What was wrong with Jamie in Adolescence? Explained in depth

Adolescence on Netflix might just be the most intensely hard-hitting show of this year so far. The show is created by Stephen Graham along with Jack Thorne. Graham also stars as Eddie Miller, father of the teenager Jamie Miller who ends up murdering his female classmate, Katie.

While Adolescence begins with the astounding proposition that a thirteen-year-old teenager can't possibly stab and murder another classmate, it is revealed by the end of the first episode that Jamie did murder Katie as CCTV footage of the killing is shown to a disturbed Eddie. The impact that the footage has on Eddie doesn't seem to leave him till the end of the series.

Here's everything that we know about Jamie's motivation behind killing Katie.

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Jamie suffered from low self-esteem in Adolescence

Jamie might have come across as another regular teenager to his father Eddie on but there was a dark undertone to his adolescent years as was proved subsequently. As Jamie himself revealed to the psychologist Briony in the third episode, he first asked Katie out after a topless picture of her circulated on Snapchat. This was done by an estranged lover as a form of revenge porn.

Katie, however, turned Jamie down and responded to him openly on Instagram with emoticons mocking him. Jamie, by then, was deep into the incel culture, with incels being defined by the Anti-Defamation League as "heterosexual men who blame women and society for their lack of romantic success." Jamie was also significantly influenced by the "manosphere", an online rabbit hole that promotes toxic masculinity, hatred, and the like.

Coupled with his own feelings of being alienated, low self-esteem, and insult, Jamie decided to kill Katie as a form of revenge.

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Jack Thorne opens up about Adolescence

Thorne wrote and created the Netflix show alongside Graham. While speaking to Tudum, he opened up about the creative decision to let the audience know for sure that Jamie was the killer by the end of the first episode:

"We wanted to give the audience certainty and then go, ‘Now where do we go and how will this work?’ That was really exciting."

He also added:

"Telling a drama that’s a why-done-it, rather than a whodunit, hopefully engages people in different questions, questions like, ‘What’s going on within our teenage boys?’ Phil, Stephen, and I are looking at masculinity — thinking about ourselves as men, the kinds of fathers, partners, and friends we are, and questioning with some intensity who we are as people.”

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Adolescence is exclusively available on Netflix.