[Warning: This review may have what could be considered spoilers about the series]
Adolescence debuted on Netflix on March 13, 2025, and just five weeks since its release, it has earned the No. 3 spot on the platform’s Most Popular English TV List, falling just behind Stranger Things season 4 and Wednesday season 1.
By April 9, Deadline reported that a second season was already in talks.
The first episode starts with a bang. 13-year-old boy, Jamie Miller (played brilliantly by new actor Owen Cooper), is being escorted from his home. He’s just a boy, and even sleeps with a teddy bear in his bed. He is the picture of boyish innocence and appears terrified as the police invade his space.
Jamie has been accused of brutally murdering his female classmate, Katie.
As I watched, I kept telling myself that there had to have been some mistake. I truly, initially believed the show was going to follow the young boy’s journey to regaining innocence in the courtroom. And as they tore Jamie from his home, I grieved with him, I felt for him, and wanted to side with him.
By the end of episode one, I can confidently say my feelings did a complete 180. Adolescence is bold, disturbing, and necessary. In my opinion, it is one of Netflix’s best limited series yet next to the complex and nuanced Baby Reindeer.
What makes the production of the series uniquely its own is the fact that each fifty-minute episode is done in one continuous shot. This means that once the camera starts rolling at the start of the episode, it doesn’t stop until the end. The viewer is completely immersed in the crime scene and feels as though they are moving right alongside its characters in real time. It makes for an immersive, stress-inducing viewing experience that I have not found in any other television series. This style of filmmaking is incredibly uncommon, but it aids in visual storytelling by making the events feel all the more real.
I was particularly impressed when, in the first episode, the police officer noted that Miller’s arrest occurred around twenty minutes ago. Checking my watch time at that moment, I found that I had started the episode about twenty minutes ago. I was watching the crime scene in real time.
As the plot of Adolescence progresses, more and more details from the murder are revealed and Jamie Miller’s true character comes to light. Like most children today, Jamie has unsupervised access to the internet. This access leads to him being exposed to a number of sources that brew misogyny and violence. Entities such as Andrew Tate and The Red Pill podcast are name-dropped specifically, and it’s clear that the series knows exactly what it’s doing and what it wants to say.
At its core, Adolescence isn’t just a warning or a unique true crime scenario. It’s a reminder of what’s already here and plaguing our society.
The head police officer on the case, D.I. Luke Bascombe (played wonderfully by Ashley Walters), tries desperately to get information out of Jamie’s classmates and social media platforms. Failing to understand what the comments on Jamie’s Instagram posts mean, he has an epiphany when his son tells him the meaning of the commented word “incel” alongside the meaning of dozens of emojis.
“It’s not going well because you’re not getting it,” his son emphasizes. “You’re not reading what they’re doing, what’s happening.”
The officer’s son, Adam, proceeds to explain to his dad the meanings behind each of the emojis left in the comments on Jamie’s Instagram. It feels like a moment pulled from the reality of GenZ trying desperately to get their parents to understand modern teenage culture, but what Adam reveals is much darker than what you may expect.
He points out the red pill emoji, which means “I see the truth,”. This relates to mantras passed off as factual in The Red Pill podcast, such as the untrue statistic that 80% of women are only attracted to 20% of men. Furthermore, another secret meaning is represented by the “100” emoji, which relates to this 80/20 fictional statistic and the idea that men believe women need to be tricked in order to pursue romantic relations with them.
Adam points out the dynamite emoji that the murdered girl, Katie, had been leaving on Jamie’s Instagram. His father assumes it was friendly, but Adam explains to him that this emoji stands for being an “incel”, slang for someone who is involuntarily celibate. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the definition of incels are a group of “heterosexual men who blame women and society for their lack of romantic success”.
It is a stomach-dropping feeling hearing the double-meaning behind each seemingly innocent emoji as the truth is slowly unraveled: Jamie has been radicalized by misogynists all over the internet. While he may look innocent on the surface, like these emojis, he has been deeply corrupted to the point where he sees murdering a girl as a viable option to sorting through his own anger.
In a time where anyone can put out media and amplify their thoughts, harmful material such as ‘red pill’ and misogynistic content can easily spread. In the era of iPad kids and the digital age, these thoughts can infiltrate and brainwash the minds of the youth irreversibly.
The final moments of Adolescence involve Jamie’s father (played by Stephen Graham) going into his son’s deserted room months after his arrest. He sits on Jamie’s bed, and begins to cry. His emotions are clear. He’s confused how he could possibly raise a murderer, how this could all happen, and what exactly he did wrong as a father.
He takes his son’s teddy bear and tucks it into bed, symbolically putting his boy’s innocence to rest.