Baby Reindeer
"Baby Reindeer" is Netflix's new top dog: a series about obsession, fear, and the insatiable craving to please others no matter what. But that’s reductive. It's like a stand-up gig, loaded with dark and twisted vibes, full of raw life and emotion, hitting people right in the gut and head at the same time. Sneakily dropped without any hype, "Baby Reindeer" quickly became the most discussed show of the month. It's different from other TV series dominating the streaming landscape (emotionally lobotomizing and existentially flat) and was probably what TV needed: a narrative with real content that gives viewers real feels.
Courtesy of Netflix
What makes "Baby Reindeer" so hardcore is that it's a true story, based on the life of the same dude we see on stage, who's also the brain behind the series: Richard Gadd. After debuting with the show "Monkey See, Monkey Do" at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2016, where Gadd dug into his empathy for discomfort and tackled the trauma of his assault, in 2019, he presented "Baby Reindeer" at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, putting in black and white the most remote corners of his mind - talking of his stalker and all of his past.
When Gadd decided to write the screenplay for "Baby Reindeer," he probably did it to tell his story and to share not just his pain but, above all, his truth with others. Indeed, the series narrates a story of reverse stalking but also dives deep into some seriously twisted psychological frameworks rooted in trauma, abuse, redemption, and salvation. The names in the series are all fictitious, including the main character’s one, who wanted to protect the real identities of each individual involved in the story (but people on the internet are already speculating on who could be who in real life).
It all starts with a cup of tea that Donny Dunn (Richard Gadd) kindly offers to a woman who happens to be crying in the pub where he works. From that day on, that woman, Martha (played by Jessica Gunning), starts stalking him. Throughout her stalking spree, the woman sent Donny 41,071 emails, 350 hours of voicemails, 744 tweets, 46 Facebook messages, 106 pages of letters, and gifts. She has been outside his house, been a regular at his workplace, hit up his comedy gigs, shadowed him and then his parents, and even assaulted Teri, a trans woman he was dating (played by Nava Mau).
But Martha is just the lid of a Pandora's box packed with inner conflicts and unresolved traumas. It turns out that Donny was previously abused by Darrien (played by Tom Goodman-Hill), a producer and writer who flattered Donny by leveraging his naivety and desire to become someone, then drugged and raped him. From there, it sets off a chain of events that make Donny question his sexuality, and screw up everything around him. This burden carries with him throughout his life, also fueling the great hatred he feels for himself - as he begins to lose that spark and no longer really believe in his abilities, as these were only a pretext to be dominated.
Martha's voicemails sound like podcast episodes that Donny listens to, and listening to them is like peeling back the layers of his own past; he rediscovers himself. It's tough trying to give shape to shame and anguish. To distinguish between the good and the bad and not feel like an executioner when, in reality, you’re the victim - because the boundary is very thin. Gadd does it, and cathartically catalogs his pain: from the past to first abuses, from the rape he suffered to love, from his insecurities to his fame-hungry drive, and the pleasure he started feeling (almost subconsciously) when Martha wouldn't quit hunting him down, wanting him all to herself, even if in a pathological way.
Gadd dissects his whole life's timeline: some situations seem to replay, but they're not the same. They're always new, weird, and more twisted than before because blow after blow, the psyche begins to yield and twist in on itself. Donny, the character, doesn't want to investigate - but at the same time, curiosity is eating him alive, he needs to know: he googles his stalker, looks for her, studies her. He wants to know her and also doesn’t, he's fine like this, he's scared. At first, he thinks he can handle her - then he realizes he can't, he doesn't have the tools or skills to do it. He realizes, even more importantly, that he needs help - also because his baggage is getting heavy and is infecting his relationship with Teri (which was the purest “thing" he had at the time - she was seeing him, was trying to heal him).
Martha’s messages flooding the screen, the aggressions, the allusions, the chases, the violence. More messages, more chases - a hell that lasts for years and then, almost out of the blue, it ends. And instead of feeling relieved, Donny, and thus Gadd, feels guilty. And so it starts again: obsession, the terror, the desperate need to please, the loneliness, the despair, the love we hope to find and that maybe doesn't even exist.
Because love is an idea, and ideas like traumas are hard to fight.
With "Baby Reindeer," it's easy to feel disoriented, to get lost in Donny's reactions and in his wrong choices, which seem to encourage Martha's madness rather than condemn it. But that’s exactly what often happens in the reality of those dealing with stalking: they are so involved, so enmeshed, as to create almost a dependency relationship with their persecutor (ed. see Stockholm Syndrome). Gadd gives us a raw and emotionally twisted tale about one of the most complex topics ever: the self, with all its angles.
In the already cult phenomenon series of the year, Gadd understands. He digs down to the root of the mystery, dissects it, senses the human tragedy as a whole. It is in the relationship with oneself that the greatest evil lies. Gadd doesn’t love himself, never has, and consequently runs away from any form of "healthy" love. When faced with trauma, we often find ourselves facing an invisible enemy that not only hurts the body and soul but also seeps into the most intimate relationships, first and foremost in the relationship with ourselves, poisoning love and trust with its corrosive venom. We find ourselves trapped in a vicious cycle of self-destruction, where past pain becomes our cruelest jailer. We hate ourselves for our failures, for our weaknesses, for everything we are and have failed to be. And in this vortex of self-pity, we end up wrecking everything around us, leaving behind a trail of ruins and desolation. For Gadd, recognizing a broken human being as he is reassures him, even if, at the same time, he fears for the safety of those close to him and his own future. The reason "Baby Reindeer" captivated the world lies in this delicate balance between what we desire and what leads us to destruction, spinning a tale that's both dramatic and grotesque, sucking the audience into a whirlwind that's nearly impossible to break free from.
Our advice? Enjoy the ride.
"Sent from my iPhone"
