That First Episode of 'Adolescence'

Hey, y'all.

If you're keen on when podcasts are released, you may be asking yourself, what in the name of the Lord is taking it down doing in my podcast feed on a Thursday, we went overboard in our last session and decided to split a little of the discussion up into two separate episodes, hence this one.

But with all of our podcast releases, we'll talk generally about the TV in question in the first half so as not to ruin anything.

And in the back half, we'll use examples and specifics from the show.

Today, it's me and Donovan.

He and I were immediately drawn to this new Netflix series, Adolescence, due to its undisputed high praise.

I mean, look anywhere you'll see someone saying, it's good.

We wanted to see if it was worth what they say.

We'll talk about that one.

And that's about it in our episode today.

Before I get Donovan in here, I'm also the editor in chief of the website the Alabama Take, which is our website, our production company, our family, a podcast home, and what we do here across the site and with each podcast.

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Let me get Donovan in here so we can talk about the Netflix show Adolescence Alabama Take projection.

And here he is.

He's joining me now, as promised.

It's Donovan.

I'm not saying anything.

Yeah, well, hello, I'm.

I'm live.

I'm here.

Yeah, y'all are.

We'll do the same.

Even though this is an extra episode.

Same thing this week because we like to do non spoilers.

If you have an interest in a show or movie but you're not sure, this is where you listen and then you come back and you listen to the spoilers later.

Non spoilers.

Donovan.

Yeah.

What you.

What you been watching of late that we haven't gotten around to really talk about anything?

I Don't think so.

Not really.

I mentioned Dope Thief in Tuesday's episode.

That might be about it, probably for me.

No, I've watched Celtic City on hbo.

Oh, did you like that?

Mm.

I'm still watching the Pit, which is phenomenal.

That's been getting good reviews.

It's good stuff.

You surprised me this week.

And why is that?

You set the White Lotus aside and instead watched two episodes of a new show, which.

Which is what we're gonna be talking about in a little bit, right?

Yes.

Adolescence.

Why is that?

Did you just find something in adolescence you love to continue?

Kind of two parts to this.

You mentioned it, and I'm like, oh, I don't think I've heard of that.

And I looked it up and the reviews from every single outlet were just falling over themselves.

So I'm like, okay, I'm curious.

Is this actually that good?

And then secondly.

And this kind of goes for my.

Do I recommend it?

It's very short.

It's only four episodes.

I've seen two.

But watching the first one, I watched the second one later the same day because I wanted to see more.

That's a thumbs up, right?

Like, you're like, wait, I want to know what happens.

Yeah.

There are only four episodes of Adolescence on Netflix.

It came out of nowhere as far as I'm concerned.

I can kind of sort of keep my finger on the pulse of new releases.

This one, I did not know about its upcoming release, and then suddenly it's just rave review everywhere.

Yeah.

I also not heard or seen it at all, you know, in that way that Netflix has of.

Of snapping up something really great and just kind of putting it.

It was like, well, more content.

You know, they don't always do a very good job of advertising what they have because they don't really care what you watch as long as you're watching Netflix.

Yeah.

And they have so much.

How could they devote.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And that was another thing with this show.

I saw a couple of good headlines to begin a review, and I always wonder, I mean, is it good or is it just Netflix good?

Yes.

I think this one being not an in house production because I, I think a lot of the.

I think when you have an in house Netflix production, you're, you're, you're looking at Netflix good right there.

I think this being something that Netflix, like, acquired means that they, they didn't have their little fingers in this too early, which I.

Which I think is to its benefit.

Yeah.

This might be for the spoiler section.

But I, but it isn't a spoiler, right?

I don't think it's a spoiler.

It's the way that it's shot.

No, I think that's a pretty big thing going in most people.

I thought so.

So I was afraid.

I was like, is this just going to be a gimmick show?

And the gimmick, Me too.

The gimmick being at least the two episodes that I have seen.

It's all a single shot.

And I think that's the case for every episode, all four.

My wife has a tendency to kind of like watch everything with a phone in her face.

