Sex Education Episode Written by Baby Reindeer Creator Revealed His Trauma 4 Years Ago

You've probably heard of Baby Reindeer, a miniseries that came out on Netflix and became an instant hit on the streaming service with a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

A human tragedy, a confession, and a course in self-therapy, all contained in seven episodes, turned the soul of anyone who watched it inside out. Beginning as a black comedy, episode by episode it becomes something more — a story about pain, masculinity, self-identification, rehabilitation, and much more.

Baby Reindeer's Main Villain Wasn't Martha

The story of stalker Martha reveals, as the series progresses, a deeper trauma — rape, manipulation, and gaslighting — that the author experienced during his college years at the hands of his older "patron" and "mentor," 55-year-old screenwriter Darrien.

The author reveals the main pain of his life completely unexpectedly, even forcing the viewer to put the series aside for a few days. Against the backdrop of this episode, Martha ceases to look like the main villain, and the main character's confused feelings and seemingly illogical actions become more understandable.

Richard Gadd has created not only a tense psychological thriller about the many facets of stalking, but also a socially significant project about the long-term consequences of violence.

Richard Gadd Wrote a Sex Education Episode that Included His Own Trauma

But this is not Richard Gadd's first work as a screenwriter — he also wrote the fifth episode of the second season of another big Netflix hit, Sex Education. And in that episode, fans found echoes of the trauma the comedian will talk about in his future project.

“There's a scene where Eric [...] tells Otis [...] that he’s secretly been having a thing with Adam, someone who’d been bullying Eric previously. Otis thunders ‘This is about you being so self hating that you’d let yourself fall for someone who literally treats you like sh*t,’” Reddit user kevgrealish wrote.

Another advantage of Baby Reindeer, strangely enough, is its subjectivity. The project does not try to explore the reasons for the behavior of Martha, who pursues the main character. In real life, a frightened victim of persecution would probably not do that. And it also shows the painful and dependent relationship of the main character with Darrien — without trying to justify it.

In the episode Sex Education written by Gadd, this subjectivity is also felt, but transferred to both Otis and Eric. The former's line could well have been said by Donny to himself while analyzing his life choices as we saw in the show, and the situation Eric finds himself in seems to be a literal reflection of Gadd's experience.