Kwame is raped by a man he met specifically for a sexual encounter, and a visit to the police station leads him to feel like he’s to blame for being there in the first place. The first sexual act is consensual the second is not. Coel’s performance is bold and riveting, but her writing is impressively subtle.įor example, one of Arabella’s friends, Kwame (Paapa Esseidu), is a gay man who hooks up with a guy through Grindr. And yet the show has not felt like a topical head bashing. “I May Destroy You” also brings us into other sexual encounters gone wrong, including a flashback episode recounting an incident in which a white girl at Arabella’s high school accused a Black boy of assault. She has consensual sex with a man and later discovers that he removed his condom midway. The second assault is less obvious but, perhaps, more common. The show effectively captures the quirks of consciousness that let memories emerge seemingly from nowhere. She doesn’t remember the attack it returns to her in flashes in the next few days, with the recurring image of a man thrusting above her in a bathroom stall, even as she tries to disbelieve it. Dodging her deadline, Arabella is out at a bar called Ego Death, her drink is drugged, and she is raped. The first is the one from the descriptions of the show. So far on the show, which is currently mid-season, Arabella has undergone two violations. We’re invested in her world.Īnd then, within that finely detailed and intimate context, Coel takes us on Arabella’s nightmarish journey into her sexual assault experiences. She’s not simply the survivor of the story she is the story, in all of her rebellious glory, as she tries to write a second book for publishers with high expectations and a deadline. With her combat boots and pink hair, she is funny and bright and stubbornly independent, particularly in her hard-partying habits.
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The world of the show is elaborately drawn, and Coel’s Arabella, a viral sensation whose first book was called “Chronicles of a Fed-Up Millennial,” is appealing and real. It’s in league with “Fleabag,” “Insecure,” “One Mississippi,” or “Shrill,” as a half-hour auteurish comedy-drama that brings us into the small revelations in the lives of interesting women.
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First and foremost, the show, which airs Sundays on HBO, is a beautifully constructed portrait of a young Black writer and her friends in London, as they pursue romance, sex, and professional success.