CW: Rape; Sexual Assault
where to watch: HBO
when to watch: when you are ready to watch something intense but incredible
you should note: created by and starring Michaela Coel of Chewing Gum and Black Earth Rising
tl;dr: After being raped on a night out, Arabella’s relationship to her world—her friends, her career, her values—is upended.
difficult
After a too-long hiatus, I’m really excited to return with recommending Michaela Coel’s new show, I May Destroy You. You may remember her from when I wrote about Chewing Gum. I May Destroy You is a drastically different show, but perhaps even more brilliant.
This post has been difficult for me to write, because it’s a difficult show to watch. Based on Michaela Coel’s own experience with sexual assault, the show is primarily interested in exploring the aftermath of sexual assault from all different angles.
Michaela Coel starts as Arabella, a young writer on a deadline. In the first episode, on a night out Arabella’s drink is spiked and she is raped. However, this is not the only sexual assault that occurs in the series. The show also adeptly explores the sexual assault of a man, something I rarely ever see represented on screen.
specific
I May Destroy You is filled with nuance, both in terms of the specificity of the assaults it features and all of the emotions it delves into. Arabella is twitter-famous, and her followers start telling her about their own experiences with sexual assault. In some ways, she falls into a role of taking on others’ trauma while dealing with her own. This social media aspect is yet another thread in the tapestry of this show that makes it so engaging and complex.
The series also uses time jumps and occasional flashback episodes extremely efficiently, allowing us to access different parts of Arabella and keeping every episode fresh. At times, it even feels disorienting, but intentionally so—after all, trauma disorients. The brightly colored visuals adds to the intensity of the viewing experience. Vulture describes it as “sublimely unsettling.” It is undoubtedly both.
Beyond exploring the nuances of sexual assault, the show tells the story of three Black millennial Brits. As mentioned, Arabella is a twitter-famous up and coming author. Her best friend Terry is a struggling actress with occasional stage fright. Arabella’s friend Kwame is a gay dance instructor who frequently has casual hook ups. Each of these characters are compelling and highly flawed. Between the characters and the specificity of Arabella’s trauma-ridden world, Coel creates a disconcerting, intoxicating, incomparable TV show.
In an interview with the New York Times, Paapa Essiedu said of I May Destroy You, “There’s layers to this work…Because it’s so direct and some of it is so hard to watch, sometimes your brain can’t tolerate accessing the nuance that lies underneath it.” I couldn’t agree more. Watching this show will feel difficult, but also incredibly worth it. After all, sometimes life is painful. And sometimes, we cannot afford to look away.