Required Viewing
Take my word for it, seriously
I just can’t stop thinking about the Netflix show, Adolescence, and it’s so good and so urgent that I’m interrupting our normal broadcasting to bring you this message.
The show is a tight four-episode limited series, and there’s not an ounce of fat or a wasted minute. The story is simple: a teenaged boy is arrested for the murder of a classmate. There’s a brief moment when the viewer might wonder if he’s been wrongly accused, but the whodunit is not the point at all. It’s about masculinity and social media and the impossible gulf between parents and children, and it’s about grief. The performances are so great that they leave you gasping. I just finished it and am ready to see it again—it’s that good. It will break your heart but also heal it to know that such great work is possible, creatively.
I want to tell you a lot of other stuff, but I am so eager to urge you to watch this that I just couldn’t wait. Eager to hear your thoughts.
As ever (isn’t that how Meghan Markle signs off? Yikes.) XSusan
Thank you for this recommendation. Just finished episode 4 this evening. Disturbing, very well done, and so relevant to today. I fear those of us who grew up in “olden times” pre-internet don’t realize how social media has altered the reality of kids. Almost exclusively to their detriment.
The acting was fantastic throughout and my heart just broke at the end for the parents, it was so devastatingly real. I think most parents would feel some responsibility but where they erred is in the wake up call the story is portraying: they -and their son- are not living in the same more innocent world they grew up in.