Adolescence is the rare gripping crime drama that doesn't need a twist
Netflix's four-part series puts guessing games aside and instead tells a dark, timely, conversation-starting story.
Photo: Ben Blackall/Netflix
Adolescence, Netflix’s chart-topping new drama, opens like any murder mystery (albeit one in which each installment is shot in single take). Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham’s British series kicks off with a thirteen-year-old kid arrested on suspicion of killing his female classmate. Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper, a star in the making in his onscreen debut) repeatedly proclaims his innocence as his house is raided, and he’s quickly taken to a detention center, strip-searched, and interrogated by the cops. And it’s hard not to empathize with his pleas when all you see is a child getting hurled in a police car and crying for his dad, Eddie (Graham). It’s particularly tough to watch through the lens of his helpless family, with Eddie accompanying Jamie around the facility and his mother and older sister anxiously awaiting updates in a waiting room.
This distressing first hour raises the central question of whether young Jamie could’ve taken a human life. What could have compelled him to do it and how would he have pulled it off? So it’s a jolt when the premiere closes with a definitive answer. The detectives display CCTV footage of Jamie stabbing Katie Leonard multiple times in a parking lot. Eddie looks at the video in disbelief as his son, still in denial, weeps. By confirming Jamie is the killer, Adolescence plays its ace fairly quickly. It’s not a formulaic whodunit at all but an insightful whydunit. Instead of guessing games, the series dissects the pervading influence of the manosphere and incel culture on an impressionable boy and how most parents and schools are unfortunately unequipped to recognize or deal with such ugly truths.
Adolescence takes on a serious topic that doesn’t require twists, making it stand out among crime shows like HBO’s excellent Mare Of Easttown and Sharp Objects (which also center around girls’ deaths). Those miniseries understandably feature jarring cliffhangers to build suspense so we can try to figure out the murderer’s identity. Adolescence tells us who it early on—and paves the way for its writers to drill down on Jamie’s motivations and mindset. There are no red herrings (like in AMC’s The Killing), court trials (Hulu’s Under The Bridge), or a media frenzy (ITV’s Broadchurch) here—and instead the audience just has to sit with the tragedy.
