Jo Coles - York and North Yorkshire Deputy Mayor for Policing, Fire and Crime

Jo Coles - North Yorkshire Deputy Mayor for Policing, Fire and Crime

13 June, 2025

Opinion: Adolescence Blog – Part 2

By Youth Commission Member – Erin Holgate

In the third episode of the highly media-covered series, Adolescence, Jamie’s feelings and thoughts about gender are explored in more detail. This becomes apparent when his psychologist introduces the questions that interlink back to his discriminatory and hurtful views of women, which a lot of viewers noticed and posted about on their social media.

We see Jamie’s attitudes switch up highly easily, which we do not know for sure and can only infer that this could be for a few possible reasons. As he is thirteen, the average age for hormonal changes and the beginning of puberty, this could explain the irrational behaviour his psychologist witnesses, however this doesn’t make the most sense as this sudden level of anger is displayed and emphasised mostly towards his female psychologist- I feel this to be a purposeful detail.

Due to Jamie’s arrogance as a person, he feels he is above all women and girls, so he believes he can get away with things and behave however he likes without being called out. In the quote “YOU DO NOT F***ING TELL ME TO SIT DOWN!”, Jamie is incredibly angered, and that could most likely be who is telling him to sit down (the female psychologist, Briony).

This line from the scene is relatively close to when he asks, “Can I have another hot chocolate, please?” This makes me believe he is using Briony only where he needs her and otherwise behaves appallingly towards her when she doesn’t comply with his wishes.

He may also have a bias towards her that he doesn’t have towards other women in his life, as he quotes before she leaves, that he likes her energy and her as a person. He could have just let this slip out, perhaps forgetting he enjoys her company and doesn’t express any hatred towards her.

Briony asks what Jamie thinks a man is and if he thinks his grandfather and father link to these qualities to get a sense of what they are like as men. Jamie doesn’t go into great detail, but viewers see this in episode four, which is ultimately focused on the aftermath of the killing, the family’s experiences without Jamie and the amount of grief and trauma cycles they are coping with.

After Eddie (Jamie’s father) finds the graffiti on his van, he changes slightly and at one point directs his anger towards his wife. Since we know Jamie is much closer with his father than he is with his mum, it makes sense he would follow in his footsteps of any assumed opinions and actions about certain things. We know Jamie does prefer his father as otherwise, why would he choose him as the adult to experience and sit by him through the majority of the case?

It is also understandable these behaviours in which Jamie has adopted could come from his father, as they were so close and he would see the  aggression his father has at home where they are as a family, together. I feel Eddie to be a very manipulative and pushy man, which ultimately comes  through in his son as well. A key example of this, would be when Eddie tries to persuade Manda (Jamie’s mum) to have an intimate experience the morning of his 50th birthday. He already picks her up and disregarding the idea of consent, however, I believe this is a theory I picked up on that may be a little biased due to the context of my blog and perhaps a little far-fetched.

Leading back to Episode three, when Jamie stares and becomes directly towering over Briony when she is seated and he is standing, it demonstrates Jamie almost checking his authority over her when he purposefully spooks her with an unexpected growl-like sound; this reminded me of almost like a ferocious big cat species, like a lion torturing its prey before ending its life.

In conclusion, the actions in which caused Katie’s death were due to gender bias that Jamie made and because of her bullying him, predictably as she was a girl, he didn’t see it lightly and that the idea for the murder may have been influenced by friends or other male figures’ views and actions toward women.

In my head, it is most sickening to see online that people justify Jamie’s actions toward Katie because she bullied him. Although bullying should never be tolerated, murder or self-inflicted harm is never an answer, and victims need to speak up. It appears as though this message was intentionally brought to the media as almost a debate between viewers to increase awareness and stop bullying.

We know from the show that stereotypical behaviours becoming norms can damage a life. I feel the show to almost serve as a “life lesson”. I imagine the struggles and low self-esteem that Jamie may have faced but because of his own selfish manner, he takes anger out on other people.

This is an issue that many young people, especially teens, face in day-to-day life, including self-harm, depression, anxiety and even suicide if such measures are taken. This is why I believe that there should be more accessible places to receive help, calm worries and there should be places for these young people to talk and help to resolve issues before they hit extremes.

Thank you for reading my article on Adolescence.