Note: As the title indicates, this podcast contains spoilers galore.Įmail us at production by Rosemary Belson. Does Arabella regain her full memories of her sexual assault? Will she be able to finish her book? Will she accept the help from another acquaintance who she believes to have raped her? How does she use fantasy to imagine a better resolution for herself than reality can give her? The series follows her as she works through the aftermath of her assault. Coel covers consent, rape, friendship, and empathy, in a complex, yet compelling, way that really humanizes Arabella.Īrabella is a young writer and influencer working on her second book when her drink was drugged and raped while at a bar in London. Besides writing and producing the show, she directed many episodes and plays the main character, Arabella Essiedu. Michaela Coel is at the heart of this series. This week, Slate’s television critic Willa Paskin is joined by Vulture staff writer Angelica Jade Bastién to spoil I May Destroy You. As she rearranges plot points on a wall - preparation for her fitful manuscript - she never changes the facts of what has happened but rather reckons with the relationships she sees among them, allowing her disorientation and anger to begin to clear.On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. The season’s penultimate episode (“Would You Like to Know the Sex?”) captures this idea well as we witness an epiphanic moment for its main character in processing and writing about her rape. When it comes to capturing the flawed, human aspects of the healing process, so much of the show’s success hinges on Coel’s ability to lay bare ideas of structure. It pushes us to simultaneously sympathize with Arabella’s pain following her own assaults and to question her lack of care for her friend Kwame (Paapa Essiedu) after his own rape, meanwhile contentious characters like Zain (Karan Gill) and Theo (Harriet Webb) are spared their humanity. You wont be able to shake I May Destroy You from your thoughts. I May Destroy You gives us Black feminist storytelling in a way that is beautifully timely, raw, and unwavering. Content warning: This review contains discussion of rape and sexual violence. You have to learn to have power over the thing instead of it having power over you.” Coel’s personal experience with rape informs the depth and accuracy with which she captures the weight of traumatic moments through key plot decisions, and aptly technicolored lighting. Over the season, Arabella and other characters return to the scene and visions of the crime over and over, attempting to excavate new information, As Coel recently explained to GQ, “The past isn’t ever really past. In an early scene from the first episode, “Eyes, Eyes, Eyes, Eyes,” Arabella’s literary agent, Julian (Adam James) sheepishly interrogates the young writer about her elusive manuscript-in-process, introducing the series’ driving question: “Where does it go?”įor Coel, the answer is down a path of healing and dealing with trauma. Rather, the show poses deeper questions, concerning what it takes to reckon with and begin to heal from trauma. Yet, the mystery is never a question of whether an assault occurred or even really who did it. It’s narrative is fueled by mystery, with the momentum of the show propelled by an ominous feeling that at any point something you weren’t watching for - a jacket, a quick glance, a forgettable face around a table - will suddenly offer a pivotal clue. Very much in conversation with cultural touchstones like Memento and Get Out, Coel uses deadpan humor and her deft understanding of human relationships and societal structures to reveal another level of Black interiority and personal terror.įrom its first episode, I May Destroy You submerges us in the act of processing. Through complicated and layered relationships shared by the show’s central characters, Coel lays bare the layered power dynamics and varied experiences of sexual violence. With the help of her eccentric, vivacious, sister-friend Terry (Weruche Opia) and confident, active gay bestie, Kwame (Paapa Essiedu), Arabella, played by Coel herself, must piece together what exactly has happened to her. Best known for her breakout Netflix series, Chewing Gum, the British writer/actress has returned with a hilariously clever and explosive series about the thorny nature of consent, now streaming on HBO.Ĭhronicling a young writer’s experience in the aftermath of a sexual assault, I May Destroy You captures the pain, absurdity, and murkiness of rape culture. With the finale of I May Destroy You, Michaela Coel leads us away from finality and completeness in the most satisfying way. It marks bold new territory for Coel, who’s operating at a level unmatched among her peers. It should inspire plenty of conversation about very sensitive subject matter with ever-increasing complexities. Michaela Coel in I May Destroy You (2020) (all images courtesy HBO Max) I May Destroy You is moving and, despite the subject matter, at times very funny.
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