Adolescence

[heartsinvisiblefury]

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

I think episode 1 was so good, it outshone the next three.
The young actor in it is superb. In the scenes with the psychiatrist you can see his cack-handed attempts at almost flirting with her.
I did find it hard to believe that the two officers had so little awareness around the Tate culture, and the teachers. I suppose they needed to be ignorant of it all for the narrative to work.
That single shot first episode was superb and will stay with me.

1.The police would not have been wandering around the site.

1. They would perhaps have been into an assembly to speak to the kids and encourage them to come forward.
2. The police officer would not have chased Ryan through the school and then interrogate him in the alley like this. Any interview with the student would have required an appropriate adult.
3. The students who were behaving terribly and making inappropriate comments would have been taken out and put in isolation where I work.
4. The police would not be sharing info with the teacher accompanying them.

The whole episode was ridiculous tbh. It is a shame as the rest of the series was interesting.

Often you don’t find out that someone has underlying tendency to be mentally unwell though until a crisis happens. People can meander along under fairly normal circumstances until something tips the balance and everything goes pear shaped. Similar with teenagers, they can cope very well until hormonal changes and peer influences. It’s very easy to believe that a teenager can spend a huge amount of time online and come to believe the very strange things they encounter.

I did find it an almighty shock that I very genuinely thought the police offer’s son was demonstrating symptoms of paranoia and delusional thoughts. Initially I wasn’t sure if that was going to be a separate storyline. It’s shaken me a bit to realise that’s the way a significant number of men actually think, a belief system they subscribe to.

It’s not the same but my younger sister (older) is autistic, borderline LD. She watches a lot of reels, TikTok etc etc. She came out as a lesbian a couple of years ago. She now believes she is a masculine presenting lesbian. She genuinely believes that all lesbian women carry a climbing clip on their belt to show they’re gay - and that all lesbians cannot wear pink, speak a certain way, must wear checked shirts, braces, specific shoes, brands of toiletries, etc etc. She genuinely believes that every meme she sees is gospel truth and does all she can to follow it. Desperation to fit in, find a sense of identity and friendship etc.

You're definitely wrong. He played the detective Superindent in Little Boy Blue. He played a man with early on-set alzheimer's disease in Help. Also a journalist in The Walk-In.

I'm not saying he hasn't played other roles, rather his portrayal is always exactly the same. A scouser who stares and sniffs a lot.

There's so much to see in this drama. It might have flaws as others have said, but it is very clever, multi-layered and a talking point for our time.

I agree with everything you say except one point - I'm from that neck of the woods and littering every sentence with 'luv' is just normal. Despite having lived down South for almost 20yrs it's so ingrained, I still haven't broken the habit.

So for me, an explosive temper while simultaneously calling someone 'luv' - made it all the more real to me and something I could entirely relate to from my own childhood and parents.

My point is his portrayal was not the same as the ones you listed in these shows.

'A scouser who stares and sniffs a lot'

I know what you mean but he does play other types of characters too. He was just great and very funny in Rocketman as Elton John's cockney geezer record boss. And I believe he's great in Matilda too

Ah right I must admit I haven't seen that so didn't realise he could do other accents and characters.

Of course. All teens should watch it.

I couldn’t help but wryly chuckle at the scene where the fire alarm goes off mid police talk.
We average one (hoax) fire alarm a fortnight in the secondary school where I work.
Interesting that so many of you consider the school scenes unrealistic.

That was my big take out - the dad was actually playing a part in how the son turned out and the mother was enabling her husbands behaviour and therefore dooming her daughter to a similar life.

Hate to tell you but unfortunately that’s what lots of schools are like these days…I thought it was pretty accurate.

Oh God it gets worse I've just watched ep 3. What should have been a very experienced and capable psychologist getting all teary and pearl clutchy with a shouty, stroppy 13yr old.

I bet secondary school teachers face worse every day.

The baby faced, squeaky voiced kid just did not cut it disturbed and threatening wise imo.

Just watched Episode 1 with DH who’s an ex-cop. Presumably the remainder of the series deals with the psychological side of adolescence, but are you honestly telling me that they can go from murder to arrest to CCTV showing the incident within 8 hours?! The police reference his school reports. How in God’s name have these been obtained between 10.30pm and 6am the following day? How has the CCTV footage been seized and reviewed? Why has no-one mentioned the name or details of the victim during the arrest, or provision of information to the solicitor? Why did Jamie’s search take place after he was detained in the cell (and presumably could have injured himself or others with any hidden weapons during this point?) Why was a female nurse present during the strip search?

Unless the glaring errors have some kind of explanation in the next few episodes, the whole thing lacks any credibility and just puts me off watching the rest.

'How in God’s name have these been obtained between 10.30pm and 6am the following day? How has the CCTV footage been seized and reviewed? '

I mentioned that upthread.

Well, we perservered and awaited the powerful performances reported on X so we've just watched ep 4. It is just Graham shouting and sobbing inbetween pauses and ridiculous conversation with his poor wife and dc.

It's 0/10 for me, maybe a 1/10 as ep 1 was quite good. Downhill from there.

Agree with this synopsis.

I’m on episode 4, my god it’s dragging. Had about 15 mins in the car with the mum and dad having a banal conversation about their school days. Now they’re at the hardware shop. What’s the point in all this?

10 minutes in and I'm a mess already - everyone is so convincingly brilliant. I'll read the thread after the binge sesh.

I haven’t seen the last ep yet but my take was that the detectives were reading it wrong when they thought Katie was bullying Jamie.

From the scene with the psychologist, Jamie quite clearly has a lot of misogynistic ideas, including the one where he tried to get Katie to date him after she was humiliated by the circulation of her nude, because he thought she’d be weaker then.

From that point of view, she’s not bullying him, she’s calling him out. He killed her because he has poor impulse control and feels the need for power over women, not because he was being “bullied”.

I agree with this. I said it while watching - oh come on, she's a psychologist who works in prisons she has to have a bit more resilience than this.

But I also tried to think of it another way, that part of her emotions around it was how she'd been drawn in by Jamie. She brought him food and a drink, I think she thought he was a good kid and then suddenly this dark side erupted. Like she knew she had to write him up as dangerous despite the fact 'she did like him'. I thought maybe the emotion was about that. I don't think Jamie was supposed to pose a real physical threat and she wasn't worried for her safety, she was taken aback but she declined him being removed. She was shocked by the outburst.

But agree - anyone working in that type of setting would likely have 'seen it all' and be less thrown/shocked by it.

I also thought the part with the security guy was good. The way he stood and stared at her, getting way into her personal space, like he owned a right to her and how she did what 99% of women do - placate him by feigning being 'nice girl'. I thought that was clever.

I honestly think you’ve not understood the genre, and completely missed the points it’s making.

It’s not meant to be an 8 episode watertight detective drama. It’s a series of tableaus intended to make society and your average family realise that actually, we and our kids are all probably closer to dark influences than we realise, and that we need to stop thinking offenders look a certain way.

Yes, I found Ep 3 very disturbing. She was shocked that this young boy with the angelic face turned out to have traits of a psychopath.
I said to DH at the end of that episode, that even if he didn’t kill the girl, he would definately go on to abuse and probably kill in later life.
Erin Doherty was fantastic I thought.

I think people who are saying he wasn’t physically intimidating enough for the psychologist are really missing the point. I doubt those who assessed ten-year-old Thompson and Venables were intimidated, but I could well imagine them having a similar range of emotions (from pity to disgust) to what was shown here. She knows exactly what he did, which is why even touching the sandwich repulses her.