Adolescence is one of the most-talked about shows on Netflix ever since it premiered on the OTT platform. It follows the investigation of a murder by a 13-year-old boy named Jamie who gets bullied at school by a young girl (he probably had a crush on), but ended up brutally stabbing her in a desolate dim lit area. He stabbed her with a knife, not once but multiple times. The limited series opens on this premise and goes on to justify Jamie’s actions by building a scenario where he’s been shown as a victim of bullying. 

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Owen Cooper as Jamie is fabulous at his craft. He shows the right amount of restraint, emotions and apathy for the girl as he plays a teenager who acts upon his emotions of being called an incel. Incel is a label used for heterosexual men who are not only involuntarily celibate but who blame their lack of intimacy on women. He convinces you episode after episode that what he did was not wrong because he establishes his bubble of victim mentality and forces you to think from his perspective. The show explores the toxic influence of social media, masculinity, and systemic failures that led to the tragedy. But when you zoom out and look at the show, you realise its flaws.

Adolescence is slow

For starters, Adolescence is extremely slow. Each episode after the first is a drag. If you happen to watch it after eating a late-night dinner, like I did, there are chances you will doze off. The first episode lays down the framework for the show, establishing Jamie as a culprit, charged with murdering his classmate. There’s a sense of urgency. You can feel the panic of his parents on being summoned to the police station. As a mother, I was distraught at the thought because I felt there was not a chance a sweet-looking boy like Jamie could do what he was accused of. 

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Portions where you see police showing Jamie’s father all the evidence that points towards him as the culprit are good. Portions where Jamie loses his cool with his therapist while being in jail is good. But the show lacks its wow moments. The show deals with a very relevant topic with the internet being ubiquitous in our lives but sadly not once did it move me or shake me. The storytelling style was too bland for my taste. It failed to evoke a reaction. Possibly because it failed to tell the girl’s story. While the show kept establishing why it was okay for Jamie to do what he did or how easy it is to not suspect a non-adult person of committing such a heinous crime, it never once told us Katie’s story.

Adolescence is now a bigger hit with fans than Stranger Things and Bridgerton

We don't know Katie's story

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Katie is mentioned as a person who is not so affable, Jamie mentions how he didn’t like her but was ready to help her in her vulnerable state (after she became the butt of jokes when her nudes were shared in school), but you don’t get to see her or understand her perspective. Did she rebuke him and if so, why? Were they friends? Were they enemies? Did they ever hang out together? We have no answer to these questions. All we know about their equation or the lack of it is via Jamie’s gaze. Katie is devoid of agency and that’s the worst part about the show. I wanted to understand their dynamics with each other before being driven to the conclusion that Jamie is found guilty of murdering his classmate. 

I get it if the intention of the makers was to glorify the story of accuser and not the victim, opposite to how real-life crimes are reported but I would have loved to watch how Katie’s parents react to Jamie being tried for the murder of their child. Her parents would have humanised her more for the audience.

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Not worth the hype

So, in all honesty, I don’t get the hype behind Adolescence and it being the best of TV in the recent past. A slow burn can be equally engaging if the audience gets served something from time to time. It can lack pace but never integrity. Adolescence is great technically. More than 90 per cent of the show is shot inside a facade that looks like jail. I love the way it's shot and each of the actors deliver what they promise but it left me yearning for more. It was an average show on a troubling story which was executed well on technical grounds. The finale especially was a huge letdown for me. So, no, I don’t get the hype around it.