This story contains spoilers for “Adolescence.”
“Adolescence” co-creator, writer and star Stephen Graham told Craig Melvin on TODAY that he hopes his show inspires parents to “open the door” more and go talk to their kids.
This advice comes after his show, which premiered on Netflix March 13, has been gushed about by fans and critics alike, holding a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes as of this article’s publication.
The series follows the arrest of 13-year-old Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) for murdering his classmate. But it doesn’t only highlight Jamie’s strife; it shows how his family reacts and how their lives change — particularly how it affects his dad, Eddie Miller (Stephen Graham).
“It’s the story of a young boy who gets accused of the murder of a young girl,” Graham explained to Craig on March 21. “And, there’s no spoilers, we find out by the end of the (first) episode that he did it. And it was never a kind of ‘Who done it?’ It was more of a ‘Why has he done it?’ And that’s kind of the concept of the program.”
In the final episode of the mini series, Eddie Miller is seen entering his son’s bedroom, which looks exactly the same, despite being 13 months since Jamie’s arrest.
Eddie looks around, crying. Earlier that day, Jamie had called from jail to tell them that he was changing his plea to guilty. Eddie then fully breaks down, sobbing loudly into Jamie’s pillow. After pulling himself together, he tucks Jamie’s teddy bear into his bed, whispering “I’m sorry, son” before giving it a kiss on the head.
“I should have done better,” he says as he exits the room and the show cuts to black on Jamie’s room, still frozen in time.
Graham explained that this ending scene in the bedroom functioned as a message for parents.
“It’s a big impact that it has on his father,” Graham said. “And I think, if anything, what we’re trying to say is maybe ‘Open our bedroom door a little bit more…’”
“I think we’ve created an opportunity for parents to open that door and go into the bedroom and talk to our youth because they’re our future,” he continued.
Despite Eddie apologizing to his son’s teddy bear at the end, “Adolescence” doesn’t place the blame solely on the parents. Graham told Craig he wanted to create something where there were multiple factors that led to Jamie committing the murder.
“We wanted to look at what’s happening to young boys today in today’s society where this kind of radicalization from the internet but also the school system and parenting. So it’s really a kind of question of why has this young boy gone out and done this horrendous act,” he said.
He used the classic saying “It takes a village to raise a child” to explain this point further, posing the question of what if the whole village is also “accountable.”
“You know, parenting, schooling, politics, the education system, society and, something that me and you didn’t have, the internet,” Graham told Craig. “The internet is a big influence on our young generation, even on any generation, so I think it’s looking at all of those aspects and maybe raising our hands up.”
“We aren’t pointing the finger at any one individual or any particular thing,” he continued. “We’re just saying maybe we should look at this — put a mirror up to society and maybe we are all accountable in some way, shape or form.”
Craig echoed this sentiment, adding that he thought about his own kids, particularly son Delano, 11, as binged all four hours of the series in one sitting.
“I thought about what it’s like to raise, especially young boys right now,” Craig said.
Graham thanked Craig for sharing this sentiment, noting that “We’re the only one’s who can change the narrative.”
