As someone who can more personally relate not only to Gadd's experience but feels empathy to both of the lead characters, I was shocked - but not surprised - by the turn of events you relate in this article. I'm less shocked because I've seen versions of this play out in so many stories on Peak TV where the wives of antiheroes - most notably Skyler White on Breaking Bad - are demonized and abused online for the cardinal sin of not letting these criminal, sociopathic monsters be the criminal sociopaths they have to potetntial to be. Every time I read an article along the lines of 'the most annoying characters in TV history', the overwhelming share of them are women in these kinds of series.

The mindset of the average the internet viewer is to look at the morally grey world of television and divide into binary. The viewer wacthed this show about a sick woman and decided that not only was she the villain of the piece, but because she was based on a real person to deserved public humiliation and villification. Given everything we see in our society, this was inevitable. I wish it weren't.