The Unflinching Brilliance of Adolescence
A Cautionary Tale
Hello friends! Happy Friday to all! I wanted to send out a more standard piece to everyone this Friday since last week and this week have been a bit wonky. I injured my back pretty badly last week. I have a pinched nerve that flares up, and boy, did it flare. My mood was pretty down, and the injury definitely contributed to my "Take A Break" piece. With not much I was able to do, a majority of my time became dedicated to resting as much as possible, which is really challenging for me. Luckily, I had lots of television to fill my time, and one show in particular really grabbed my attention, which is the subject of today's Main Course. But first, a tasting!
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Last week, Shaundel Washington-Spivey made history as La Crosse, Wisconsin’s first openly gay Black mayor! A community leader and co-founder of the nonprofit BLACK, he ran on a platform of equity and authenticity—and won.
After anti-LGBTQ+ groups pressured the state to pull $40,000 in funding from Fairhope Public Library in Alabama, a local fundraiser not only replaced the funds, but it also surpassed them, raising over $46,000.
Last week in Orange County, CA, "MAGA Mike" Munzing tried to ban all flags except the American flag, specifically targeting the Pride and Trans flags. This backfired spectacularly after hours of public outcry, and he tore up his own proposal as the council unanimously voted it down.
As opposed to their usual prime offerings, this Netflix #1 show isn't a massive, flashy thing but an understated, highly artistic, four-part miniseries called Adolescence. What really piqued my interest and got me to watch it is that each hour-long episode is filmed in one shot. Yeah, you read that right, one single shot. The episodes range from houses to cars to police stations to schools, all while never cutting away from the action. It is a jaw-dropping feat of artistry, coordination, and skill.
Now, the plot is not for the faint of heart. The show opens with police raiding a home in England and arresting a 13-year-old boy for the alleged murder of one of his classmates. Before I get any further, don't worry. This is a spoiler-free review, but I do want to explore the themes that exist throughout the show because I think it is one of the most timely, affecting pieces of television I've seen in a long time.
It's a deep and poignant look at how children, especially young boys, are being raised in this day and age.
The Importance of Structure
Beyond being a really great selling point, the one-shot nature of Adolescence serves a great narrative purpose as well. Cuts in film relieve tension. When you cut away from a tense scene, you get to breathe as you switch to whatever is next. They can be used sparingly or in excess, too. Many cuts create a sense of disorientation and chaos. But you have no escape when you're just sitting with one shot for an entire hour. If you're getting in a car with the characters, you know that you have no choice but to stay with them until they get to their destination, wherever that may be. You can't tune out or switch to another perspective; you're just as stuck as they are. You don't know what's going to happen or where the story is going; you have no information, and you're just stuck with this sense of dread, unsure of what comes next, just like the characters. It's brilliant.
The show's structure is also a great test of patience as our current attention spans get shorter and shorter. It was a challenge, but I made sure not to have my phone near me while I was watching because that, too, was a way to break the tension that had been so painstakingly constructed. The show doesn't allow you to look away, which is a theme that lives in the heart of the show because it shows the dangers of what happens when we do look away.
In most crime shows, either fiction or true crime, the protagonist of the show is either the victim or the perpetrator. In Adolescence, the protagonist is sometimes the boy, but it also switches between the lead investigator, a child psychologist, the boy's mother, sister, and father. The show looks at what an event like this does to an entire community. The show explores how these things do not exist in a vacuum and that there are so many different influences that can lead to a single event, and in doing so, it asks the question, "What or who allowed us to get here?"
Who's talking to our boys?
Over the course of the show, we learn more about the case, but in a way that still holds a lot of ambiguity. The quest for answers is rarely satisfying, but we learn so much through the investigation. Most of what I learned is what it's like to be a young teen online nowadays. I felt my age as I watched the communication patterns of kids half my age explained before my eyes in a way that sounded like a foreign language. But the show walks us through these language barriers with ease, barriers like the hidden meanings of particular emojis and online manosphere culture.
After the show's release, search results for "manosphere" and "incel" spiked. The manosphere is the online world of groups and communities dedicated to promoting misogynistic, ultraconservative ideals of masculinity. Incels are 'INvoluntarily CELibate' young men who are frustrated with and blame women for their lack of sexual experience. The show explores all of this and more, including the red-pill blue-pill concept from the Matrix. In 1999, the red pill meant you could see the Matrix; in 2025, red-pilling means that you've awoken to the truths of the misogynistic manosphere. One of those such 'truths' that they believe is that 20% of the world's men, the most successful, attractive, and wealthy, will get the attention of 80% of women. This leaves the rest of the men, all 80%, completely out of luck and blaming women and those men they see as threats for their own problems, rather than taking stock and making changes.
Oh Boy...
This world has a boy problem. If you look at the rising rates of school shootings, conservatism, and alpha-male culture promoted by the likes of Andrew Tate and many other conservative men, there's no other way to put it. And it needs a solution because it is everywhere. In one scene, the boy's dad talks about how he was suddenly exposed to all this alpha-male, anti-woman content simply when he was just going online to look up a gym routine. These messages are being pushed not only by celebrities but by the algorithms, too. It's even taken hold and is a huge reason why Trump is so popular right now. More Gen Z boys are Trump supporters than men over 70. That's a terrifying statistic and one that cannot be separated from this phenomenon.
The big question that this show poses is: Who is really raising our boys? All teens want to be alone in their rooms; it's a normal part of growing up, seeking independence. But in this day and age, there's so little control over who else is with them when they're in their rooms 'alone'.
I'm glad that we are rewarding high artistry here. This show takes a big risk, and to see it rewarded so handsomely is a great sign, in my opinion, about the commercial success of highly artistic projects. The fact that it also delves deep into a very real problem that our world is facing makes it even better. And while the show has no answers about how to fix this problem, it does illuminate it in a way I've never seen before, and I can only imagine how it would change my approach to parenting if I were a parent. It shows how the best aspirations we can have for our children can be twisted out of our control through no fault of our own.
At one point, an investigator says, "You'll never understand why. Look at the things we've seen. You're not gonna know why, you just won't." To an extent, she is right. You can never know the true motivations for a person's actions or all the influences that go into one moment. But you can try to find patterns and solutions to stop whatever tragedy might come next. You can teach yourself, and you can learn. And through a piece of incredible art, the creators of Adolescence have forced millions to stare down the consequences of what can happen when we look away from the children in our lives.
This week I want to share with you Wolfsong by TJ Klune. Klune is best known for The House in the Cerulean Sea, which is a lovely book that I read a few years ago. I really enjoyed House, but when I picked up Wolfsong a few weeks ago, I was instantly struck by how different the tone and content were in a way that I loved. It's sort of a gay, werewolf Twilight, but very much for adults. It follows Ox as he meets and gets to know the Bennett family of werewolves down the street in small-town Oregon. Magic, mystery, and romance follow, and without giving any more away, I'll just warn you that there's lots of sex and violence, so read with caution!
Well folks, that's all from me this week! Thank you to everyone who filled out my survey on Wednesday. If you haven't yet, you can do so below! I hope you're taking care of yourself and getting some rest.
As always,
