As the finale of Adolescence begins, it has been 13 months. Eddie Miller (Stephen Graham) goes inside where Manda (Christine Tremarco) mentions it’s his birthday. After hugging and getting flirty, Eddie sits down. He’s received a birthday card from his dad and Jean as well as a fiver. Eddie has also received a card from Jamie (Owen Cooper). Lisa (Amelie Pease) interrupts to tell her parents that the van has been sprayed with graffiti. The neighbor, Eileen (Bidi Iredale), claims she didn’t see anything. Eddie tells Manda to call the police. Manda tells the police that the graffiti said “nonse”. Manda asks whether they should take a picture because they don’t need to come out. She tediously works out the details on the phone. Then, she tells Lisa to take three pictures and email them to Sam. Manda goes inside where Eddie tells her they should think about Lisa.
They discuss Jamie having to take the stand and being behind a big screen. Lisa says her mom claims she can get Eddie some work although he insists he doesn’t need her to get him any work. Eddie believes moving back to Liverpool would be ten times worse. He refuses to move because they’ve done nothing wrong. Eddie tells Lisa she shouldn’t be listening before going outside to clean up the mess. Manda checks in with Lisa who says she’s been texting Billy. They talk about Eddie and the van. Lisa doesn’t understand who the nonce is meant to be. Manda talks about vacuuming Jamie’s room with the hoover the other day. Lisa says she can’t go in. Manda asks if Billy is looking after her. Lisa says she looks after herself. Eddie yells for the big sponge. Eddie finds the big sponge and goes back outside to scrub the paint off his van. He shares banter with the neighbors while scrubbing the van. Two boys on bikes call Eddie a nonce before pedaling away. Eddie slowly walks back and goes back inside.
He goes inside where he tells Manda that the paint isn’t coming off. Manda suggests bleach, but Eddie doesn’t think that’ll work either. Eddie wants to go to Wainwrights to get something to remove the paint. He forces Lisa to come along. As they drive along, the family agrees to get the day back. Eddie urges Lisa to put on some music with a proper bass line. He wants to go on an outing when they get back from Wainwrights. Eddie pitches multiple ideas, including climbing a hill, going to the zoo, and going ice skating. Instead, they agree to go to the pictures. Eddie has the day all planned out. Lisa wants to get Chinese. Manda helps her pick out a song. The blabber continues as Eddie drives toward Wainwrights. Manda begins talking about A-ha. Eddie talks about being a brilliant dancer. Manda mentions he started slipping and sliding on the floor. Eddie quickly blames the pair of red and white bowling shoes he brought from a charity shop to go with his wig.
He didn’t know the shoes didn’t have any grip. The story continues and Manda sings with the music. Lisa learns about the first time Manda ever gave Eddie a Frenchie. Eddie finally pulls into the parking lot at the local Wainwrights. He goes inside to find something to get the paint off. They split up. Eddie asks Terry (Kaya Moore) for help. Terry thinks a colleague, Qunit (Joe Barber), might be able to help. Quint says he’ll need to hose it before using paint thinner or strong alcohol. He gives him a complete rundown of getting pain off his vehicle. Quint says he blames the parents. Eddie asks him to show him where the blue paint is. Quint just realizes who he’s talking to. He says he’s on his son’s side. Quint doesn’t think Jamie did it. He mentions the stab wounds and bones in the penetration spots. Quint says he’s seen photos of her so they’ve got his support. Quint thinks he should get him a good lawyer and crowdfunding would help since many would help. Eddie just wants the paint.
He gets it and slowly walks outside with a scowl on his face. Lisa follows him and talks to him, but Eddie doesn’t hear any of it. As Eddie checks out, he tells Lisa that he’s just a bit hungry. Manda buys a plant and joins them outside. Eddie sees Fredo (Austin Haynes) nearby so he rushes over and grabs him. He accused Fredo of doing that to his van. Fredo says it was just for a laugh. Eddie shakes him about and tells him not to do that to people. Then, he throws him to the ground and yells at him to stay away from his family. Eddie throws his bike toward him. He ignores Manda as he gets back into the van. Eddie opens the can of paint and slings it all over the vehicle. He takes Manda’s plant and loads it into the van. A worker at the store asks Eddie if he’s going to clean up the mess. Eddie yells at everyone before driving away in the paint-covered van. The family rides around in silence for a few minutes until they get a call from Jamie who tells his dad happy birthday.
They talk about the card. Jamie says the librarian is alright with him, but he’s been getting some bother in the yard. He has some people to talk to. Eddie says they’re going to have some breakfast and go to the pictures later. Jamie says it just happened. He’s decided he’s going to change his plea. He says it again when no one responds. Manda and Lisa eventually say hello. Manda changes the conversation to the food and Jamie’s intolerances. Lisa asks him about being in the gym all the time. Jamie has to say goodbye moments later. As Eddie makes it back home, Jamie says he’s sorry. The call ends. Eddie carries the plant inside while Lisa and Manda remain in the van. Manda insists he’ll be okay. She goes inside and cries. Manda goes upstairs where Eddie says he hasn’t fixed the windows properly. Manda asks about his shirt and says he’s not bad for 50. They discuss going to the pictures. Manda believes Jamie sounded better than he did last week.
