TW: mention of sexual assault; 3rd episode has repeated sexual assault

In a pit of hopelessness, looking at the world around us, art and media is oftentimes our only respite—a place for us to feel seen, held, and comfort amongst all the injustice.

I’ve been rather uninspired by the content being put out for a while now. So imagine my surprise when I opened my Netflix account and saw a new series that piqued my interest—Baby Reindeer. It’s a 2024, 7-episode miniseries by queer British playwright Richard Gadd, based on his one-man play.

The synopsis was simple enough: a struggling comedian meets a lonely woman while working at a bar, who soon becomes obsessed with him and starts stalking him. Turns out, the story is based on harrowing real-life events experienced by the creator.

I took the synopsis at face value and went in with little context—I think that made the experience that much more thrilling.

The show follows the story of Donny, an insecure, down-on-himself creative who’s moved to the big city to follow his dreams, only to be met with the harsh reality that his dreams might just be out of reach. But this story isn’t just about Donny. It brings to life a bunch of characters who are complex, relatable, and at times hold a mirror up to our deepest shadow(s).

At first, when I saw the character of Martha (played by Jessica Gunning), a bubbly, chatty, dishevelled fat woman, who I thought was going to be an “antagonist” on the show, alarm bells started to ring in my head. Was this going to be another fatphobic, misogynistic show that paints an isolated plump woman as a “psycho stalker” and uses her as a punchline?

Well… I’m glad I stuck with it and gave it a chance. And I was pleasantly surprised by how the show treated each of its characters.

While the series of events shown are definitely dramatic, outrageous, and at times, traumatic, the treatment of these themes is through an utterly human lens. It’s horrifying, it’s painful, it’s healing, and boy is it hilarious!

Never before have I seen the psyche and inner workings of a sexual abuse survivor portrayed so beautifully onscreen. There’s no pity. No dramatisation. It happens to be direct and matter of fact, which is what makes it all the more compelling. Donny’s inner monologue, his relaying of his intense feelings of shame, were so cathartic to watch on screen. It’s as if someone was in my head, saying the things we are all too often so afraid to say. But it is in the sharing of these experiences that true healing happens.

Rather than being over-the-top, judgemental, or even self righteous, Baby Reindeer isn’t afraid to get down and dirty and wrestle in the murky mud that is human emotions, traumas, and relational dynamics and how these shape our identity and self-perception.

As a survivor of sexual abuse, diagnosed with BPD and CPTSD, I could see myself in both Danny and Martha. And there lies the beauty of this moving series. There are no “bad guys and good guys”, just human beings full of nuance and complexity.

At its core, Baby Reindeer is a show that portrays the cycle of trauma and its long-term, all-encompassing impact in an empathetic way. It highlights the tendency of trauma survivors to get sucked into unhealthy, codependent relational patterns as a desperate attempt to get our needs met. The ending, where Donny is seen mirroring Martha from the beginning of the show, poignantly alludes to this.

The show also doesn’t go as far as to show a clear cut “upward” healing journey for Donny. He’s seen learning, overcoming some fears, but still succumbing to others, which aptly mirrors the life of a person living with complex trauma.

Another standout character is Terry,a transwoman, who plays Donny’s love interest. She’s confident, beautiful, and sweeps Donny off his feet. Her trans identity just happens to be a fact about her, not all of who she is. At a certain point in the show, she is faced with aggressive transphobia at the hands of Martha, and the incident is addressed in a gentle, delicate manner. It’s not patronising, but rather is explored through patient conversations between the characters.  The show even addresses delicate subjects such as sexual assault of children within the Catholic Church (through the character of Donny’s dad.)

A part that stood out to me is that even after Donny has a heart-to-heart with his parents about all that he’s been through—his parents respond to their son’s confession in a gentle and accepting manner—he still ends up reconnecting with his abuser and continues to make a deal with him for a shot at fame. Donny’s honest confessions of “I wish I could say I left right then, but I stayed”—highlights the reality for so many of us, who are at some level really trying to be better for ourselves, but fall through the spiral of nonlinear healing. One step forward, two steps back.

Most importantly though, the show doesn’t shy away from delving into the grey. In an internet culture that is obsessed with moral policing, cancelling, and just over all binary thinking, the dynamic between Martha and Donny is truly refreshing and heartwarming. Yes, I bet a 100 folks on X would jump to call it “toxic”… and they’re not wrong, it kind of is. But in actuality, the life of trauma survivors cannot be put into neat little boxes.

We are not great judges of character. Sometimes, we empathize with the people who are bad for us a bit too much. We make ‘questionable’ decisions. We do things that seem counterproductive to those who don’t understand. We hurt ourselves in attempts to “heal”. It takes us trial and error, support, and most importantly time to find our way, find ourselves and learn to live with the experiences we will carry with us forever.

While this may be a heavy, uneasy watch for some, this 7 episode series flies by in no-time, neatly packaged with no loose ends, telling us everything it wants to say, with an open-ended close. Whether you’re someone who relates to the experiences described, or you’re desperately looking for traces of real, raw humanity, Baby Reindeer has something to take away for everyone.