I May Destroy You

I MAY DESTROY YOU ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Creator: Michaela Coel. Cast: Michaela Coel, Weruche Opia, Paapa Essiedu, Stephen Wight, Marouane Zotti, Harriet Webb, Aml Ameen, Adam James, Natalie Walter, Karan Gill.

This came highly recommended by a lot of my friends and most of the British press and it can see why.

It is a multi-layered , through-provoking, both rational and emotional, fearless and complex TV series showing not just the many representations of “sexual misconduct” and the results on the people who experience it (the victims, the witnesses, the imposters) but it’s also about race, gender and our over-reliance of social media (says the guy who’s writing a blog advertised on Twitter and Facebook).

Technically it feels a bit cheaper and often a lot less accomplished than many of those US series we are getting these days (also stylistically it’s a bit all over the place), but beyond that, there is some really good writing at play, constantly alternating between funny and devastating, empowering and soul crashing, all made it even more powerful by some raw and fearless performances. 

It’s a very important series and I am glad it exists, however, did it really needed to be 12 episodes? If it has been a lot tighter it would not have lost any of its impact, in fact it would have been even stronger.

I did feel it lost steam more often that it should have: some of the episodes were much too diluted with tangential subplots and indulgent extended sequences; those sex scenes, dance scenes, drinking scenes… (yes, thanks, I get it, move on please now). The tricksy ending is also a little bit too heavy handed and seems to belong to a different series.

But when it kept the focus to the main storyline it was really quite good.

Available on the BBC iPlayer