So when we were in the middle of, like the second episode, we got into a passionate argument about whether the first episode had all been one shot.

She's like, they went in the car.

Well, yeah, yeah, they followed him in.

But they went to the police station.

Like, yes, they followed him there.

Yes, yes.

I've watched the first episode.

You've watched two.

I will say that alone is impressive.

But the good news is I think there is more to it than just that.

And what do you think you've seen two.

I agree.

I think especially like a single shot thing, I mean, it's so cool when it's done well, but to do a whole episode like that, it's like, is this just a flex?

You know, is this just a weird stunt?

You know, it has to exhaust the actors.

Geez, I can't imagine being this.

Can you imagine being like the cinematographer, the DP for this, anyone, or the people working on the set, just.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Just to have everything be so finely tuned so that it makes an episode of tv when you're saying wow instead of like, that was really annoying, I think.

Yeah.

Like, if you.

If you come up with a gimmick like this and it's going to be more than a gimmick, you need to be taking a pretty big swing on the rest of your stuff too.

Otherwise it's going to be like, you know, like Microsoft Flight Simulator, which I think they used to use to like, push the graphics card where you have it as a showcase for, like, oh, well, that Boeing looks great, but there's not a lot here.

You know, it's like that camera work is good, but what else.

What else is here?

Well, I'm of the.

I liked it first one enough to watch the second one.

I'm of the opinion that there's something here.

I do think.

I do think that just based on some of the themes that are coming up and seeing some stuff mentioned in the reviews that this is going to be one.

Because it is so short.

This is going to be one to review as a whole too.

To kind of.

Yes.

I think the next time we bring it up will be after we've watched all four, which will probably be soon.

Very short.

It's also a question of the self inflicted Netflix folly of did they spend enough time and money and effort in all components getting a good director, a good writer, the good actors, you know, did they write the check for all those or just like they tend to do, which is one or two things and then they don't give a shit about the other?

Yeah, once, once Netflix realized it could just write Kevin Spacey a check and cheap out on everything else.

Uh huh.

They've never looked back.

Never.

Not once.

And why should they still?

They have become synonymous with tv.

Yeah, it's true.

What we're going to do is we're going to take a break and in a second you can hear more about episode one of Adolescence if you've watched it.

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Okay, we're back.

Yeah.

I've got things to say about just one episode that's usually good.

We will of course bring up again that it's all shot with no cuts.

Yeah, don't hire an editor.

Maybe that's where they save money.

That's what.

Yeah, yeah, they had a.

They were able to afford a staff luncheon.

Yeah.

Let's start.

Well, I.

I'll just go kind of in order.

No sense.

Sure.

Yeah.

The arresting officer, one of the ladies who did the arrest, is from Game of Thrones.

You recognize her?

Yeah, no, I didn't.

Oh, you didn't?

No, I did not.

She was one of the more less appealing Game of Thrones characters in the back end of its run.

Kind of one of the mean.

She.

She did a lot of the battles with Arya as the faceless.

Oh, okay.

No, I didn't rec.

Is that that's detective Sergeant.

The Detective Sergeant.

The lady there who.

No, I didn't recognize her at all.

Well, you, you know, I guess I'm jump.

Maybe even a step ahead of myself.

The concepts here is the.

There's a 13 year old boy who gets arrested for murder.

That's exactly what.

Where it picks up.

You find that out in two minutes time.

Jump, Jump right in.

You find out as he's being arrested.

Yep.

And you know, that probably said crime.

Yeah, we probably could have said that in the non spoiler part.

I think most people would.

Would know about that.

It's in all the reviews and I think it's in even like the, the show description on Netflix.

Yeah, it is, I think.

So the opening shot, you know, you get very attentive when you find out that it's shot a certain way or you're.

I don't have to pay attention.

You're like, I'm looking for mistakes.

Yeah.

Or just, you know, how do they do it?

Kind of thing.

And the opening frame is one of the arresting officers.

His back's to the screen.

