The Prestige TV Podcast
Netflix’s Hit One-Shot Show, ‘Adolescence’: The Surprise of the Year?
Wed, 19 Mar 2025
Jo and Rob are back for an emergency pod to discuss the hit Netflix show ‘Adolescence’ (3:15), Stephen Graham’s performance as the father of the accused boy (9:42), and the advantages and disadvantages of the one-shot concept of the episodes (14:33). Plus, the two get into the standout episode of the four-part series (35:07). Email us! [email protected] Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Prestige TV Podcast’ and so much more! Try Coffee mate Creamers Now: http://coffeemate.com Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Producers: Kai Grady and Donnie Beacham Jr. Video Production: John Richter Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is 'Adolescence' and should you watch it?
four episodes for one hour episodes dropped over the weekend we're gonna talk to you about the show we're gonna at the top of this episode if you haven't seen adolescence but we know some of you sickos click on these episodes and listen to them even though you haven't seen the thing so if you haven't seen it at the top we're going to talk about what it is and whether or not rob and i recommend that you watch it and then we'll get in you know and then maybe you decide to press pause go watch it come back and listen for more um
We're going to do all that. Very quickly, I want to mention that this is dropping on a Tuesday. Tomorrow, Wednesday, we will have not only our White Lotus episode five coverage, but Rob and I are doing a live Q&A at noon Pacific lunchtime.
We sure are. Will we be bobbing for pineapples live on air, Jo? Can you commit to that?
No, but what if I brought some of the pineapple high chews that they have here at the office?
Does that count? You're not even trying.
The pineapple high cheese are sneaky the best high cheese. Okay. So listen, severance, noon, pineapple, BYO pineapple. We're going to do a severance Q&A, live mailbag sort of situation. You can send questions in advance to where, Rob Mahoney?
Coincidentally to pineapplebobbing at gmail.com or as always to prestigetv at spotify.com.
But also we will be answering questions sort of live from the chat inside of this Q&A, which you can find on YouTube on the Ringer TV channel at noon on Wednesday. And then it also will just be there after that so that you can watch it later. But why not join us for lunch or, I don't know, a 3 p.m. snack if you're on the East Coast or other time zones.
And then we will have our Severance finale pod up on Thursday night rather than the usual Friday morning. But then we will be doing another pod at the top of next week to sort of gather your reactions to the finale and our look ahead to the future. And we might have some extra bonus stuff on that episode as well.
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Chapter 2: What makes Stephen Graham's performance stand out?
Yeah.
They're oners. And as far as I can tell from behind this, like interviews and behind the scenes footage, these are actual oners, not digitally seamed oners. And we'll sort of talk about the extraordinary process of making the show. We can talk about that. Um, yeah. But this is this is a show written by Jack Thorne, who has done a bunch of adaptive IP work that is like hit or miss for me.
But then a lot of like original work that I find more interesting. Like he wrote the Cursed Child. He wrote the for the His Dark Materials series. But then he's also done like This is England and a bunch of other stuff. And then Stephen Graham, who is one of my favorite actors and is really like doing some interesting stuff with his career right now. There's your Venoms, The Last Dances.
And then there's also this. But he's extraordinary on this show. So, Rob, what? Before we got the text from our producer Justin on Sunday being like, hey, do you guys want to crash an adolescence pod? Yes. You and I both had heard about this show. Yeah.
The word of mouth was exceptionally strong, I would say.
You and I both were like, yes, we will, because we have heard nothing but excitement around the show. So what had you heard that got you excited about the show that made you side text me being like, I want to do this. Do you want to do this, Joe? Sort of thing.
I think it was that it was a surprise that it caught people off guard, that it just kind of popped up on Netflix without a ton of fanfare, despite it being a pretty extravagant production. And so people happen upon this in their feed. Try it because maybe they love Stephen Graham. Maybe they just are looking for something to watch. And I think if you don't know what you're getting into...
This show can really knock you out. It's pretty heavy emotional territory that they're getting into, as you might guess from the subject matter. Anytime a child is involved in some sort of serious crime, we're wading into something pretty deep. I think it handles those themes and those ideas about as well as a project like this can.
