![]() ![]() It’s almost as if she hopes the magic of air travel can turn back the clock to the last day she spent on her writer's retreat, which also happens to be the last day before her assault. Reeling - and with the generosity of her best friend Terry to fund a plane ticket - Arabella takes off for the last place she was happy: Ostia, Italy. With her case now closed, Arabella is forced to confront the fact that, nine months after her assault, neither she nor the London Met have made much progress at all. The news is crushing to Arabella, who seems to have believed if she just focused on restoring herself, the police would exact retributive justice. But in the most recent episode of I May Destroy You, Arabella learns that investigators have now cleared their only suspect and the trail for her assailant is officially cold. Last she heard, police had a suspect and were performing a DNA analysis. But in the meantime, in the background, there was the implicit understanding that her case was making its laborious way through the UK justice system. She's tried handicrafts and working out and support groups she's tried pursuing men and she's tried taking a break from them she's tried writing about her experience and she's tried avoiding it by finding other ways to make money. It’s a bizarre, powerful effect.Arabella has spent the nine months since she reported her sexual assault to the London Metropolitan Police exploring various ways to put herself back together. With her, the audience navigates the lasting effects of an unclear violation, and they’re forced to examine that violation alongside her. A character in therapy is a classic, even clichéd device, but Coel presents it in such an earnest way that it feels fresh. ![]() She’s in therapy, but she isn’t really any more forthcoming with her traumas than she was in the police station when she instinctively tried to dismiss the notion that any trauma had even occurred. I May Destroy You episode 4, “That Was Fun”, picks up two months after Bella’s assault. But the theme of consent winds quite clearly through “Don’t Forget the Sea”, and the stark contrast between Bella as we left her and Bella as we see her here, wildly partying with Terry (Weruche Opia), is integral to understanding how we see her in the following half-hour. You might wonder, then, what the point of this episode is, especially since it takes place right after that crushing second installment when Bella finally entertained the possibility of her own assault. She’s freer, happier, carefree, without even the pressing concern of a looming deadline, as in the first episode, weighing her down. Pre-assault Bella looks different, but she also is different, like fundamentally. I May Destroy You episode 3, “Don’t Forget the Sea”, is set three months prior, in Italy, where Bella is living it large at a writer’s retreat where she meets her confusingly long-distance boyfriend Biagio (Marouane Zotti). The latest two episodes work as a double bill, occurring a while before and a little while after Bella’s assault, showing the stark difference in perception that one experiences in the aftermath of trauma. It’s just as difficult to look away from as it is hard to watch. The fact that so many watching the show have been and perhaps will be in a similar situation is what layers that whodunit formula with a potent reality. She represents the audience’s desire to suss out what’s what, but also their fear of potentially being in the same predicament. ![]() Coel’s Bella isn’t a detective by trade, but by function. But the appeal for an audience is very much the same. There’s no murder, obviously the crime committed was a sexual assault, and the victim is also the investigator, whose job is to piece together evidence from half-truths and fuzzy memories fragmented by substance abuse and the brain’s own defense against trauma. The beauty of Michaela Coel’s unflinchingly grounded I May Destroy You is that it’s basically a whodunit. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words. This recap of I May Destroy You episode 3, “Don’t Forget the Sea”, and I May Destroy You episode 4, “That Was Fun”, contains spoilers. “Don’t Forget the Sea” and “That Was Fun” take place on either side of a life-changing ordeal, showing the before and after in clear terms as themes of consent define both installments. ![]()
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