Adolescense (2025): A Warning Hidden in Plain Sight

 In April of this year, the show Adolescence released on Netflix.  The show was written by Stephen Graham when he started to see the rise in violent attacks among young boys in Britian.  The show - while disturbing - shares a message that many people still ignore, even when the evidence is right infront of them.  Join me today as I tell you about the finer details in the show and what it all meant.  

A summary

The show consists of 4 episodes, each being around an hour long.  One of the aspects that makes Adolescense special is that each episode is one long scene, which helps to bring across the feeling of being trapped.  Because of each episode being one long shot, you can't help but feel like your intruding on something that was meant to stay behind closed doors.  

The show follows a family after their youngest son, Jamie Miller (played by Owen Cooper), was arrested for the murder of a girl at his school.  In the first episode we see Jamie being arrested and going through the normal police procedures and how his family reacts to the information.  By the end of episode one it is already confirmed via CCTV footage that Jamie commited the murders.  The footage is shown to Jamie and his dad, who bursted out in tears when he saw it.  

Episode two follows police detective Luke Bascombe and his partner, Misha Frank going to the school that Jamie went to.  There, they conduct some interviews with students to try and find a motive and where the weapon could be.  At the school we can also see how little control the teachers have over the students.  Later on, Bascombe's son (who also goes to that school) tells him that Jamie was cyberbullied by the girl who he killed, because she replied to an Instagram comment Jamie made on a post of a supermodel with emoji's that alluded to her calling Jamie an incel.  Keep that in mind for later.  At the end of the episode, Bascombe tries to talk with one of Jamie's friends again, but he runs off and Bascombe chases after him until he is subsequently caught.  The reason he ran is because he gave the murder weapon to Jamie under the pretence that he was only going to scare her with it.  Bascombe, after seeing how the boys in the school acted, decided that he wanted to be more involved in his son's life and invites him for some fish and chips after school. 

I am going to skip most of episode three for now, because my next section will reference it endlessly, so just to give it's premises, Jamie is interviewed by forensic psychologist Briony Ariston and some of his darker sides shine through in this episode.  

Episode four is in my opinion the most impactful of all the episodes.  It follows Jamie's family a year after the murder as they try and return to normalcy.  It also takes place on Eddie's 50th birthday, but the day is spoiled when they see that two teenagers spray-painted the word "nonce" on his van (and I had a  akward conversation explaining to my mom what a nonce is).  They then decided to drive to a hardware store to get some paint for his van.  At the shop, one of the workers there recognises Eddie and tells him that he and others online support Jamie and his actions and that they would be willing to pay for his legal endevours- keep that in mind for later.  When they exit the store, Eddie sees one of the boys who vandalized his van.  He chases him down and threatens him to stay away from his family.  In rage Eddie throws the paint wildly onto his van before driving back home.  The final nail in the coffin is when he gets a call from Jamie telling him that he will plead guilty.  The final gutwrenching moments of the show follows Eddie and his wife, Manda, talking about what could have gone wrong with Jamie.  Eddie then walks into Jamies bedroom and tucks his teddy-bear into bed while crying and saying sorry that he didn't do better.  

Deeper meaning of the show

Adolescense isn't a show about who commited the murder, it is a show about what happens after it and to the people affected by it.  We can see throughout episode one, two and four how the people in and around Jamie's life was affected by the murder.  His parents are obviously filled with guilt and regret, while the girl he murdered's friend is filled with anger and hatred for Jamie.  In the show we learn that Eddie's father was very abusive to him, so he promised himself that he would never lay a finger on Jamie.  While doing so he was also never emotionally present when Jamie did anything wrong.  We learn in the show that when Eddie wanted Jamie to play soccer and went to one of his matches, he looked away in shame when Jamie made a mistake while the other fathers was laughing at him.

In episode three of the show we learn much more about how Jamie thinks and operates.  We see in the episode that he constantly teases the psychologist, that then eventually leads to Jamie disrespecting and belittling her.  There we see that Jamie has a quite negative view towards woman and that he was most likely influenced to think that way through outside forces, one of which is directly called out in the show, Andrew Tate.

For those who don't know, Andrew Tate is an influencer who skyrocketed in popularity in mid to late 2022.  His content mainly consisted of him spewing misogynistic viewpoints and his "advice" to young men on how to be more "masculine".  Yes, the guy who managed multiple cam girls wanted to tell young men how to be more "masculine" - I think you can see why he is a negative influence.  Later on his popularity seemed to die down after he made a lot of money from selling his "Hustler's University" course online.  Tate is only one of the many places online where people (especially young men) get sucked into the alt-right pipeline.  In a previous blog post I stated that this is not a political blog, but this point can not be ignored when talking about this show.  

In the show we also see how Jamie values his father and other males above his mother, because every time he asked for someone in episode one, he kept asking for his dad.  Also, in episode four he tells his dad that he will plead guilty, not his mom. 

The internet is full of people who want to take advantage of uninformed and misguided people.  Many young men who didn't have a father or a father figure in their lives turned to Andrew Tate and decided to listen and follow what he said.  You also don't have to go far on the internet to find these types of individuals.  You can simply open up Instagram and scroll a bit and you'll most likely find a video that has extremist views in it.  This point is referenced in episode 4 where the store's worker tells Eddie that there are people online who will defend Jamie and his actions.  The internet isn't and was never a safe place for children to be without parental supervision and I feel like people today forget that fact a lot.  

In Conclusion...

I think that Adolescense is a show that should be shown in every school around the globe.  The show's message is now more relevant than ever before and I feel like people should be more informed about how big of an effect the internet has on the world today.  I am also very glad to announce that the actor of Jamie, Owen Cooper, won an Emmy for his role at just 14 years old. 

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post, I wanted to write about Adolescense for a while now and I'm glad that I finally have.  If you enjoyed this post, please consider following my blog so that you will be notified when I post again.  Until next time, goodbye!