And I thought that, okay, what are we doing here?

What's happening here?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then he listens to a message from his son who doesn't want to go to school that day.

Relatable.

And all the other thing I liked about this and I felt worked is like, this is a.

I'm going to mispronounce the Latin.

So I apologize.

But this is an episode that really embraced in media res.

Right?

That's right.

Just drop you in there.

You know, you made such a good point, Blaine.

When you're like, you know, anytime something's kind of special, you are kind of watching it.

Like, why are they doing that in the space of two minutes?

Just kind of throwing in from like, okay, this guy's a cop, okay.

He has a kid.

Okay.

They're going to the house.

Okay.

He's in charge of the raid.

Okay.

Like, they did such a good job of just like in two or three minutes dropping you in the middle of it, but in a way where you're not like, I'm utterly disoriented and I have no idea what's going on.

Oh, that's right.

What I think that it underscored to me at least is the emotional impact of it.

You know, these cops are kind of just doing a job.

There's an emotional component.

They don't like it.

They're doing their job.

But it's something for the family that happens.

And I think that this is my overall review of the one shot technique.

It does such a good job of it being like, you know how life.

The thing about life is it just keeps happening.

It does such for me by not giving a break.

It hammers in like, this is something that is gonna just keep happening to these folks.

It's not, it's.

It doesn't have a tidy cut.

You know, that does seem like one of the major intentions of using it as a one shot.

If that is the case, I think that they succeeded.

Yeah.

If they meant for something else and I didn't pick it up, that's probably me.

But I don't think it.

I don't think it detracted.

I think it added.

In my opinion, you're right.

In those opening 45 or 50 seconds, you like great shows.

Should do you get a lot of what you need.

Yeah.

He here's a cop, he has a kid.

We know that this is going to deal with.

I mean, if the title didn't tell you we're going to be dealing with kids of a certain age and those changes and what that means, that's what I got out of it.

Now you're an episode ahead of me, so you may negate some of what I'm thinking, but I don't know.

We'll see.

No, I think that's.

I think that's exactly it.

So again, it's really short.

I've only seen two, but there's not a lot of fat on these bones.

I think it really.

I think what you said, I think they did a.

Have done a good enough job in the setup that what, you know, like what you said, Blaine, holds true, at least for the episode I've seen.

Right.

Where they're like, they're.

They're just communicating.

Not that they're not going to play with expectations or whatever, but they're giving you a really solid, like, grounding for like.

Okay, what's going on here?

Oh, this guy who is a cop has an adolescent child as well.

And now he's.

He's coming as a father.

Yeah.

Other guys coming as a father.

You know, like they're all approaching this in their different roles as parents and, and what have you.

It fits.

The one shot has to do a few things in order to work.

One of those is you have to have characters sneaking in exposition without being too expository.

Yes.

And that.

So that first frame, that.

Excuse me, that first bit of a scene gives you some.

And then the other thing is you.

This can be dizzying and it's that you have to have somebody walking through in order to pick up and change the scene.

You can't just have the camera added to another room.

Right.

You can't just jump.

Yeah.

I think they smartly chose the procedural.

At least the first episode is more police procedural for that, to sneak in that exposition because they are explaining to the kid in the family what's happening as it's happening.

So you're really able to follow along.

That's right, too.

They're dumb.

Very clever.

That's right.

They're dumbfounded as you are.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The.

So the invasion of home is dizzying, but I also found it to manage to be harrowing, you know.

Absolutely.

A father dealing with a frightened son and he pees on himself.

It's just scary and sad.

I.

I think, too, like, unfortunately, we've lived it long enough in this world too, that just.

That any.

You know, like anytime someone's in a house pointing guns at someone else, you know, in real life, this has gotten horrible so many times.

You know, you're just like, it's a scary situation.

What's gonna happen?

Could they get hurt?

Yeah.

I feel like they did a good job of.

Of that.

You know, they've already broken the door.

Who knows what else they're gonna, you know, they're tearing through stuff.

What else is going to happen?

