Tanya Matefi

I'm surprised at the story being described as attractive, horrific, but attractive, not a word I would choose. Masterful is the way the obviously fictionalised story is portrayed. We see it as if through a camera lense. The exaggerated acting makes it obviousl that this is an imagined story, the characters are 2 dimensional. I'm surprised at commentators who believed this to be the story, as filled as it is with tropes. The Catherine portrayed there, more a reflection of Nancy's character. Though we sympathise with her in her grief, she's not revealed to be a kind or pleasant person, but is selfish and obsessive. One wonders if her sociopathic son inherited his character flaws from his parents. The glee with which Steven sets out to destroy lives with nothing other than hearsay to give him a sense of rightful vindication, reflects a root of the same brutal cruelty as that of his son. I get that the acting of that story is deliberately unrealistic, it's done with exactly the right level of realism, but nevertheless strongly shows that it's based on Nancy's imagination. And the Oedipal undertones are very disquieting. She would rather villainise Catherine than imagine her son voluntarily wanting anyone other than her. The foreshadowing is also incredible, so intricately incorporated into the whole without ever overstating. What I find unfortunate is that what is meant to be the real story is likewise not presented 100 realistically. It falls back on certain somewhat irritating thriller conventions in order to draw out the suspense. So everybody in Catherine's life being immediately convinced that the book is true, without speaking to her, to set her up to be even more of a victim, is just so frustrating. That she has no friends to confide in and never gets to spill it out, apart to her sleeping mother. Her simpering and apologising instead of just spitting it out, so that the big reveal could be left to the last episode, seemed more like a dramatic device than believably portraying a survivor who can't talk about it. Apart from Steven, her husband is maybe the most pitiful and unlikeable character, but her colleagues, meant to be writers who presumably should be bound by the professional practice of fact checking, being prepared to forget all they've experienced of her, believe the worst of her and cancel her without following any due process, all seem decisions for sensation rather than realism and don't shed light on victim shaming and blaming. Quite rightly Steven asks Robert, 'no, why didn't YOU question it?' And I have to ask the same for anyone who talks about hating Catherine until the big plot twist, which actually shouldn't have come as such a big surprise, it was being hinted at from very early scenes of Jonathan and Sasha. How did viewers fall for this? Why didn't they question it? Although sometimes exactly the devices used to heighten suspense, led to things slowing down a lot (I jumped ahead because I found it too frustrating) I did enjoy the story and the excellent acting, as well as absolutely beautiful art direction and visual storytelling.