Adolescence episode 1.03 "Episode 3"
- casey
- 5 days ago
- 9 min read
I generally think The People have pretty good taste. While plenty of gems certainly fly under the radar and trying to predict exactly what will become a cultural phenomenon is a recipe for insanity, I believe that the things that do ultimately captivate a mass audience are popular for a reason. All that said, I kinda think the people’s taste right now is the best it’s ever been. I watched Adolescence purely because the entire internet was talking about it, and I was captivated from start to finish. And the more I think about it, the better it is.
Each episode felt like a standalone piece that contributed a key perspective that, by the end, painted a complete picture. There couldn’t be any more or any less to it. The single take technique, which I’m often skeptical of as an awards-grabby party trick that serves no wider purpose, in this case cements the laser-focus of each episode. In terms of camera work, the episodes featuring more movement and more characters are more of a feat, but narratively I think it had the biggest impact in the simply titled “Episode 3”.
I don’t think I’ve ever before seen an episode of television that depicted, more or less, a single conversation. And I think it’s the most loaded, twisty conversation I’ve ever heard. “Episode 3” stays on a court-appointed psychologist making her fifth visit to Jaime in what seems to be a facility for the underaged criminally insane. She chats with a guard, gets briefed on an altercation Jaime had with another boy, and gets him a hot chocolate from the machine in the hall, then it’s in with Jaime.
The first thing I was struck by was how comfortable and adult Jaime’s banter was with this therapist. He’s not shy or afraid of her, but he’s not sucking up to her either. They speak like equals but even that’s not quite enough- it’s a power struggle from the jump. The conversation starts innocently enough, Jaime thanks her for the hot chocolate and Dr. Ariston adds that she saved him half her sandwich from lunch. Cheese and pickle. Jaime expresses some skepticism about the pickle, but says he’ll take it. He’s not ungracious by any means, yet now it almost seems like he’s the one doing her a favor by accepting it.
The conversation flows naturally for a bit, making superficial conversation about Jaime’s grandparents and how ‘posh’ he thinks Dr. Ariston is. Then she turns towards something definitively meatier: how Jaime feels about masculinity. She doesn’t get very far. Jaime senses her trying to get her hands around the conversation, and he bluntly calls her out on it:
“This all started because I said you sounded like a granny. And now you’re just going on about masculine stuff… The first time you came you had actual questions. ‘Is this right, Jaime? Do you know whether this is wrong Jaime?’ Now you’re just chatting shit… You are, because the first time you’re all ‘If an adult guinea pig eats one of its kids is that normal or weird?’ and now you’re ‘What do you call bread?’… It feels like a trick.”
This is the first of a few times that Jaime will get frustrated with the unconventional dynamic of this relationship, this interaction, this conversation. It will become increasingly evident that everything Jaime says is hyper-calculated, that he’s intent on ‘winning’ this conversation, but it plays by different rules than other interactions, ones whose ‘rules’ he’s painstakingly learned. Dr. Ariston is a formidable opponent as well, both in the context of this particular dynamic, and- we can imagine- as a conversationalist in general. She’s not rattled in the slightest at Jaime calling her tactics out into the open:
“All I want to do is talk to you, Jaime, and have you talk to me. Yes, I’ve asked some straightforward questions, but I think you, and everyone else for that matter, are far more complex than straightforward questions allow for... I could tell you questions I wrote down to talk to you about today, if that helps… Okay. Well, I wanted to talk about the fight you had… I also wrote down that I wanted to talk to you about what being a man feels like… It’s too big a question right? And the fight’s too small a question. Which is why it’s more useful to me to see where the conversation goes and steer it a bit into what you think of your dad and granddad, for instance. The type of men you think they are. Rather than saying, ‘So, Jaime, what do you think being a man feels like?’ It’s not a trick. It’s just a conversation.”
Move and countermove. Jaime can’t find a flaw in that logic, but he doesn’t like it. He tries a more desperate “Can I just see your notes? What you wrote, how you wrote it?”. But it’s a swift no from Dr. Ariston. And it’s clear that his desire is more nuanced than just power. After calling her out for her ‘trick’, he let out a regretful “And now I’ve pissed you off”. Jaime wants to come out in control of this interaction, but not at the cost of being perceived negatively. So, he lets the conversation continue.
Jaime cautiously entertains her personal questions until they get into his ineptitude in sports. He describes his poor soccer skills and his dad avoiding eye contact from the sidelines.
JAIME: Maybe he just didn’t want me to see him looking sorry.
DR. ARISTON: Sorry?
JAIME: I dunno. Ashamed.
DR. ARISTON: How did you feel when you saw that shame?
JAIME: You’re supposed to say he wasn’t.
DR. ARISTON: Am I?
JAIME: Yeah. You’re supposed to say, “Oh I bet he wasn’t ashamed.” “Bet you just thought that, Jaime.” Or “Is that what you really think? He wouldn’t be ashamed, not of his kid.”
DR. ARISTON: Have other people said that to you?
JAIME: It’s just the right thing to say.
DR. ARISTON: Isn’t it lying?
JAIME: No. I don’t know. I don’t like lying.