Yeah.

The Apple TV plus show Defending Jacob, which starred Chris Evans as a lawyer whose son gets accused of something like this.

It covers the same ground, but in a more dramatic fashion.

This seems like it wants to be a little more grounded.

It shows for those of us who don't know what each step looks like in such a event, especially in the uk, you forget you brought this up.

You forget that policing's a job.

Once the arresting officers have him, the job's done.

They just leave the room.

You know, it's like, here he is.

They turn him into the guy at the desk and then they.

They're gone to do whatever next.

The.

The mechanism, once, you know, the mechanism of the legal system.

Yeah.

Has taken over at that point.

You know, it's not.

I don't know if this was an intent or not, but I think they did a really good job of making the system really impersonal.

Yeah.

While having, like, flashes of people who are like, this is just a kid.

I can't believe that this is my job today.

Absolutely.

It's so reminiscent of the pit on Max, which is currently so reminiscent.

I mean, it's almost.

They're almost doing the same thing.

As far as how they want to lay out what's going on.

Of course, the pit is.

It's not one shot, but I mean, it goes for long stretches that are.

That have to be one shot or finally edited.

Even the police logging him in at the desk says, that's not my part.

When Jamie asks a question, he says, well, Jamie actually doesn't ask a question.

He says, I didn't do anything.

And the officer there says, well, that's not my part.

I'm just doing his part.

There are sections of this.

He.

He's not cruel.

He's actually seems like he's trying to be kind to this very scared young man.

But yeah, at the same time, there's like, I'm sorry, bud, can't help you there.

That's.

That's not my job.

I.

This is my job.

You know, we got to do.

We got to do things in the.

Yeah.

At worst, they're polite to him.

I'm curious if this.

How different this would have been had this been a United States setting.

Yeah, I don't know.

I just don't.

I just don't know enough about, like, the reality of that kind of like, pro.

Like actual processing to.

To know me either, luckily.

And you say, hopefully I won't.

Yeah.

Ever have that knowledge.

I'm pretty anti reboot for shows and movies, but if this one was done with us cast, you know, little.

Little difference here or there, it might be interesting.

Yeah.

Couldn't be with the one shot.

You.

You do need the excuse for someone to.

To walk by every now and again.

I caught the show dropping a little of the reality, like, would someone really walk by right here?

But it wasn't often well staged.

It works for me.

Bustling police station.

You've got lots of people to follow.

Yeah.

Don't know about 3 and 4, but next episode mostly takes place in a school.

So lots of action that.

You know, lots of action there.

Right.

Kids, you know, it's a lot of movement.

So it feels like.

I mean, kind of like you said, Blaine, like, there's a couple points where you're like, yeah, you needed to change the scene here, but it does.

It doesn't.

It's really not too bad.

No, it's.

It's not.

And I don't know that I would have that thought if I didn't know about the.

If that wasn't such a heavily heavy part of every headline.

Yes, exactly.

If you went in blind, you might eventually notice, but you may not care.

We've definitely been primed by the reviews to be looking for certain things.

Yeah.

It's not until 20 minutes in that you hear that it's a murder with a kitchen knife.

And I gotta be honest, for a split second, I thought they said butter knife.

I don't know why that's a different show.

You know, it's.

It's such a big choice not to add that until 20 minutes in.

As well as who has been murdered.

It's a choice.

It seems like something that people would ask or say pretty early, earlier than that.

I don't know.

That felt odd.

It feels to me like it just ratchets up the tension and uncertainty.

I've kind of assumed that there's a lot of, like, you know, they're kind of like, hey, we can't talk about this now.

We got to talk about this down at the station.

There's, like, for the cops at least.

Like, we can't say anything right now because we don't want to jeopardize our case.

Like, we're going to say everything to you at the proper time in the proper order, and you can just wait.

Yeah.

For someone who kicked in a door and stormed a house, like, they're not, like, necessarily, like, cruel to the family.

There's probably even some sympathy there.

But, like, you're not getting a jump in line.

