Adolescence Final Thoughts
It’s A Much Better Series Than I First Thought. The Majority Of My Original Criticisms Still Stand
I have now just finished the final episode of Adolescence and I have two things to say.
First, it is a much better series than I thought it was after the first episode. I still have overall criticisms with the style of the direction (I’ll come back to that) but in both Episode 2 and most critically Episode 3, I found it suited the mood of the story far more than in the first episode. During the second episode when the 2 DI’s go through the school that both Jamie and the victim attended and we the immediate aftermath of the murder just two days earlier, the constant motion of the camera works exceptionally well. It gives a big hint as to why so much of the tragedy took place: the school is unable to handle the moods of the student body, the teachers and counselors are helpless to control the children, violence and chaos are constantly breaking out and no one’s really learning anything. When DI Bascombe (Ashley Walters in the show’s best performance) finally learns the truth about the motive — from his son, ironically — it leads to one of the few genuinely moving moments in the series: when Bascombe takes his son out of school, tries to bond with him in a way he hasn’t to before, and the two go out for lunch together.
And to be clear episode 3 is everything that the critics do say it is. (That said, it’s still not as original as critics say and I’ll get to that as well.) The episode is essentially a two-handed job between Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) and his counselor Briony (Erin Doherty). We spend the majority of the episode not entirely sure what the purpose of this session is until the very end. Our attention is drawn to Jamie who keeps trying to deflect, keeps acting defensive whenever Briony tries to steer the conversation back a certain way and repeatedly explodes when he thinks he’s being pushed. Doherty’s performance is a masterpiece in understatement as she spends the entire session completely neutral and remaining detached throughout the entire session. It’s not until the episode is nearly over that she finally gets to the details of the crime and it’s not clear if Jamie accepts culpability then. Finally when she tells him that this is their final session and that she’s told him that she knows he understands the consequences of his actions and that she recommends he get treatment. Jamie’s mood changes again and he becomes undone — its clear that he felt very deeply for her before he is dragged from the room. The final minutes where Briony remains still and then lets how deeply this experience has affected her is extremely powerful and is deserving of the awards nominations it will get.
So I will agree that the performances in Adolescence are superb — not just Cooper and Doherty’s but also Walters — and that the writing is extremely well done. But that all said I’m still compelled to stand by my original thesis after seeing the first episode. The fact that this is a well written, acting and directed series doesn’t change the fact it’s still overrated by critics and while I can recommend it for Emmy nominations for many of the performers I will not be ranking it among my ten best shows of 2025 nor can I in good conscience consider it the Best Limited Series even though it has already won several awards and will likely win the Emmy.
Let’s start with the basic fallacy that seems to have escaped so many reviewers: this is not a show that has to deal with incels in the traditional sense. It is a show about bullying, both in person and on social media and it is clear Jamie does have the models of an incel at thirteen, considering some of the things he says in his session with Briony. But as Walters explains to his son Jamie is already twelve and is supposed to be voluntarily celibate. Now I’ll grant you he does lie about certain sexual behaviors to Briony and I’ll argue this is troubling. But this does a disservice to the fact that this Adolescence is very much a series about how bullying has gone online in the 21st century in a way that has become impossible to escape.
Yes Jamie has no doubt been radicalized by exposure to online chatter. But so has Katie, who has gone out of her way to socially attack Jamie in a very real sense. And the bullying does cut both ways as we see in a shocking sequence during the second episode when one of Katie’s friends spots someone she suspects (correctly) or being an accomplish and beats him to a pulp in full view of the student body and the teachers. That student is immediately shamed on social media for being beat up by a girl (derogatory terms for both gender and race are used). It’s also clear that student is raised by a single mother who may very well be abusive herself given the student’s fear of her.
Had Graham and Thorne chosen to make Adolescence really about the title subject and delved into the world of Jamie’s classmates and the world he lived in; it might have been far more powerful. Much of Jamie’s character has been built by his environment and a world where he has been bullied immensely and has few friends to associate with. And the writers do make it clear that even after something horrendous happened to Katie that caused Jamie to approach her, she still chose to act in a way that was truly shameful herself. It doesn’t excuse Jamie nor does it mean Katie’s responsible for what happened but at the very least following this avenue would have made for interesting drama itself.
