, or repost semi-pornographic images or any of the other problematic things that were going on, we'd be 100% watching her social media usage like a hawk and removing it if necessary.

My DD is more mischievous and rebellious by nature, we will think very carefully about her access to the internet when the time comes.

I thought he was really creepy. Continuing to ask questions when she was clearly trying to end the conversation, and getting too close to her

I think it just missed the mark for me. I could see the guard was meant to be creepy and overly familiar but it started with her being rude and not doing the usual small talk stuff people expect. I also found her ridiculous and weird when she kept saying all was fine despite him standing within choking distance over her.
also - why don’t they have a ring doorbell if they keep having stuff happening?

I mean Jamie re; the choking comment not the guard

I liked it overall and thought episode 3 was phenomenal!

episode 2 annoyed me a lot as a teacher…it painted teenagers (and teachers) as being insensitive which would absolutely not be the case in such a serious situation. Episode 2 was really wrought and over played I thought

There has been a lot of talk about how Jamie is portrayed as evil. But did others not think that also he was a desperately sad child who was desperate for some love and some recognition that he was lovable? It was so sad that in the final episode you learn about his love for art but that he gave that up. As so often happens when social media takes over. Children lose their unique interests and talents and are consumed by their phones

Yes. Also being interested in something like art is so often not valued by parents. Jamie and his dad both spoke separately about him not being good at football and the negative reactions Jamie got from other parents. I found that utterly heartbreaking. So many parents push their boys in that direction and don’t think about what their child is actually inclined to do.

I bet the male psychologist referred to but not seen didn’t make small talk or need to be seen as polite. He’d be a man in a male dominated environment just there to do a job. The security guard probably wouldn’t have asked him any questions about his role, just accepted his authority and expertise.

@Phillipeflopp well what a shame they didn’t show that for contrast. Because my experience is of polite small talk and not going straight into it regardless of which sex I’m interacting with.

Me too, but maybe not if I’m a repeat visitor to somewhere where I find a man’s attention too much.

I thought it was excellent and am willing to overlook some of the inaccurate bits as it is a drama after all. Cried at the last episode. My interpretation was that the entire episode was demonstrating the barely supressed male rage that the writers were drawing our attention to throughout the series. Ultimately the dad was not a likeable character and his revelations throughout the episode showed that regardless of trying to escape his own upbringing, Eddie was passing on his own brand of angry misogyny to his son. The female characters were ciphers, even the murdered girl was seen as a grainy cctv image and a photograph. I think this was deliberate as a further way of showing how some men view women. The whole series was dominated by different kinds of masculinity, (most of it toxic). Erin Doherty was a stronger character and even she found herself the target of Jamie and the guard. The van ride back to the house was the hardest bit to watch. It totally encapsulated how absolutely devastating it is when a person in a family does something terrible. The rest of the family were falling apart; how on earth could you carry on if something like this happened? Beautifully acted.

The mum said at the end that Jamie often came home at about 1am as she heard him come in. She was just a bit worried that he had school next day, not where he'd been and with whom.

I thought she said his light was still on at 1am and she would knock on the door to turn the light off and for him to go to sleep? Not that he was out

Yes re/ evil vs sad. Plays into nature vs nurture argument - which the parents referred to 'we made him'. They talked about this from a 'we raised him' angle and a 'did we pass it on/we made [the kids] in love'.

I do think he was desperately sad child but there has to be that 'other thing' - at least that's what I believe. You can have children who are put through the most horrendous abuse growing up and they grow up - with issues for sure - but do not go on to harm others. It's when the two collide - when you have a disordered mind, AND, the wrong environment - that's the receipe for really bad shit happening. For Jamie - I watched it as an insight into some sort of personality disorder (narcissim/psychopathy - something along those lines) because he could be so charming and convincing until the mask slipped. That's what I saw, a mask slipping.

I think the policeman summed it up 'I wonder if I am the right parent for my son' and I think this plays into Jamie's case. The nature was there though but with a different type of nurture/environment perhaps, different male influences - Jamie would have been less likely to commit that crime.

I thought it was excellent. The way episode 4 shone the light on the dynamic Jamie had grown up with and the insidious impact of 'loving' toxic masculinity within the family was really important. While it's easy to fear the devil in the dark of the Internet, it was an excellent reminder of the importance of attitudes and role modelling within the family. It's nigh on impossible to police the external influences on our children, and keeping them in after dark to remove the opportunity for them to commit murder at night, falls woefully short of addressing the problem. I think a good job was done in highlighting the things parents can control. It would be useful to show in parenting classes I think.

I haven't RTFT as I'm only 3/4 of the way through ep 1 and the thread was starting to show too many spoilers.

My take on ep1 so far is amazement that the police would do such an extreme arrest for a 13 year old boy - does this really happen? I know its for a murder but why did they break the door down? Why not just knock and let the mum answer - the lights were on so clearly they were up. Does this get explained/make sense in later episodes? I'm sure they would have checked the programme shows proper police procedure but the whole thing seemed very OTT - it wasn't until they gave the time of the interview that I realised it was in also real time and thus the time from breaking the door down to interviewing him was less than 45 minutes! Does this carry on throughout the rest of the series?

'My take on ep1 so far is amazement that the police would do such an extreme arrest for a 13 year old boy - does this really happen?'

They really did show up like the cavalry! I'm no expert, but it was a violent crime involving a weapon. They had no idea what they were waking into, who else was in the house, what else was in the house (firearms for example), and what the level of risk was to themselves and the public

Didn't enjoy episode one

the police procedures aren't accurate

the way the officers were ransacking the house like that , it doesn't happen like that .

.The parents would of been sat down and as he was a juvenile they absolutely would of been told more about the circumstances of the arrest .

Had to laugh that they were interviewing him a mere 45 mins after arrest . 🤣

obviously giving my job away here 🤦🏻‍♀️🤣 and I know we aren't very well liked on here .

I will persevere with episode 2 as I don't doubt the acting will be very good.

I certainly thought that episode 2 was not great for teacher recruitment..

Does anyone know what the psychiatrist was looking for when watching the monitors after saying she was going to get a cup of tea? Or was it just to show us the awful security guards behaviour that she had to contend with?

Yes I thought a real disadvantage of the one-shot thing was how it basically had to be in real time. It made it unrealistic for me.

Similarly, there’s a fire alarm at the school in ep 2 where the kids are outside for all of about 4 minutes which is also not likely!

I took it that she was looking at how Jamie behaved with the male worker? Was he as domineering with him. That’s a guess though!