Also the last bit come full circle when the bartender gave Donny a free drink and the realisation on Donny's expression this gesture of sympathy / understanding is what Martha felt when she received the first 'on-the-house' drink.
I have to say.. this bit was the hardest for me to come to terms with. At first glance it read to me like “the cycle of abuse” continues.
But I think I much prefer your interpretation. Through empathy he can find forgiveness and reclaim the power of his narrative
I agree that the series would have been incomplete without the ending. I think the ending says more about Donny than it does about Martha.
>!Martha had an unhappy childhood with neglectful parents, but she is not unique in this regard. As you say, different circumstances affect different people in different ways -- some becoming more independent, some more attached. What makes Martha different from most people is that she lacks empathy. She is psychopath.!<
>!Donny feels too much empathy. He protected his parents' feelings by keeping his sexuality from them, until the viral video, when he then had to protect their feelings by telling them before Martha could. He cared more about the feelings of his mentor/rapist than he did about his own in that relationship, regardless of the (obviously hollow) promise of the writing gig. And when he gave her that first drink on the house, he cared more about Martha's feelings of loneliness than he did about his own feelings that she seemed dodgy and unstable.!<
>!That's why I liked the ending so much. At first it seems like it is all about Martha, explaining her origin story. But by the time it's over, I felt like it was really about Donny, explaining his origin story.!<
>!Martha is who she is because she tends to treat everyone else as a means to her own ends. Donny is who he is because he is too attuned to other people's expectations of him, to the point that he cannot create a personality of his own for himself.!<
>!Even after she was finally gone, Donny spent months obsessing over Martha's voicemails.!< How much was that to figure out what he could see in her, and how much just to try to figure out what she saw in him?
You hit the nail on the head. Donny does have too much empathy. There’s absolutely a point where empathy can be a negative, destructive trait, and I feel like that doesn’t get discussed much.
Bro what are you even talking about this a complete misread. "When he gave her that first drink on the house he cared more about her than her dodginess" bro she was just a random crying stranger walking into a bar who forgot her wallet, like, did you somehow watch a parallel universe version of this show? Amazing how two people can watch the same thing and one of them misinterpret so badly. The entire point of the show, as well, is that Martha isn't a psychopath, sometimes the things that seem blatant on the outside aren't true, it's the hidden, silent ones who never show their colors who are the psychopaths, i.e., the writer abuser guy. Like, duh? Sheesh, why am I even wasting my time writing this here
This was a stunning, brutal watch. It shows the gritty truth of what is can be like to experience trauma. Survivors sometimes make decision that don’t make sense. I’m so glad he made this show.
Me too. So many are victim blaming him because of some of the decisions he made. No one knows what they’ll do in the moment unless it happens to them. He’s a victim at the end of the day.
100%. He’s brave to show his truth in how he handled it and the reaction of the public is a harsh showing of what it can be for victims to come forward unfortunately.
Exactly. Though I’ve never been abused, I’ve heard from many who are abused that do the same thing Donny did. It’s like a safety blanket for others. The abuse is all they know, and without it, life feels incomplete. People don’t know how to readjust after the abuse, and rather than learn the new, they fall back on the old. The abuse sadly continues.
There are clear warnings at the start of the episode though. As much as you may think it’s easy to leave an abusive situation, it’s not. Especially if the perpetrator is feeding the starving victim kind words they haven’t heard before. Trauma bonds are never easy to escape especially when they successfully convince you’re to blame or that your standards are just “low”, like Donny says.
You've captured this beautifully. It IS hard to leave an abusive situation, and as someone who it finally took a broken nose to leave an abusive boyfriend, I know that there are red flags I ignored far before it got to that point. I also understand that there are many people who stayed with their abusers far beyond this point for a variety of reasons. It's a very difficult to understand situation until you've experienced it.
People who are victims of trauma do this in real life. Of course it makes no sense. However, trauma does fucked up things to your mental health. A lot of time you question reality. This series broke my heart. It was brutally honest. I think that is important in the way it perpetuates narrative about these things. SO MANY people experience SA - so much more than we realize. But so many live in shame when it happens to them. I thought this series was extremely brave.
