By Dustin Rowles | TV | March 14, 2025
Last week, I reviewed a Netflix limited series called Toxic Town, and this week, I’m reviewing another Netflix limited series, Adolescence. What they have in common is that they’re British; they each run four episodes; they come from the same writer, Jack Thorne, and they are decidedly not feel-good viewing.
I’ll also say that while Toxic Town is good television, Adolescence is next level—gripping, intense, and deeply unsettling. It’s a harrowing story about the aftermath of a 13-year-old boy murdering a classmate. Each episode unfolds in real-time using a one-shot style, which is occasionally distracting but mostly effective in capturing the emotional chaos of each moment.
The first episode is the most riveting, following two detectives as they arrest 13-year-old Jamie (Owen Cooper), who is so young and terrified that he wets his pajamas. For a brief moment, viewers might hold onto hope that this is a mystery—that the wrong kid has been arrested, that there’s no way someone this young and innocent-looking could have committed murder. His parents—Eddie (Stephen Graham) and Manda (Christine Tremarco)—certainly don’t believe it’s possible.
The series meticulously follows the entire process, from the arrest to booking to interrogation, with excruciating detail. The facts of the crime are kept from the parents (and the audience) until the gut-punch of a reveal. I don’t know how to describe just how authentic it feels, except to say that I spent the entire episode in the father’s shoes—wondering how I would react, what I would say, how I would handle it—right up until the moment his emotions rightfully take over.
The second episode takes place three days later at Jamie’s school, where detectives Bascombe (Ashley Walters) and DS Misha Frank (Faye Marsay) wade through the chaos of classrooms, trying to determine Jamie’s motive, locate the murder weapon, and uncover any possible conspirators. Bascombe’s son is also a student at the school, and at one point, he pulls his father aside to explain Jamie’s real motive—something obvious to everyone following social media, except for the detectives, who can’t decipher the meaning behind the emojis.
The third episode unfolds almost entirely in one room, seven months after Jamie’s arrest, as he meets with a therapist assessing his fitness for trial. The final episode jumps ahead 13 months after the murder, focusing on Jamie’s family as they attempt to pick up the pieces while grappling with their own guilt.
It is remarkable television, and I can’t say enough about the performances. Owen Cooper seamlessly vacillates between a sweet, lost boy and someone capable of terrifying violence. Ashley Walters is fantastic as a confident, self-assured detective who is nonetheless completely out of his depth. And Stephen Graham—Jesus Christ. The BAFTA TV Award committee might as well back up the truck. Graham, a familiar face to most television viewers, delivers a devastating performance as a working-class dad struggling to reconcile the son he raised with the crime he committed. He is crushing.
But it’s not just the stellar performances, the outstanding direction (all four episodes are helmed by Philip Barantini), or the riveting storytelling that makes Adolescence so powerful. There’s real substance here. Jamie isn’t just some random sociopath—he’s a byproduct of the culture, a barely-teen boy radicalized by the “manosphere.” But there’s a reason he was drawn into it. It’s a toxic mix of bullying, social isolation, and well-meaning but misguided parents who thought he was safer glued to his screens than out in the world.
This week, there was an interview with Anthony Mackie in which he discussed his approach to parenting his sons:
So, it is just that thing of in the past 20 years, we’ve been living through the death of the American male. They have literally killed masculinity in our homes, in our communities for one reason or another. But I raise my boys to be young men. And however you feel about that, you feel about that … Every time I left for a job, I tell my 15-year-old, ‘You’re the man of the house. You make sure these doors are locked. Every night this alarm is on. You text me or you call me every night before you go to bed and you wake up.’ I love that because we’re men.”
However one might feel about that—and I can certainly guess how most readers here will—it’s dangerous when a father glorifies masculinity while a son struggles to live up to it. The shame of falling short can fester, making boys susceptible to podcasters and influencers who stoke their impotent rage into something far more dangerous. That’s exactly what Adolescence seeks to depict. If there’s one takeaway from the series, it’s that it’s never too early to teach boys to see girls as people—not objects of desire, conquest, or resentment.
This is great television. Everyone should watch, but especially parents who have no idea what media their sons are consuming.
