I watched "Baby Reindeer" because of the impressive level of hype around it when it premiered. I normally would have steered clear of a semi-autobiographical show about a stalker, especially one that keeps getting compared to "I May Destroy You." I'm not great with anxiety-inducing media, and stalkers definitely qualify as anxiety-inducing. However, "Baby Reindeer" isn't just about a case of stalking. It turns out to be a very dark and disturbing character drama, where the stalking is just the jumping off point for a lot of other issues the main character is facing.
Donny Dunn (Richard Gadd) is an aspiring comedian who works in a London pub. One day, a woman named Martha Scott (Jessica Gunning) comes in, upset, so Donny gives her a free drink. This innocuous act of kindness sparks Martha's obsession with Donny, and years of escalating stalking incidents. She sends him dozens of E-mails a day, often sexually explicit and very intense. She calls him nicknames, including Baby Reindeer. She's clearly mentally ill, but Donny can't seem to just cut her off. Eventually Martha is affecting Donny's relationships and comedy career, and forcing him to face some uncomfortable truths about himself. Other characters include Donny's ex Keeley (Shalom Brune-Franklin), her mother Liz (Nina Sosanya), Donny's old mentor Darrien (Tom Goodman-Hill), and a new potential love interest, Teri (Nava Mau).
Victim blaming is generally discouraged when talking about stalking situations, but Richard Gadd purposely turns the spotlight on himself, highlighting all the ways that he made the situation with his stalker worse, before digging into the emotional and psychological traumas behind his behavior. It's both impressive and maybe a little worrying that Gadd chose to play Donny himself, and reenact some very dark and disturbing incidents in his life - not just the stalking, but prior instances of drug use and sexual assault. There's an unnerving authenticity and rawness to Gadd's performance, and the content warnings aren't just there for show. And I suspect it's only by being so personal that Gadd is able to talk about some of the more complicated aspects of abusive relationships we don't usually see in stalker stories, along with his own addiction and identity struggles.
And then there's Jessica Gunning. "Baby Reindeer" was originally a one-man performance piece, but I can't imagine that it could have possibly been as affecting as the dramatization, because of the incredible presence of Gunning as Martha Scott. The depiction of this poor, sad, desperate woman rings so true to life, it's no wonder Martha has become instantly iconic. We all know sad sacks like her who are down on their luck, lonely, and ready to latch on to the first person they meet who displays the smallest amount of interest. And as Donny makes it clear, Martha is far from all bad. He's initially nice to her because he genuinely enjoys her company and the emotional validation she gives him. However, Martha has no boundaries. And Martha isn't afraid of causing a scene in public. And Martha only hears what she wants to. And Martha is a bigot, horrible to other women, and dangerous when threatened. And Martha will not go away. Gunning wonderfully balances all of these sides of the character, including her unnerving ability to change her moods instantaneously.
There's a lot of emphasis on the use of social media and online communication as part of Martha's stalking behavior. Reportedly, many of the messages we see in the show from Martha were sent by Gadd's real stalker, complete with constant misspellings, baby talk, and increasingly wild fantasizing. While Martha can control herself to some extent when meeting Donny face to face, she's totally unhinged in text, and the sheer amount of E-mails she sends is staggering. It also establishes "Baby Reindeer" in a very particular point in time, in the 2010s, when texts hadn't yet supplanted E-mails as the primary form of mobile communication. As we get deeper and deeper into Donny's head, and follow him through extended tangents with other relationships and long flashbacks, the E-mails become an important anchoring device, reminding us that Martha is still out there, and still a looming threat.
Despite the title of this post, I never found "Baby Reindeer" or any of its characters frightening. The show is not set up as a thriller or horror piece, but instead a serious, sobering piece of self-examination that is remarkably honest about very uncomfortable subject matter. What scared me about it was how I saw parts of my own psyche reflected by Donny and Martha, and where their worst impulses took them. I've got plenty of my own obsessions, and it's not hard to imagine that in other circumstances, without the support system that I'm lucky to have, I might find myself in the shoes of either character.
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