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Baby Reindeer on Netflix
Release date: 2024
Genre: drama/psychological thriller
Setting: London, present day
Baby Reindeer synopsis
After hearing how nuanced Netflix’s Baby Reindeer (see it here) was on social media I knew I had to take a look. Sure enough, it got me right out of my watching slump. I finished the 7 episode show in less than 24 hours.
We’re in London. It’s a regular day at the bar for Donny, the 20-something bartender who would rather be on stage making people laugh. A middle aged, overweight woman plunks herself down at the seat facing him. She doesn’t order because she can’t afford anything, she says. He feels sorry for her. It doesn’t look like she has a lot in life, despite her bragging. He offers her a tea on the house.
The woman, Martha, has an unmoored quality about her and a crazy laugh, but they continue to talk. It’s his job to make the customers happy after all. This conversation starts her deep obsession with, and then stalking of, Donny.
Martha never fails to find new ways to permeate Donny’s life and head, twisting him into a knot. She comes into the bar everyday to see him, sends him thousands of odd emails and eventually waits outside his house for him. But is he really powerless to stop her? Does he like the stalking in a weird way? And what is her deal?
Baby Reindeer analysis for those who have already seen the show *spoiler alert*
A major theme of the show was self blame and Donny going back to people who hurt him or ‘letting’ them continue to hurt him. We saw this both with the writer who ‘believed’ in him and Martha who he didn’t fully put a stop to.
Donny would return again and again to the writer’s house because despite the abuse he endured there; the writer still thought Donny was talented and could help his career, surely. This was the price to pay for success. It took a while for Donny to fully realize it was an all grooming. The writer hadn’t actually seen talent in him. He fed right into the writer’s trap and knowing this ripped him apart.
Then came Martha who served as a distraction from all the effects of the abuse. She made him feel like his old self and boosted his ego a bit. So he ‘let’ the harassment continue and didn’t go to the police soon enough. She was crazy, and wasn’t completely in control of herself, while the writer had been. But any bit of compassion he showed her fed into her craziness and allowed the stalking to intensify. Why, oh why did he wait so long?
There he was, haunted by the rapes, hounded by Martha and haunted by the fact that he ruined his relationship with Teri. “There was one thing I loved more than I loved her…And that was hating myself,” he says during his on stage breakdown. Another thing to blame himself for. At this point, he was reckless. He even mentioned it excited him to see how he could mess up his life further.
Donny’s survival instincts crumbled. Or did they?
Sometimes self blame is a survival instinct. It takes back a tiny shred of control. It lets us think horrible things won’t happen to us again as long as we’ve learned our lesson. We put it all on ourselves so we can feel a bit more stable. We should have known better, seen it coming. Self blame also makes what happened less painful. Donny ‘letting’ things continue lessened the badness of whatever happened before. It couldn’t have been that bad if he went back or didn’t report it right away…another way to regain some control. The more he went back, the less bad it was.
The end really brought this point home. He went to the writer’s house, I assume to confront him, but when he got there he couldn’t bring himself to mention anything. It was the writer who brought up the viral video and then asked him to write for his show. And what did Donny respond? Yes. That same survival instinct kicked in, telling him to play it off like it was no big deal, which offered him a drop of control back. I so appreciated this part; it really illustrated the grip the abuse had on him.
In the moment the options were “agree” with the abuse, or disagree and see himself as completely and utterly helpless. Survival in the moment, but afterwards destruction. But we saw that with Martha, he did end up winning. She gave him no choice but to take control and maybe reverse some of the self blame he had about her stalking. Overall, Baby Reindeer gave us a realistic message about self blame. Thank you, Richard Gadd!
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