What long takes offer a show like this is a vital ingredient: tedium. I’m dead serious, too. Think of any time you’ve been parked in some institutional space or another — a school, a court, a hospital — knowing your life is about to change forever but unable to fast-forward to the moment that change actually occurs. It’s maddeningly boring, a boredom made all the worse by your body’s flight-or-fight activation. It’s almost unbearable.
So it is here. When Bascombe and Frank make unpleasant small talk about Bascombe’s digestive issues prior to the raid, we’re there for every second of it. We’re there for every second of terror as the rest of the family stands or lies around with cops’ guns pointed at them as Jamie is arrested. We’re there in the police van as Jamie is driven to the station, sobbing. We’re there as he’s made to answer various questions and endure various inspections. We’re there with his family in the waiting room. We follow cops and lawyers around not just when they’re actually doing something, but when they’re making their long walks through this unpleasant place to wherever they need to go to do those things.
Even before the long closing shot, we’re being made to sit with it, to sit with it all. The confusion, the frustration, the unexpected moments of kindness, the obsequious fawning of the family for being shown even the slightest consideration — when Barlow informs Eddie that the cops likely have very strong evidence on his son, Eddie ends the conversation with a crushingly informal thanks of “ta” — it all feels more real because we’ve watched it all unfold in real time, without a moment’s respite, even during the stuff normal films and shows would trim for being unnecessary. Again, the unnecessary is the essence of art. (By some definitions, art is inherently unnecessary, or else it would be some other thing.)
I reviewed the first episode of Adolescence, which is extraordinary, for Decider.
Tags: adolescence, decider, TV, TV reviews