You know, you're going to be doing this exactly the way we say you're going to do it.

Yeah.

So that worked.

It worked.

It worked for me.

Just the uncertainty, the tension.

I did find it convincing that Jamie hasn't done anything.

I found that very convincing for the longest.

In the first episode, the.

This kid whose name I looked up, Owen Cooper playing James.

Oh, okay.

Does a very good job.

I think all the actors are good, but I do think that younger folks acting kind of deserve it.

A special kudos when they're really good.

Yeah.

They can make or break.

Yeah.

I think he is great as a kid.

Just like a scared kid who's caught up in it.

And.

And.

And his performance can be read or maybe even want to read into it.

Like, he's.

He didn't do it.

He's innocent.

Yeah.

And, you know, turns out.

Yeah.

It's so funny that you go against what you're thinking in that he looks so innocent and acts so innocent.

So you're thinking, well, he did it.

And then you watch the tape later and he is shown murdering her.

So somehow or another you're thinking, oh, wait, this is.

This is state.

Something's wrong.

He didn't do it.

Where's the twist.

Sometimes I like to think about like, what does like one medium do versus another?

Usually I think about it when I'm reading a book because I'll think about like how this is doing something that you couldn't capture.

But I think, you know, something that you don't necessarily get with a book except maybe a picture or a comic book, is that emotional response we have to seeing another human being's face, that kind of natural empathy that we all have.

Just because, you know, we are social animals.

You know, we're, we're looking, we look at each other's faces, we look for emotions and stuff.

Yeah.

And I, and I think, I think that this did a really good job of doing what only film can do with Jamie, where you have the, you know, instead of being told just through his.

Just the natural empathy of one human being looking at another, you have the emotional.

You have a feeling one way or the other about what, what you want to have happened.

And I thought they did that.

I thought they did a good job of that.

Yeah.

As well at taking advantage of what only say film can do.

It's probably good.

They just go ahead and get to the answer to that around the 50 minute mark of episode one, just get rid of that particular mystery.

I thought it was bold to go from.

It almost felt shocking to go from who done it to hey, we've got you on, we've got you on video doing this.

And the second episode moves more into the.

Instead of who done it, the why done it.

Yeah.

They're looking for, as you probably guessed from the first episode, they're looking for a motive.

And it only takes you a brief second to think about the title again.

And the why of it is, is about that, you know, the, that stage of life.

Yeah.

We get the revelation to the lawyer that the murder happens at 10:15 and they arrest the kid at 6:30 in the morning.

You know, that's pretty conceivable that the parents had no idea what did or didn't happen.

Absolutely.

Mom's, you know, busy at home.

Dad says he was on a shift.

You know, he's a plumber.

Yep.

Played by Stephen Jones, who's very good.

He had a good job of just seeing like a normal, overwhelmed guy trying to hold it together.

Yes.

And then it's kind of almost like kind of viewer, one of the viewer entry characters, you know, where you're thinking like, oh my God, how would I react?

Uh huh.

That's so true.

Thought he had a great bit at the end where after he Sees the camera and he has to take a moment for him.

He can't look at or touch his son.

That's right.

For a minute.

Doesn't he kind of push him away?

And then he does push him away, but then he goes back to embracing him and just the kind of pain and confusion and sorrow he plays out.

Very.

Something that could be a stage for dramatics leading up to like histrionics.

Feels very, very raw and real.

He is a noted actor from Peaky Blinders.

Yeah, I think he's been in lots of.

He's been in lots of stuff.

He's always pretty good.

He had a great role as a very young Al Capone in Boardwalk Empire.

Oh, was that him?

Yeah.

He's also the dad in the most recent iteration of Matilda.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

It's kind of funny that he's.

That the bad dad.

Yeah, yeah.

The horrible.

Yeah, so horrible.

It's laughable.

Right?

The one that was the.

The Danny DeVito character in the whole.

Yeah.

Even before that, one of those final scenes there.

He has to convey with his face, facial expressions alone how upsetting and disturbing it could be to see your.

