Adolescence (The Miniseries) Three Takeaways from This Brilliant, Gritty Why-Done-It

Have you seen Adolescence? That’s the beginning of most conversations I’ve had since this four-part British miniseries was released by Netflix on March 13^th.

It’s no wonder. Adolescence has been a runaway hit because it has everything going for it. It’s a crime story where a youngish-seeming, innocent-looking thirteen-year-old boy, Jamie, is accused of stabbing a classmate, Katie, to death. It features giftedly realistic actors and even more realistic one-shot filming, where you literally feel present—uncomfortably present—in real-time as the action moves from scene to scene. In Episode 2, for example, the camera follows the movement from the long corridors and classrooms of the school to the memorial erected at the stabbing site.

A Why-Done-It

It's not a who-done-it. The events leading to the stabbing and the stabbing itself are captured on multiple surveillance cameras. A detective inspector and police sergeant arrest Jamie hours later.

The power of this miniseries rests in the unyielding search for causes—a why-done-it. Why did this happen? And more deeply, for those with teenagers or soon-to-be teenagers in our lives, how can we prevent this from happening to us?

The truly best part of the miniseries is that there are no simple answers. It would be easy to blame the “teenage-brain-made-him-do-it, or his parents, or the school, or the kid culture/social media/manosphere and its misogyny, or the community. I’ve read reviews where people do blame each of these, but I believe that the series creators purposefully made the drama more complex so we couldn’t stop thinking about it, talking about it with our families, and seeking deeper answers. They’ve said so in interviews—they hoped that we would see all of these causes together—and more.

The Teenage Brain As Cause

Let’s begin with the teenage-brain argument. The detective inspector visiting Jamie’s school makes that exact point in Episode 2. There’s even a wonderful scene in Episode 4 that contrasts Jamie’s parents at thirteen—taking risks, being laughed at, called names that stuck, and seeking romance. But without the compounding pressures of the Internet and a more toxic culture around gender roles today, his parents emerge from these experiences, relatively unscathed.

If the series had built a case around the teenage brain as the cause, it would have been most upsetting to me. I have spent the year since my book, The Breakthrough Years was published arguing from very solid data that the teenage brain should not be viewed without the context in the picture. The environments that kids are in affect their behavior. Period.

The Parents as Cause

Then there’s the parents. Throughout my life, I’ve seen the parent-blame game used most frequently. Yes, all of the parents in the miniseries don’t understand their own kids and the kid culture today. The detective inspector had to be schooled by his son about what Katie was really saying to Jamie in the emojis she posted online about him. In Episode 4, Jamie’s parents, Eddie and Manda, also admit that they didn’t pay enough attention to what Jamie was doing online in the middle of the night, night after night. But they really do care, and you can see that throughout the series in Jamie’s relationship with his parents, especially his father.

The School As Cause

There’s the school too. We’re told that it smells awful, like schools do, and it certainly looks like the schools of our nightmares—endless corridors, well-meaning but hapless teachers who run roughshod over the kids and yell a lot. It seems no kid gets out without scars. They’re stereotyped for not fitting the ideal—girls and boys alike. Even the detective inspector’s son appears to be bullied. But again, the schools are trying.

The Community and Culture as Cause

All of the action takes place in and is deeply affected by the larger community. Adults call each other “love,” but there is little real love in these community relationships. Neighborhood teenagers paint graffiti on Eddie’s van, adult neighbors and clerks in the store gawk at and gossip about Jamie’s family, and professionals bumble along, trying to be professional but failing short.

These real-life relationships are infected by the hatred in the culture, which is amplified online. The fractured and uneasy culture takes the normal angst of the teen years and twists it so that a boy/girl rejection becomes unbearable—filtered through the 80/20 rule where a boy like Jamie is accused of being an incel (involuntary celibate) forever because he isn’t in the 20 percent who are attractive to girls, and a girl like Katie doesn’t matter, even when she’s been murdered.

But there are clues in this why-done-it that can be seen as beacons of hope—and these are my takeaways.

Takeaway 1: Find Something to Genuinely Like About The Children In Your Lives

In Episode 3, Jamie meets with a psychologist who is providing a second evaluation for his trial. She tries too—bringing Jamie hot chocolate with sprinkles and a homemade sandwich—but her feelings belie her. In every interaction she makes it perfectly clear that she doesn’t like Jamie. She sees no good in him. And the more she does this, the more menacing and tempestuous Jamie becomes. The scene ends with Jamie asking, yelling, pleading, “Do you like me?”

I found this episode horrible to watch. Their interactions didn’t feel like the collective failures that infused most of the other characters in the series. If a professional can’t connect with a person, even a person who has committed murder, even in an evaluation, there is little chance that evaluation can be truly helpful.

Similarly painful to watch was Jamie’s retelling of a story from his younger days. His father had taken him to play football but Jamie wasn’t sporty and he didn’t do well. His father didn’t hit him, didn’t criticize him, but looked away with shame. It wasn’t enough that Jamie loved to draw; he needed to conform to society’s ideas of what being male is.

My takeaway. If we want to help kids succeed or be rehabilitated, whether we’re professionals or parents, we have to connect with them—genuinely connect with who they are—because young people can tell the difference and everything else rests on this.

#Takeway 2: Be A Helper.

In this miniseries, there are helpers. Mostly they are off-screen so we can’t judge them in action but they are there. Jamie has people to talk to in his detention center and he is able to draw there, something he does well and can be proud of. Eddie and Manda have a therapist who seems to be helping them not blame themselves and adjust to their new unthinkable realities.

Takeaway 3: Ask the Children

When the adults ask the children in ways that makes them want to talk, they will tell us like it is; they will help us see what we haven’t been able to see; they will even tell us what they need. Asking the children has been a focus of my life’s work, so I loved a media quote from Stephen Graham, a creator of the show and the actor who plays Eddie:

The biggest answer is let them talk, or find a way to get them talking, or get inside what they’re worrying about. Then maybe, maybe you can release some stuff that can allow you to help them.

If each of us can find takeaways—new ways of seeing, paying attention and helping from this miniseries, it will be well worth all of the buzz around it.

I'm so grateful you're reading Research to Thrive By on Substack! My book, The Breakthrough Years is available for purchase here.