She suggests making a decision has made it a little better. Manda asks Eddie why he’s being like this. She says he was in with Jamie and got to see the tape. Eddie doesn’t want to do all of this again. Manda insists this isn’t Eddie. She knows Eddie is angry, but Jamie pleading guilty is probably for the best. Eddie saw what he saw. He didn’t want to believe it. Manda wants to make sure they survive this. Manda says Jamie never left his room. He’d come in, slam the door, and go straight upstairs to his computer. She’d see the light on at one in the morning. Manda would knock and tell him he had school in the morning. Eddie says she didn’t know what he was watching on that phone. He mentions the guy who popped on his phone talking about how to treat women. Eddie argues you can’t keep an eye on them all the time. Manda says Jamie and Eddie have terrible tempers. Eddie hopes he didn’t give him that. Manda thinks they should’ve stopped it sometimes. Eddie reminds her they cannot blame themselves.
Manda says they made him though. Eddie talks about how his dad used to batter him when he was Jamie’s age. He promised himself he would never do that to his kids. Eddie questions whether he’s better. Manda says they tried to be. Eddie mentions taking Jamie to footy and how bad he was. Everyone would laugh at him and Eddie couldn’t look at him. Then, he took him boxing because he thought that would make a difference. That lasted ten minutes. They talk about how Jamie loved drawing. They got him a computer and Eddie used to play footy with him. That stopped when the business took off. Manda was home earlier and did no better. Eddie says she was a good mom. He says they thought Jamie was safe in his room and that they were doing the right thing. Manda says they were good parents, but they still made him. Manda believes Jamie wanted Eddie in there with him because he knew he wouldn’t believe it. She doesn’t think Eddie could’ve protected him. Eddie questions whether they should’ve done more.
Manda thinks it would be good if they accepted that they should’ve done more. Eddie still sees the little boy. Eddie says Jamie kept saying that it wasn’t him and he believed him. Eddie mentions the tape again. He wishes Jamie had picked Manda who would’ve done better. Lisa comes in to check on them. She tells them about her outfit. Eddie apologizes to Lisa. He insists he’ll get the van sprayed. Lisa mentions the kids and says everyone causes her trouble because she is Jamie’s sister. Manda says they thought they’d leave going to the pictures. Lisa suggests they rent a film from home. Eddie finds himself alone standing outside of Jamie’s room. He goes into Jamie’s room, cries, and sits on the bed. He cries some more. Eddie says he’s sorry son. He says he should’ve done better.
Adolescence Review
Adolescence opened with an explosive police raid and ended with a literal whimper. This series may be difficult to judge considering some viewers seem to be heads over hills about the thing. However, it’s really hard to get anything out of it. It almost feels like an educational infomercial designed to highlight bad parenting.
It’s supposedly about the social media issue, but the series barely touched on that topic. It really felt like it wasn’t about anything when all was said and done. Is the one-shot filmmaking all that impressive at this point considering the vastly improved filmmaking equipment? Did it really make the series any better?
I don’t see it considering the finale was mostly 10 minutes of Eddie trying to remove paint from his van and 20 minutes of driving to and from Wainwrights. Not to mention, this episode was filled with placement ads. We’re still waiting to find out at least one thing about the actual victim. We only saw the victim for a brief second in CCTV footage so we really don’t even know who she is. Does she have parents?
If the series was interested in tackling the potentially harmful impacts of social media, it could’ve done that a lot better. Again, the show barely touched on that besides an entire episode at a school that went pretty much nowhere. What happened to those kids? Did the detectives ever find the knife that seemed so important to the case? Did Ryan and Tommy get into trouble for potentially being involved in some capacity?
It’s neat to implement these innovative filming techniques, but they really amount to zilch when the story is barely coherent with little substance. It seems Adolescence is getting the Baby Reindeer hype, but that series was far superior to Adolescence. At the very least, Baby Reindeer had a coherent story, developed characters, and somewhat of a purpose.
Ultimately, the finale leaves a lot to be desired but the same can be said about the series as a whole. It turned out to be a pretty pointless experience with no sense of justice, no explanation, and no real purpose. The only thing that potentially makes the series compelling is the involvement of Stephen Graham and the alleged recent outbursts. For that fact, the father’s abusive behavior seems more impactful on Jamie than anything else.
The finale scores a 4 out of 10. Recaps of Adolescence can be found here. Find out how to support our independent site at this link. Learn more about advertising with us here. Join the discussion here.
Jay Skelton is a fan of all television shows and movies. He tries his best to keep up with the latest foreign television shows and movies. Jay loves skinny dipping in the dark too.