Adolescence has taken the world by storm. It has already topped the streaming charts in the UK. The show has become a hot topic of discussion.
From the beginning itself we are thrown into confusion. The show opens with the police storming a house and arresting 13-year-old Jamie Miller. At this point we have no idea what's going on. We have no context. Who is Jamie? What crime has he committed? Why is he being taken away?
But this ambiguity is deliberate. This is what makes things interesting and pulls us into a tense guessing game. Perhaps it's a case of mistaken identity, and it's only a matter of time until new evidence comes to light and the boy is released?
But nothing of that sort happens. Adolescence instead gives us a psychological drama unlike anything we've seen before. Every revelation feels like a gut punch.
But how was the complex character of Jamie created? According to co-creator Jack Thorne, to create Jamie Miller, he had to try an unorthodox approach. Let's get to know what he had to do to understand the darkest corners of adolescent behavior.
Disclaimer: This article reflects the author's opinions. Reader discretion is advised.
Adolescence: What really went into building Jamie?
It's easy to think Adolescence is a classic whodunit at the beginning. But as we watch it, we come to realize just how deep it is. It develops into a psychological thriller that just blatantly peels back the layers of modern masculinity. It does not shy away from focusing on online radicalization and the dangers of it.
Just like the characters of the show, we are blindsided by the unsettling truths. We feel that slow descent into darkness as we wonder why Jamie Miller did what he did. We slowly begin to understand the toxic subcultures he was drawn into. And of course the impact of online bullying, to top it all.
The tense chess match of words in Adolescence Episode 3 finally shows us Jamie’s hidden self. We see his sudden mood swings and his fleeting willingness to open up. Also, his sudden bursts of anger make things very apparent.
In an interview with CNN, the show’s co-creator, Jack Thorne, was asked what went into creating Jamie, and he replied,
"Looking in a lot of dark corners, so Reddit and 4chan, and then changing my algorithm. I had a lot of burner accounts on all the big social media platforms, and I started following the obvious people. The obvious people took me to the less obvious people, and the less obvious people were the ones that I found really interesting."
Thorne further continued,
"No 13-year-old really is consuming Andrew Tate. What they are consuming is someone that’s really into gaming or TV shows or music, who has consumed Andrew Tate and is now espousing it in a different way. That level of the waterfall was the level I concentrated on as I was trying to find the people that had helped build Jamie."
The level of research that went into the making of Adolescence tells us just how serious the creators were in getting across their message.
Adolescence: Confronting the uncomfortable truths
At the start of Adolescence we are like, could a 13-year-old be responsible for such a crime? Just like Jamie’s father, we find ourselves clinging to the hope that it’s all a mistake. Even when a video surfaces showing Jamie in the act, we're still doubtful. We want to think it's manipulated.
But as we keep watching, we just can't ignore the truth. Then in Episode 3 we see glimpses of his deep-seated misogyny. We see the scars of his bullying. We also see the toxic ideologies that took root through the internet.
Jack Thorne shares in his CNN interview:
"There’s that phrase, “it takes a village to raise a child.” It also takes a village to destroy a child, and Jamie has been destroyed."
Explaining what caused this violent twist in Jamie, he stated,
"He’s being destroyed by a school system that’s not helping him. He’s been destroyed by parents that are not really seeing him. He’s been destroyed by friends that maybe don’t reach him in the way that he needs to be reached. He’s been destroyed by his own brain chemistry, and he’s been destroyed by the ideas that he’s consumed. All these different elements are in play here."
This theme runs throughout Adolescence. Especially when DI Luke Bascombe and DS Misha Frank visit Jamie’s school. Misha straight up tells that she hates schools.
And well, it's easy to see why. The environment is chaotic there with students who do not respect the system at all. They do not benefit from it either. It’s a place that fails them all. And that includes Jamie.
Thorne elaborates further:
"We always said, “This isn’t a whodunnit, but a whydunnit.” That’s why we go to the school in episode two, because if we hadn’t seen the education system, we wouldn’t have understood him properly. If we hadn’t seen the way that his peers operate, we wouldn’t have understood him properly. In episode three, we’re trying to understand the way that his brain works and what he’s processed."
He added,
"Then in episode four, we’re in almost the most complicated place. We’re not going to make it easy to blame the parents for everything, but they are partially responsible here. What do they do with that question of responsibility, and how much responsibility should they take?"
This question of responsibility stays long after Adolescence ends. In the final episode we see Jamie’s parents dealing with an unbearable reality, undeniably wondering, where did they go wrong? Should they have monitored his internet usage? Checked in when he locked himself in his room for hours?
The guilt weighs heavily on them in Adolescence . They realize too late that they might have been able to intervene.
Adolescence refuses to give us easy answers. It instead gives us a tragedy that is born from neglect, social failure, and the undercurrents of the online world.
In doing so, it becomes one of Netflix’s most haunting and necessary psychological dramas in recent years.
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