Adolescence spoilers ahead.
At first glance, Adolescence feels like just another Netflix crime series — a gritty, gruelling tale of a small-town murder filled with dysfunctional families, brow-beaten cops, and a twisting, turning mystery. But pretty soon, it becomes crystal clear that Adolescence is something very, very different.
Co-created by writer Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, who also gives a heart-wrenching performance in the show, Adolescence is told in four hour-long segments, each filmed in continuous one-shots that grip your attention and hold it until the credits roll. We follow the story of Jamie, a 13-year-old boy from a small town in Yorkshire, who is accused of murdering a fellow classmate, Katie. As investigations into the crime begin, it becomes more and more clear that the adults in Jamie's life didn't really know him at all — and, perhaps even more unsettling, that they barely understand any of the children in his generation.
It's safe to say that everyone is talking about this show. After all, it's groundbreaking, both in form and in content. One question you may have though is did Jamie kill Katie?
It's the Netflix show that everyone is talking about.
Did Jamie kill Katie in Adolescence?
What is somewhat fascinating about the show is that, unlike most crime dramas, the creators don't seem to be very interested in this question. In fact, they answer it within the first episode: yes, Jamie committed the crime. And the police have pretty concrete evidence to prove it. In their first interview with Jamie and his dad, Eddie (played by Graham), they reveal that they have CCTV footage of Katie walking in a parking lot. Jamie then follows her and stabs her seven times, leaving her body where it is later found and pronounced dead. It's horrifying and categorically damning.
Jamie goes on to admit to the crime several times throughout the series and ultimately tells his father he plans on pleading guilty in his trial.
So, yes, Jamie did it. And what is so interesting is that Graham and Thorne have no interest in hiding that from their viewers — instead, they are more interested in the question of why.
“This show is about having the conversation, whether it's with your kid, with your friend, with your auntie, with your therapist, whatever. Let's just talk.”
Why did Jamie commit the crime in Adolescence?
This is the question that interests the series creators — and it's also the question that we'll all be talking about for months and possibly even years to come. (Yes, the show is that good.) The real thing we need to be asking ourselves is why did Jamie do it. After all, the show may tell a fictional story, but it's based on numerous real cases in the UK involving teen boys killing teen girls.
As Graham explained to Netflix's Tudum, he was inspired to create the show after seeing the disturbing trend. “There was an incident where a young boy [allegedly] stabbed a girl,” Graham said. “It shocked me. I was thinking, ‘What’s going on? What’s happening in society where a boy stabs a girl to death? What’s the inciting incident here?’ And then it happened again, and it happened again, and it happened again. I really just wanted to shine a light on it, and ask, ‘Why is this happening today? What’s going on? How have we come to this?’ ”
These are the terrifying questions the show encourages us to dig into for ourselves — and it doesn't try to pretend it can answer them. “I sat in a room with Jack [Thorne], and I heard him say it so brilliantly,” Erin Doherty, who plays Jamie's psychologist in the show, recently told us. “The show isn't there to provide answers, it's just to ask the questions and actually to shine a light on something that, as you've touched on, is so necessary and quite scary… and what else can we do? But actually just look at it and go, look, this is really, really scary and terrifying. But it's our jobs, for our younger generation, it's our job to bite the bullet and just lean into the fear. Because hopefully through those questions we'll get to some level of clarity.”
The truth behind Netflix's unsettling tale.
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