“Adolescence” caught me off guard in a good way. I read the summary and knew the program was a show about a kid being accused of murder. I assumed we would spend four episodes figuring out whether the kid actually did it. It took all of an hour to flip that on its head.

By the end of the first episode, our thinking on 13-year-old Jamie Miller is subverted: Jamie did murder his classmate Katie Leonard. It’s caught on film. The what of the story is already answered. Even with CCTV footage, the viewer is encouraged to question if the evidence could somehow be wrong. We see a young and innocent-looking Jamie ripped from his bedroom by police as his parents watch in horror. We want to believe there’s more to this story.

From How to Why

Episode two opens that possibility. We’re introduced to Jamie’s friends—one of whom, Ryan, gave him the knife used in the murder, thinking Jamie would only intimidate Katie. Still, Jamie acted alone. Ryan’s role is important but not pivotal. Jamie took the steps himself.

From there, the show shifts focus from what happened to why it happened. Katie had called Jamie an incel on Instagram after he made sexual comments about women models. Episode three connects these dots and shows how this insult, coupled with other factors, led to the killing.

The third episode is the show’s most compelling. A conversation between Jamie, now months into juvenile detention, and forensic psychologist Briony Ariston unravels Jamie’s thinking before and after the murder, while also delving into the broader struggles of teenage boys navigating modern adolescence.

Social Media’s Role in Shaping Identity

The first, and arguably biggest, influence: social media. Sites like Facebook or Instagram didn’t meaningfully enter my life until adulthood, when I had the tools to parse their content critically. Jamie, on the other hand, grew up with them. He was exposed to toxic masculinity online from the start—the manosphere, which I hadn’t heard of before watching this.

From the moment he went online, Jamie was flooded with messages about how a man should look, act, and think. These views shaped how he saw himself, other boys, and girls. For a kid whose main social contact was online and with friends consuming the same toxic media, this worldview became his reality.

The real danger isn’t just the messaging—it’s the comparison. Jamie didn’t feel he measured up. Wrapped in the language of incels and 80-20 theories of attraction was a boy who felt unworthy and inadequate. He couldn’t accept who he was; he was consumed by what he wasn’t.

Growing Up with Distorted Messages

Adolescence is foundational. Our environment shapes our identity, often without our knowing it. I didn’t have social media, but I did have porn. I didn’t realize until years later how it distorted my view of women, sex, and relationships. I saw women as something to attain. Sex was a measure of masculinity. Surrounded by men who seemingly got sex easily, I felt like I was failing.

Jamie consumed more than sexual images—he consumed ideologies. This includes hateful portrayals of women, aggressive definitions of what it means to be a man, or the idea that feminism dominates society. When Katie called him out publicly and he was bullied for it, he didn’t just feel embarrassed. He felt emasculated. He wasn’t being the man he thought he was supposed to be. That shame, that dissonance, fueled his rage.

The Pressure to Conform

Another major pressure point for Jamie was identity and how it was shaped by his peers and parents. He mentioned that when he would play sports, his father, Eddie, played wonderfully by Stephen Graham, would show embarrassment over Jamie’s lack of athletic ability and interest. Jamie felt like a disappointment. Even if Eddie didn’t intend to make Jamie feel small, the impact remained. Jamie couldn’t live up to who he thought he should be.

He wasn’t engaging in activities or expressing interests that are typically associated with masculinity. He wasn’t attracting girls, something that was shown to be valued by the boys around him. Maybe he could have flourished in a different environment. But between his parents’ expectations, peer pressure, and toxic online communities, he couldn’t figure out who he was—only who he wasn’t. And it’s hard to be okay with yourself when you feel like you’re failing on all fronts.

A Moment From My Own Adolescence

Then there’s Jamie’s mental health. Not mental illness per se—but a clear emotional instability. Watching the show reminded me of the 2014 Slender Man stabbing. Two girls, influenced by an Internet myth, stabbed a classmate. Those girls were diagnosed with serious mental illnesses. Jamie isn’t delusional—he’s just lost. Emotionally cratered. And that’s still a problem.

We don’t expect 13-year-olds to know how to cope with being called an incel or where to turn for support. But we do expect them to know that violence (particularly toward women) isn’t an answer. That he didn’t know that—at least not in a way that stopped him—speaks volumes.

To be clear, I don’t sympathize with Jamie. But I do feel empathy.

In high school, I once hung out with a friend and a girl he was friends with. I don’t remember what I said, but it exposed me as the awkward, socially stunted teen I was. The girl suggested I leave so she and my friend could continue their night without me. Almost comically, he was my ride home.

This girl was someone I used to be friends with, and I believed I had a higher social standing than her. I had this idea in my head that I could eventually make a move on her with success. Yet here she was, letting me know where my social standing actually was. I was a nobody and feeling myself while she was seeing how much better she could do than a friend like me. I was embarrassed.

It was telling that my friend didn’t stick up for me. I sat in silence the whole ride. When I got home, I probably told my mom the night was “fine.” Then I wrote a suicide letter. Not because I wanted to die, but because I didn’t know how else to cope with feeling so deeply inadequate.

My parents found the letter. My dad assured me I could always talk to him. I believe he meant it. But we never really talked. I never discussed my life with my parents because I didn’t truly think they would listen to me or understand what was going on in my head. To this day, I hate that a therapist knows more about my teenage years than my parents did.

The Importance of Being Heard

That’s why the third episode hit so hard. It’s mostly Jamie and Briony talking. But that talk is essential. While Jamie resists, lashes out, and then softens, he finally opens up. Katie, we learn, sent a topless photo to a boy she liked. He shared it without consent. Jamie, seeing Katie vulnerable, tried to ask her out. She turned him down. Then called him out on social media. Bullied and rejected, Jamie confronted her. We know how it ends.

(Note: He admits he thought about groping her during that confrontation. That’s worth discussing, but I’ll acknowledge it here without going further. It shows how deeply warped Jamie’s view of gender and consent had become.)

When Jamie opens up fully, Briony ends the session. It’s her job to understand, not fix. Jamie, for once, wants to keep talking. Maybe he wanted validation. Maybe he wanted to hear that, despite his evil acts, he’s not an evil person.

Jamie wasn’t pure evil. He was vulnerable and unchallenged in all the worst ways. No one gave him a different perspective. No one questioned what he was consuming. No one asked what was going through his head. Once someone finally did, the conversation ended. When I finally spoke to a therapist, she didn’t end the conversation. She helped. Jamie never got that chance.

Parenting in the Shadows of the Digital World

The fourth episode explores how even well-meaning parents can miss warning signs. Eddie and Manda gave Jamie opportunities, space, and freedom. They cared. But giving Jamie a computer also gave him an escape. And in that escape, he was shaped by something they couldn’t see. A force invisible to them molded their son. They didn’t know what he was watching, thinking, or feeling. They just saw a kid coming home each day, unchanged on the surface.

My girlfriend and I have talked about kids. Her fear isn’t financial—it’s raising a child who turns out bad. Watching “Adolescence,” I understood that fear. It reminded me of the film “Waves” (2019): two kids, same home, same parents, very different outcomes. We like to believe good parenting prevents bad outcomes. But there’s only so much parents can do. The world kids grow up in is different from the one we did. And even when we finally learn what to say and do, we’re already behind. Therapy taught me that having tools doesn’t mean you never struggle again. It just means you have something to use when the struggle comes. Maybe parenting is the same. You give your kids tools and hope they’ll use them. You can’t control what they do with them. You just hope they can get through adolescence with enough left in the toolbox to keep going.