And I don't know how you feel overall, Joe, but I would say from this... At a distance, trying to decide should you watch adolescence or not, I would give it basically my strongest possible recommendation if you have the stomach for some more serious, like true to cultural commentary of our real world sorts of themes.
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Chapter 3: How does the one-shot concept enhance 'Adolescence'?
She was like warning me on the Thursday before it dropped on the Friday. And then Friday I get the text from Chris Ryan who's like, Joanna, adolescence. And I was like, oh no. And then I started hearing from a bunch of other people. So here we are. So go watch it if you haven't. If you've already watched it or you are one of those sickos who wants to stay around anyway. I will say this.
I want to say... If you're one of our beloved sickos who likes to listen to us natter at each other without having watched a thing, that is great. We welcome you. I will just want to premise... the framework of the show for you to help you listen to this. Four episodes takes place over. It's 13 months is the time span of these from arrest to the end of the story.
First episode is the arrest and then the sort of booking of the child, Jamie.
Here's the question. Do we want to tip the hand as to what happens beyond episode one? Because I feel like where it goes and how surprising this show is and what it wants to tackle, to me, is part of the thrill of it.
Well, I'm presuming anyone listening now... Oh, we're spoiler gloves off at this point.
Oh, in that case, you know what? Let's just jump straight to the end.
So, episode one is the arrest. Episode two, they go to the school, basically to try to hunt down where the murder weapon is. And by the end of episode one, we have irrefutable proof that this kid has... Donna murder. Episode three is essentially a two hander with this kid and a therapist who was sent in to evaluate him as part of the court case. That's, I think, seven months later.
So it's seven months into the investigation. And then 13 months is the final episode. And that is the boy's family and how everything is sort of impacting them about a year later is sort of where we leave things. So that's that's just like the basic framework.
So there's the police station episode, the school episode, the therapist episode and the family episode is sort of how I'm kind of reference it as we talk about it. Yeah. I want to talk about a little bit more about some of the talent behind the show. Please. So Stephen Graham, again, who I love. I was at I was at Pub Trivia on Sunday.
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Chapter 4: What are the challenges and benefits of filming in one-shot?
I think informs a lot of kind of what is what is priming us to watch him on screen here in Adolescence as Eddie, where there is the implication throughout a lot of the stages of the story of is this character violent? Is this an abusive father? Is this someone who? Does have an anger problem. And we hear a lot more about it than we end up seeing earlier in the stage of the story.
So we're filling in a lot of the blanks in our minds as to what that looks like. And it looks like Stephen Graham, a dude who's so jacked he's about to pop out of his polo shirt. It's hard not to infer some things about that just from that character and that actor. And they know they know exactly what they're doing in having him in this role.
The polo is popping. Well, and you say they know exactly what they're doing, having this role. He is the co-creator of this show. And something I want to highlight about him is that, and CR was talking to me about this a little bit, like what Stephen Graham has done with, he is much better known in the UK than he is here. He has like an OBE, like he is a fixture in UK film and television.
And what he has done, and this is CR's point, sort of like with his fame and his fame, I would say in the last few years in 2020, he and his wife, who's also an actress and a producer, Hannah Walters co-founded a production company. And so they've been making projects alongside your Venoms and your other things.
And so and he sort of started to amass a kind of stable of actors like Ashley Walters, who plays the lead detective in this. And Aaron Daugherty, who plays the therapist in this, were in this. A Thousand Blows, this like period boxer project that he did also this year with his wife. So and then the director of.
Here we are complaining about recording multiple podcasts. Stephen Graham is just like, yeah, multiple extravagant productions in one calendar year. No big.
Exactly. The director, Philip Barantini, who directed all the episodes, is best known for directing a film called Boiling Point, which is a one-er. It was based on a short film called Boiling Point, which was a one-er. And then they did a whole feature film and then a TV series called Boiling Point that is set in a kitchen.