Your son or your kid to go through such thing when they had to strip search him.

You know, we don't see any of that, which is very wise, of course, but.

Yes, but then instead to focus only on his face, not anyone else's.

A nice move, especially when you got the acting of his caliber.

Yeah, that was.

That was a good upsetting and uncomfortable scene, but handled well, I thought.

And.

And just, you know, underscoring the.

Like this dad can remember his son who's getting strip searched in front of him.

You can think about.

He remembers him as a baby.

It probably seems like not that long ago.

And here he is in a police station being treated like an adult, really.

And not in a good way.

And I thought just having him stand there and have to watch it, you know, he's appropriately watching it to make sure that nothing inappropriate happens.

But I just thought he did a good job there and kind of stuff like that rolls through your head and they give you the time because what's happening is just a very methodical.

You have kind of the police person's kind of walking them through.

It's very methodical.

Not.

And it gives you the time to just look at them.

And it goes hand in hand with the real gut punch moment for me, which was when he says he's a good kid.

And then there's a beat and he says, and I'm a Good dad.

Yeah.

That's such a sad.

He's like, I'm a good dad, you know?

And like.

Yeah, that's.

That's tough.

You see some emotional distance between father and son that not necessarily leads to this kind of thing, but can give a little bit of a why.

Mm.

The intent of this episode, this is just a troubling age.

Horrible for both parents and kids at times, and it certainly achieves that.

And what's it just.

It's worth it because of the story and the camera, you know, trick.

Of course, I call it a trick.

It's really not a trick.

It's the.

The deft camera work.

Yeah.

That questioning scene at the end is just subtly tense.

It builds to him slapping Katie, I think, is what he does.

Jamie the kid and Katie's the victim.

And I even questioned for a second, wait, is that stabbing or is he just punching her?

I question that for a minute too, because, like, it's kind of.

They don't give you like a gruesome close up because.

Yeah, it's a street camera.

Right.

You know, the first touch we see between father and son happens after the vid.

The video, and I think that might be one of the first times that they blatantly touched.

Yeah.

And then, you know, of course, that we talked about how the father pulls away and then initially, excuse me, finally hugs him and Jamie ends with mumbling, was it me?

I haven't done anything.

Again, after the video.

Which is, you know, you wonder.

Yeah.

What else are you gonna say?

Right.

And you said it really helps give you that sense of sudden, traumatic change, being back to back with other things in life.

Yeah.

It's just a succession of moments after which nothing will be the same.

That's life.

And that makes it very much worth it.

Episode one in the books for me.

Yeah, I'm definitely gonna watch it.

I found both episodes compelling.

Good.

Not necessarily like a light watch, but not.

Not overly grim or dark either, surprisingly, for the subject matter.

And, yeah, there's no comedy here.

Compelling watch.

No, not really.

This is hard to say and senseless to ask, maybe, but is the second episode better?

Different.

One of the things that I appreciated with this is.

And this is part of me being like, I think I'm gonna have to see the whole.

Judge it as a whole to see the themes.

But one of the things that I did think that they continued to do very well was it focuses on dci, the detective constable, inspector, whatever that is, the detective and the sergeant, and they're going to the school that Both of the students attended looking for information.

They did a great job of, like, because we don't like, this is such a short bit.

We don't have a lot of time with these characters.

And there's a bit with the inspector where just, like, concerns seem to rise in him so naturally and naturalistically that you're like, you're learning what you need to know about him as a character and a person in the just the course of events happening, which I think is really hard for a show to do.

I mean, and there's a couple of moments where they pause, but I felt like they did it really deftly.

And I think that's something that this show has done very well.

It's so hard to do.

So it's no wonder that I've even seen a headline that it could be the best show of the year.

So, yeah, I was impressed at the character work, frankly.

I was like, there's some good writing in here.

Good writing, good acting, good directing.

Yeah, it's got it.

That's the end of our podcast, little bonus episode this week.

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Thanks so much.

Talk to you again Tuesday.