Adolescence: Toxic masculinity gets a horror show—And it’s all too real

Teenage years are supposed to be about awkward crushes, bad haircuts and regrettable fashion choices—not, you know, murder. But Netflix’s Adolescence isn’t here for nostalgia. Instead, this four-part gut punch of a series yanks you into the darkest corners of modern boyhood, where toxic masculinity and online radicalisation lurk behind every click. And just to ensure you don’t look away, each episode unfolds in a single, unbroken take—like a slow-motion car crash you must watch.

At the centre of it all is 13-year-old Jamie Miller, a seemingly ordinary kid accused of murdering his classmate, Katie Leonard. But Adolescence isn’t interested in a courtroom drama—it wants you to sit in the wreckage of a boy’s psyche and ask: How did we let this happen? Enter Stephen Graham as Jamie’s father, Eddie, a man unravelling in real time as he grapples with his son’s monstrous transformation.

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Christine Temarco, as Manda Miller, is the embodiment of a mother on the verge—desperately taping together the cracks as her world crumbles. Graham delivers a blistering performance, capturing the anguish of parenthood amidst crisis. Meanwhile, DI Luke Bascombe and DS Misha Frank fumble their way through the minefield of teenage social media, trying to decode cryptic Instagram posts.

Then there’s Jamie (Owen Cooper), whose chillingly brilliant performance unveils a boy shaped by online misogyny and peer-fed poison. But the real gut punch? His exchanges with Erin Doherty’s Briony Ariston. Jamie repeats, “I haven’t done anything wrong,” not in denial, but in sheer conviction—because, to him, rejecting a boy is a crime, not murder. When Briony asks, “Her weakness made her more gettable?” his easy “Yes” is the most unsettling line of all. And just like that, the show lays bare an ugly, terrifying truth: boys like Jamie don’t see girls as people—they see them as prey.

Jamie casually drops a line that’s more chilling than a true-crime documentary marathon: he could have touched Katie, but he didn’t. Others would have. And in his mind, that makes him the hero.

This is where Adolescence delivers one of its most unsettling truths—there’s an entire generation of boys out there who believe basic human decency is some kind of grand moral achievement. Jamie thinks restraint deserves a gold star, as if not assaulting a girl is an act of sainthood rather than, you know, the bare minimum of being a functioning human. It’s a terrifying glimpse into the warped mindset the internet and peer culture have nurtured, where boys see themselves as better simply because they resisted doing something monstrous—something they’ve been conditioned to believe is just another part of being male.

Adolescence isn’t just about one boy—it’s about the online cesspool that breeds him. The show pulls no punches in exposing how insidious misogyny sneaks into teenage boys’ screens, dressing itself up as “harmless memes” and “hard truths” until, before you know it, they’re parroting Andrew Tate-style nonsense and believing girls are the enemy.

Adolescence doesn’t just shine a light on the darkness—it drags you into it, locks the door and forces you to sit with the uncomfortable truths we’d rather ignore. It peels back layers of the festering rot inside modern boyhood. It’s not just about one boy gone wrong; it’s about the systems, the screens and the silent nods that shape boys like Jamie into ticking time bombs.

This series isn’t asking you to sympathise—it’s daring you to recognise the monsters we’re creating in real time. Because the scariest part of Adolescence isn’t the crime itself—it’s the sinking realisation that Jamie isn’t an anomaly. He’s a reflection. And unless we start having the hard conversations, there’ll be plenty more where he came from.