A show that focuses on why a 13-year-old boy killed his classmate, but not who killed a young 13-year-old girl.
Netflix has once again captured audiences’ attention with its new series, recently added called “Adolescence,” An exploration of multiple challenges faced by today’s youth. In this show, the creators dive deep into societal issues that many teens face. This show offers a narrative that is both relatable and enlightening to today’s youth. From mental health issues to struggling with finding their identity, forming relationships, and social pressures, this series tackles the complexities of growing up in a world that seems overwhelming to society.
The Netflix Original Series was released on March 13, 2025, and it consists of 4 episodes. The show takes place in the United Kingdom, in a small town. The first episode starts with the police raiding a house and looking for a boy named Jamie Miller, who is only thirteen years old and has been accused of murder. Jamie is suspected of having stabbed his classmate Katie to death. Through the first and second episodes, he claims to be innocent and keeps repeating, “I didn’t do it”, but during the investigation, the detective confronts him with the evidence against him, clearly showcasing that he murdered Katie.
One of the most solid pieces of evidence against him is CCTV footage that shows Jamie stabbing Katie four times in an isolated parking lot. Having concrete evidence against Jamie, the detective needs to find the motive behind the murder, and Jamie won’t reveal it. The detective goes into Jamie’s school to talk to Jamie and Katie’s friends, teachers, and classmates to figure out what happened. The visit to the school revealed many issues with the school system and how social media affects students. The next few episodes show how Jamie’s actions affected his family, who have done nothing wrong, and Jamie also talks to a psychiatrist, which reveals his true identity underneath the innocent 13-year-old boy. This show is not a who-done-it mystery, but it begs the question, why did it happen
Societal issues the show highlights
In society, men are traditionally expected to be stronger and dominant and are entitled to sexual intercourse with a woman and aggressiveness. The show showcases this when Jamie thinks he could take advantage of Katie when she is vulnerable, and he asks her out, but when she rejects him, he gets extremely upset. Later on the show, Jamie also states that he could have touched Katie anywhere he wanted after he killed her, but he didn’t, even though he could and wanted to touch her. Jamie believes that not touching Katie inappropriately, when any other boy would have, makes him a better person.
Jamie would often spend most of his time on his computer and social media. Jamie was exposed to toxic and misogynistic influencers like Andrew Tate, who degrades women online and believes that men are above women. This influenced Jamie to believe that Katie had no right to reject him because he is above viewer on TikTok expressed that they believe that bullying does not give anyone the right to brutally murder someone, and some believe that Katie was not bullying Jamie because she only made one comment after Jamie tried to use her weakness against her. Jamie was also bullied worse by boys in his school, but he went after the girl who just rejected him. Jamie also tried to intimidate the female psychiatrist who was trying to understand him. It can be seen that Jamie was a misogynist. The show highlights that many young boys today have that mindset due to societal norms and social media. Another societal Issue is parents not knowing what is going on with their kids and trying to help them. Jamie’s parents noticed that Jamie was isolated and would just be on his computer all day, but they never tried reaching out to Jamie.
The show gained a lot of attention online, especially from teenagers. The teenagers who watched the show seem to understand the true meaning behind the show and are praising it for the Adolescence team for shedding light on it.