Jaime doesn’t want Dr. Ariston’s reassurance to make him feel better. He just wants her to follow the rules. To him, following these social rules isn’t a matter of truth. He’s uncomfortable with the premise of this interaction, which inherently deviates from the rules as is made frustratingly clear to him throughout the episode: Dr. Ariston is here to “get an understanding of his understanding” of his circumstances and the actions for which he’s been accused. As the conversation unfolds, it becomes more and more evident that Jaime’s understanding is chillingly clear.
Eventually, he’s reminded of his lack of control, not just in this conversation, but in his current situation at large. He gets antsy after unsuccessfully pleading with Dr. Ariston to get him moved to another facility. After she calmly asks him to sit back down, he explodes, smacking his cup of hot chocolate across the room.
“I don’t fucking wanna sit down! You do not tell me when to sit down! You do not control what I fucking- look at me now! You do not control what I do in my life! Get that in your fucking little head of yours! Fucking hell! Fuck.”
The guard pokes his head in at the sound of shouting. Dr. Ariston says they’re fine but takes the moment to step out and take a breath. The interruption brings Jaime back to Earth. He apologizes for shouting- and has the balls to ask for another hot chocolate. I don’t think he necessarily expects her to get him one- I think he’s testing the waters to see how much damage he’s done. That outburst wasn’t a part of his plan, it was a momentary lapse of the extreme calculation he carries himself with most of the time. The same lapse that allowed him to kill Katie, the same lapse that we learn in the following episode has always been a part of his personality.
Dr. Ariston returns and Jaime insists that he’s collected himself. Ariston, perhaps herself sensing that Jaime’s outburst has earned her back the power she’d lost in needing to prove that she wasn’t tricking him, gets to her meatier questions. She asks bluntly how Jaime feels about women, if he’s attracted to them, if he’s had a girlfriend, if he wants one, why he thinks he doesn’t have one. Jaime gets increasingly uncomfortable. A grown woman asking him these questions behind a closed door, peppering him with them even, without giving him any comfort or reassurance. Nothing about that follows any rules he’s familiar with. He’s already in the red and now he’s completely off his game.
“The other bloke is much more easy. Him checking whether I understand was much easier. Whether I understand what I did.”
There it is. Jaime’s mortified.
“Look, no, fuck off! I didn’t fucking say that! You’re fucking putting words in me mouth! It’s a fucking trap in here! You are! Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck’s sake. Fuck off! For fuck’s sake. Fuck. Fuck. Fine. I will fucking sit down. You happy now?”
He’s stuck. ‘Winning’ this conversation is pretty much out of the question now. But he also doesn’t want it to end. As far as he knows, she’s his only hope at bettering his circumstances right now. In some ways and in some moments, it’s suddenly glaringly apparent that he’s just a kid. He understands his crime and the potential consequences, but he doesn’t realize how deep he already is. And gaining control over and favor with this woman takes precedent over securing her help. To speak to the show’s title, navigating the maze of social status really is the most important thing to a teenager.
So, he jams himself back in his chair, and the conversation gets even more real. Dr. Ariston has brought printouts of his Instagram interactions with Katie. They unpack the subtext of Katie’s comments, the extent to which he was bullied and perceived as an incel by his peers. This is his real insecurity. He feels both his power and likability slipping through his fingers. He makes a last-ditch attempt to get some ego back, the verbal equivalent of kicking sand in Ariston’s eyes:
“Are you alright? You look a bit red. Did I scare you when I shouted? I mean, I’m only 13. I don’t think I look that scary. How embarrassing is that? Getting scared of a 13-year-old. Wow.”
But Ariston just persists with her questions, and Jaime has no choice but to keep answering them. Checkmate is closing in. Finally, Ariston’s had enough and heard enough. She asks him straightforward questions, maybe all that the first psychologist thought to ask: “Do you understand what death is?”, “You understand that Katie’s gone and can’t come back? That whatever claims you make to her character, she’s gone? That whoever did kill her, they extinguished the possibility of her future life?”, “Do you understand that murder is a crime?”, “You understand that if you’re found guilty, you’ll be held in detention?”, “Understand who will make the decision?”. Jaime answers all those questions, and that’s it. “Okay. Jaime, this is our last session.”
Jaime flounders, trying for this not to be the end, even as the guard starts removing him from the room. Desperately, he asks the question he really needs the answer to, the one thing, in addition to control, that he works tirelessly- and fruitlessly- for: “Can I ask you something? Do you like me? Because I like you. Not like that. Not fancying you. Just as a person. Don’t you even like me a bit? What did you think about me, then? Decide, come on!” And then reality mingles with the teenage desperation to be liked, and he shouts, banging on the windows of the room as he’s dragged down the hall: “Don’t you go fucking telling them what I did! Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare! Fuck! Don’t you even like me a bit? Just tell my dad I’m alright! Tell him that I’m okay! Tell him that I’m alright! Tell him I’m okay, please!”
His temper, his fatal flaw, cost him all those things and more. It’s why he’s here in the first place. But despite this seesaw of rage and disturbing calculation, the episode ends reminding us that he’s just a kid. The fact that he lost the game of conversation that he tried so hard to play is, in a way, childlike. How badly he wants to be liked speaks to his age, as does his simultaneous desire to impress and receive comfort from his dad. It makes the character of Jaime all the more compelling and all the more sad. And not getting a break from it, courtesy of the single take, makes it impossible to ignore.
This was a long one, but there was just so much here, in this one long take. What do you think of Jaime? Am I reading him right? Did I leave anything out? What do you make of it all?
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