Nadeesh Parmar

*spoiler alert* Where do I even start? There are so many different emotions that this series evoked in me. I just cried my eyes out after watching the finale! This series is not about stalking but abuse. Donny was abused and in all likelihood Martha was abused too. Donny’s abuse manifested in him hating himself, a 'death wish', because that’s what abuse does. It brings tremendous amount of shame, and there is no one to blame but oneself. The abuser is slick, manipulative, narcissistic who plays on the vulnerabilities of their target. But the story is about Donny, he has a dream of becoming a famous comedian but then reality hits hard. Life isn’t that easy, no one cares and his desire of becoming the person he thought he wanted to become, started to feel like an impossible dream. There was no one who believes in him, except this famous author called Darien (who’s backstory we are not aware of). He promises to fulfill Donny’s dream and make into a reality, instead he abuses him. The desire in Donny to become famous was so strong that he gave in and went back multiple times to the author because he truly believed that becoming famous will make him immune to judgment, something which he has struggled with all his life. But there is also a part of him, that sees the futility of this endeavor and fights against his desires. There’s constant tussle between the two, Donny is trapped between his personal ego and his socialized ego! Until he meets Martha, who triggers a process in his psyche that drops the curtain over his personal ego’s desires and his socialized ego's image oh himself, as he tries to adjust with this new awareness. There’s confusion, delusion and utter chaos, only for him to realize in the end and see what was true. There was harmony when there were no secrets, when he was not trying to become someone or something but just was, as is, being, in its purest form. His last quest was to try and figure out what went wrong with Martha, until finally on the brink of starting the repetitive cycle of abuse again he realizes that she probably went through a ‘death wish’ like him which was worse, that left her broken, mentally, and psychologically. But she was a human too, there must be authenticity in her as well, which he could see when no one else could because he rose up from the notions of good, bad, mad, normal and saw in her what she saw in him. Baby Reindeer, a comfort unlike other, akin only to that of a mother’s embrace when an infant. Gripping!