The problem is Adolescence, for all the technical aspects of its direction, uses it a very limited way. We don’t really spend much time with any one character for long enough in each episode to get a handle on what’s happening: Episode 1 deals with the arrest; Episode 2 deals with the investigation at the school; Episode 3 takes place several months later when they’re going through the details of the hearing and Episode 4 takes place months later when Jamie decides to finally change his plea to guilty. And by the method of direction that Graham and his creators have chosen we don’t get enough of a view of any one character so we get a hold on what motivates them. Jamie comes across the clearest but we only see him in one session and we don’t know what motivated him to change his plea at the end of the day. We leave Walters behind after the second episode when his job in the investigation is over and we only spend time with the Miller family proper in the final episode, when all of the effects of the murder and the trial are hitting them.
And the thing is for all the power of individual segments; there’s really nothing new here from the perspective of an American audience. For all the real power of Graham’s work in the final episode when its clear everybody’s trying to move on, when he has to deal with the graffiti on his car, when he finally talks with his wife and tries to understand what happens, at the end of the day they have no answers. And I really do feel that so much of the praise for Adolescence is out of the technical aspects and the modern twists of the subject.
Let’s not kid ourselves: there are no more answers waiting at the end of Adolescence for the parents then all of the parents who are left when children around Jamie’s age or older shoot up a school in America. The Miller parents are trying to figure out what they did wrong, how they let down their son, could they have done more. All that’s different is the method really, there’s no insight at the end to make this more deserving of praise than the most recent season of Monsters.
Indeed the comparison to that show is completely fitting, especially considering that ‘The Hurt Man’ episode was one of the most highly regarded episodes of 2024. It also involves a single shot taking place in a prison, also involves a prisoner relating experiences of his childhood to a female listener (Lyle’s attorney in this case) and it also gives in a sense a defense of what happens. What’s the difference between ‘The Hurt Man’ episode of Monsters and ‘Episode 3 of Adolescence? About twenty-five minutes, honestly. That may seem a glib response but at a basic level, one is the story of a fictional murderer giving a confession and one is about a real life one giving a fictionalized one. So why was Adolescence universally raved about for its authenticity but there was more controversy about the story of Lyle and Erik Menendez?
I really do think it has to do more with the way Adolescence was shot more than anything else. And even though it did work more in some episodes than others, I’m still left with the question I had at the end of the first episode: was it necessary? More importantly, couldn’t this story have been told more effectively if was told in a traditional way? Would that have allowed us to see more insight into what happened and why? Could we have gotten a fuller picture of Jamie and the world he lived in? Would we have been able to understand better?
And not to entirely change the subject, how is the basic story any different from any of so many ‘derogatory’ true crime dramas I’ve been watching for over a decade? This is still a story that focuses on the killer, why he did this and the effects it has on his family. We see nothing of Katie, her family and almost nothing on her friends. We’re told this death devastated the community and yet the third and fourth episode are still about the effects the crime has on the killer and his family. We learn more about Kitty and Jose Menendez in Monsters and honestly come away with more sympathy for them and far less for Erik and Lyle by the end of it. For all the radical things Adolescence might do with style, there’s nothing in its basic premise that’s any different from any of the stories Ryan Murphy’s told over the years.
I have already been told by two people whose opinions I value that by looking at Adolescence strictly by a critical lens rather than by the psychological one, I’m missing the forest for the trees. They have a point but focusing on the details is one of the things that a good critic is supposed to do. And the fact is I do think so much of the approval for Adolescence does fall under the category of the ‘bravery’ of its subject matter rather than its overall quality.
And having watched so much superb television over my lifetime — and in the past decade so many incredible limited series — I’ve seen a lot of great limited series deal with so many powerful issues while never going out of their way to demand attention the way Adolescence does. So far this decade I’ve seen limited series as different as Fellow Travelers, Wandavision, Baby Reindeer and Beef deal with some truly realistic and real life issues without ever drawing attention to themselves or forgetting to be entertaining. Adolescence by contrast has the behavior of the kind of film that the Oscars give nominations and awards to more for ‘bravery’ then entertainment. I mentioned Nickel Boys in my first review but I could just as easily add Emilia Perez, Women Talking and CODA. I’m not denying some of these weren’t good films but they were recognized by the Oscars because they were ‘serious’. To this point the Emmys have mostly chosen to ignore given nominations and awards to limited series that were more about making a statement than being entertaining. I’m not wild about that becoming a precedent.
As I said I do think Adolescence is a very good show and that members of its cast do deserve nominations and maybe an award or two. But if it wins Best Limited Series at the Emmys over The Penguin, Dying for Sex or Monsters, I’m not going to be thrilled about it. It’s a ‘powerful limited series’, to be sure but that doesn’t mean it deserves to be considered the best of they year. I hope my readers understand why I make that distinction.
My score: 3.75 stars.