You know, so that episode of The Bear, but make it longer and probably more agitating. Right. But I think, you know, collecting directors that he's worked with before, actors that he likes and works with before. I was watching an interview he gave where he was like, at this point in my career, I just like to surround myself with, like, people who are good at their jobs and pleasant on set.
And, like, that's all I want to do now. And so then this is, like, a passion project of a kind for him. And it was inspired by...
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Chapter 5: Does 'Adolescence' shift focus away from the victim?
Are you saying there's been pushback on the show for treating him too kindly?
I'm not even saying there's been any pushback other than to say, I think the show itself engages with this idea in the second episode where the show is basically calling itself out for being fundamentally and structurally a story about Jamie in a lot of different ways. And in particular, DS Frank, Misha played by Faye Marseille, who I love and I'm thrilled to see in this role. I agree.
You have this kind of point of conflict between her and Bascom, where Bascom is very intent on figuring out the why of why Jamie murdered Katie. And I think Frank doesn't think you ever can know why, which is a reasonable point of view to have in a case like this.
But also, it bothers her so much that they're spending so much time trying to get into Jamie's head in a way that probably will render Katie invisible or at least put her aside or at least put her outside the frame. And... I think Bascom's counter to that, that figuring out the why, is in its way honoring Katie.
I do find that to be a little bit persuasive, but I honestly very much want to hear what you feel about it, Jill.
I feel mixed about it. I wanted to talk, and that's in my notes to talk about. I consider that, of my advantage, disadvantage of a one-er, and I will zoom back to some other things, I have this under mixed, because... Long-form storytelling TV can take you anywhere inside of a story.
And that's an advantage of something like, let's say, Broadchurch, where we're inside so many people's homes and so many people's lives. And we're at home with, you know, no spoilers for Broadchurch, but we're at home with the murderers as much as we're at home with the parents who are grieving, you know, the child and stuff like that. And so... So a disadvantage...
To sticking so firmly on Jamie and Jamie's family and something that Stephen Graham said, he was like, we really thought it'd be interesting to be with Jamie's family in the final episode. Yes. Is interesting and it's interesting in the advantage of the one or which is you're there in the claustrophobic silences. You're there with Jamie crying in the van ride to the police station.
You're there with Bryony, the therapist, as she like stands and wait for the hot chocolate machine to deposit all the hot chocolate into the cup. You know, like those those those narrowing the iris of the story down into this one hour of time.
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Chapter 6: How does 'Adolescence' portray the investigation process?
This show is so deeply unsalacious like it is it is it is so uninterested in the glamorization of murder or in this I ripped even like a rip from the headlines sort of intrigue and so much more interested in the structural factors that lead to things like this and really the way that not just Jamie is.
a kid who has gone so far astray and has so many clear terrifying problems but the way that like we as a society have failed kids and we have failed their ability to be raised in a normal format and to be able to function as normal adult human beings like everything is going off the railroad tracks so fast and it's like the camera's pointing at the railroad tracks and saying like why is this happening as much as it is the murder itself or anything involved
I love that. And I love that when they talk about the show, the line that they've been using in all the interviews is not this isn't a whodunit, but a why done it. Right. And like the fact that the show has no easy answers to your point about like your preconceived notions around a Stephen Graham type. Yes. The answer isn't, oh, he was abused by his father. That's not the answer.
The story they want to present to you is this actually is a fairly, like, loving, normal home. And I think that all of the you're so bright, you're a smart kid comments was not just them sort of making things in the same way, do you want cornflakes made, like, sort of thing, but also to underline, like, This is a smart kid.
Yeah.
And this is a thing that happened with this smart kid from a loving family. I do want to say, I agree with you that it's not a salacious, we're not glamorizing murder. We're not doing anything like that, but I'm going to, I'm going to like call it one last advantage of the one-er. And this is sort of like where I started with the concept as a conduit to story.
It breaks through the noise of content.
It does.
In a way that we talked about a bit with the pit as well, right? Like the pit being the concept is every episode is an hour in one shift. They're not doing one-ers in that hospital, but like, There's a hook.
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