We need to talk about Jamie Miller

Not since Lionel Shriver’s novel ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ has a work of fiction provided such a confronting and disturbing insight into the adolescent mind.

Netflix’s latest series,Adolescence shines a light on toxic masculinity and the role social media plays in shaping our young people.

Jamie Miller looks as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. He is clean cut, bright eyed, the picture of innocence – a boy barely out of childhood juxtaposed against the very confronting and confusing adult world of a forceful police raid.

He is taken from his family and processed by the police, enduring a strip search before being interrogated. The audience is left horrified by the way Jamie is treated and yet he is an assumed murderer of school friend, Katie Graham. Adult crime, adult treatment.

This highlights the fact that the internet has blurred the divide between children and adults. Children are now exposed to content and ideas that would once have been kept from them until they had the maturity to deal with it.

It is perhaps surprising that when Jamie is arrested it is his father, Eddie he wants with him. Clearly father and son have a strong connection. While it may be natural for a teenage boy to turn to his father rather than mother for support and advice it still feels strange that in this time of heightened emotion he turns to his father.

As further evidence is revealed, the viewer begins to question their real relationship. Does it perhaps speak of an underlying misogyny and the manosphere? Does Jamie believe his father will be easier to manipulate than his mother? Does he feel the man code will protect him? Is this father / son relationship a positive one, or one based on toxic masculinity, a world in which men have their own language, expectations and code?

This is further suggested by Detective Inspector, Luke Bascombe, who says that his son, Adam always calls him to ask for a day off school rather than his mother, seeing him as the soft touch. Given the obvious physical strength and masculinity of his father, (and the later awkwardness of their relationship), this seems quite surprising.

Jamie remains adamant throughout his police interview that he is innocent – even when confronted with video footage of the killing. His refusal to accept his part in the incident is horrifying, as if he can separate himself from the event. Perhaps, in his mind at least,  the Jamie who committed the killing is the on-screen persona rather than the real life version.

In episode two, Detective Inspector Bascombe and Detective Sargeant Frank visit Jamie and Katie’s school. Here the behaviour mirrors that of the prisoners in the cells at the police station. The halls ring with loud, obnoxious comments, anti-authoritarian attitudes and complete disdain for any rules, let alone any suggestion of learning. The weary teachers are doing all they can just to maintain some form of order and survive, frequently resorting to videos to hold their students’ attention. Welcome to the modern world of education.

Here the generation gap is all to obvious as the police and teachers try unsuccessfully to talk to the students and understand their world. It is DI Bascombe’s son, Adam who explains the hidden meanings in emojis, the incel movement, and the accompanying symbols such as the coloured pills that represent how deeply immersed you are in the ideology. It is clear that Bascombe and his son exist in parallel lives and that this conversation is an extremely rare – and awkward - occurrence. This scene could not fail to make any parent feel uncomfortable and wondering how oblivious they really are to their child’s life.

The interviews with the children’s friends reveal the trauma of adolescence, the lack of self-esteem, poor body image and confusion regarding personal identity and relationships. Katie’s friend Jade is devasted by her loss, believing Katie was the only person who ever really liked or understood her, or indeed ever will. Jamie’s friends, Charlie and Ryan refuse to talk to the police, engaging in a bro-code of secrecy and unity.

The third episode sees Jamie being interviewed by Briony Ariston a psychologist whose job it is to determine how mentally fit he is for trial. The young female psychiatrist seems to have a good rapport with Jamie, teasing him and getting him to engage in conversation with him. But it is not long before her questions begin to rile him as she starts to explore his relationships, his understanding of masculinity and his relationship with his father.

It seems ludicrous to be asking a thirteen-year-old about his sexual encounters, let alone for him to have decided that Katie’s rejection of his advances is evidence that he will die a virgin. Yet this is the world to which our young ones are exposed. Jamie’s hatred towards Katie is visceral, as he barely even acknowledges her as a person, just a ‘bitch’ who challenged his masculinity.

Jamie tells Briony that her questions are different from the other psychologist – a man - who asked ‘normal stuff’.  Whether it is caused by her style of questioning, her youth or his misogynistic attitudes, Jamie is soon triggered into an emotional and physical outburst, in which he intimidates her, causing her to end their sessions immediately. As Jamie is dragged from the room by a guard, he is furious and bangs on the windows in an effort to further exert his power. As he is finally pulled away he asks her to tell his dad he’s ‘Ok.’

The final episode clearly shows the impact Jamie’s actions have on his family. Eddie Miller’s van is vandalised by local boys who spray-paint the word ‘nonce’ in big yellow letters. The irony that this makes no sense, as the term applies to neither Jamie nor his father, highlights the lack of intellect or true motivation behind many acts of terrorism. Jamie’s sister, Lisa is a straight A student, quiet, well-behaved and level-headed, raising the old question of whether people are shaped by nature or nurture. Eddie and Manda try to salvage the day – Eddie’s 50^th birthday – by drawing on the advice of their counsellor, despite Eddie’s obvious lack of belief in the process. His encounter with the young vandals reveals a temper like his son, and answers many of Briony’s questions. On the way home Jamie rings his father from prison for his birthday and they engage in an extremely awkward conversation in which neither of them knows what to say. Jamie tells his father that he is going to change his plea to guilty. He is surprised to discover his mother, Manda and sister, Lisa are in the car, but almost dismisses them and returns his attention solely to his father.

Back at the house, Eddie and Manda finally talk about their son and question where they went wrong. Like many parents they thought they were doing the right thing in buying Jamie the computer he wanted. Yet they were clearly oblivious to what he was doing or seeing online. When Lisa wisely counsels her parents that moving will not solve their problems as they will always be connected to Jamie, Eddie asks his wife ‘How did we make her?’ to which she gives the heart-wrenching reply, ‘The same way we made him.’ In the final scene, Eddie goes into Jamie’s room for the first time in the 18 months he has been incarcerated. He holds his son’s teddy and tucks it into the bed, reinforcing the idea that this is the story of how modern society has failed an innocent little boy.