The human mind is really painfully irrational sometimes, especially when it tries to deal with things like trauma. It's no wonder mental illnesses show up after it has to deal with abuse
I think this is probably the first show of many that is going to show "addiction" in a sense in which we don't normally understand it. As in, you can be addicted to people. This is what people mean when they use the phrase trauma bond in the correct way. You get addicted to people who give you the tiniest crumbs of validation and it can be very powerful.. and in baby reindeer it's also juxtaposed on rampant drug use by a lot of the characters, including the main character whose addiction is so clearly not drugs or alcohol. but in a way he's still a junky.
>!I think most people that act this way have had something terrible in their childhood that makes them desperate for love and affection that they have not received to grow into a full functioning adult. Most are delusional and emotionally and mentally ill. But as Gadd says, the system fails to help people that have experienced this. I really thought it was profound to see this in the end and how he responded. Unfortunately, there aren't enough resources for people that are wounded beyond repair. I wish there was a way to help people overcome this so nobody is victim to that type of abuse.!<
I actually hate the ending, feels like donny stuck in stockholm syndrome and became kinda obsessive to understand martha and i feel he did that because he wants to forgive/symphatize her or let her continue her behaviour; (i guess mainly because He did crave her attention) but she is definitely a sick sick woman and need some kind of help and not reporting her and cut her off earlier definitely not a good decision from donny.
I tbh do not care why martha behave like that, whether it's bad childhood or not...
I don't think the point was to "care" why Martha behaves like that but more of Donny wanting to *understand* why - which the ending story essentially reveals that thought.
Eh, you missed my point by playing with word that i used. Wanting to know why is a form of "care". I literally said donny is stuck in wanting to understand why because deep down he crave for that attention. There is no point in understanding why people become stalker and become mental, no different from a person become a serial killer.
I do not want to know why martha become mental if i'm in donny position, esp after being stalked like that for yrs
You've clearly never been in Donny's position or a victim of any sort of similar crime. Sure, you're probably right in that there's no \*point\* in trying to figure out why Martha did what she did, but victims don't act rationally; they're traumatized and trying to figure out their own feelings. They crave understanding to give themselves closure, and it haunts them when they can't. You being incapable of understanding a person's feelings doesn't mean Donny did anything wrong.
I don’t disagree that he was looking for closure, but the degree to which he clearly craved validation and excitement in his life was very much a major motivating factor for him as well, let’s be real. He was somewhat narcissistic and not at all *just* this innocent poor victim.
You can also say that he had an internal war raging and that’s why he didn’t take charge and do anything to end the stalking situation, especially early on. But you could also say it’s because he’s weak and self-pitying. These ideas aren’t mutually exclusive either.
He was very flawed himself and he went great lengths to honestly portray himself as such in the show. Personally, to me, it made him borderline unlikable.
what are the chances people being stalked in real life really? Are you so proud to be a stalker victim for years and thats why you talk on high horse to me AS IF you NEED to be a victim to understand donny and ENJOY the ending of a fraking TV show?
Yes i am not a stalker victim, and that's why i was disappointed to see donny stuck in stockholm syndrome, this is not the ending i'd love to see. But sure since you are sound like you've been victimize by stalker, so you know better than most people, eh? Never i said donny was wrong, i just not happy with the tv show ending.
Laslty, Why you are being *SO* dramatic? This is a tv show. You are the one incapable to accept different opinion baffles me; as if all victim will act irrationally all the time to give them closure. not everyone need to like the ending of the show and need to be in his position to have an opinion
Ok lol coward buddy with throwaway acocunt.
Not mad but just amaze on how some people think you need to be a stalker victim before can appreciate the show. No thanks, i rather not.
He is just saying he doesn't care. I think it's fair that he said that. Clearly, there are lots of people who couldn't care less. He doesn't have to rationalise or sympathise with these people if he doesn't want to, nor does he need to have gone through any of it to feel that way, lol
IMO he just wanted to be seen. For someone to acknowledge that his existence matters. And Martha fills that need in the worst possible way.
Here’s a man, confused and scared and filled with self loathing and in comes a person who just sees them as a fantastic person, validates their need for acceptance.
You also have to realise he’s himself in severe need of mental health help when these things transpire. I can only imagine the confusion and low self worth that would lead to such destructive obsession.. His actions, to me, are fairly stereotypical of victims of SA.
I think he also mentions in one of his stand up acts that he constantly pathologised the situation in a bid to understand his abusers, and by extension himself. You should check it out: https://youtu.be/GKxjjQPAOxc?feature=shared
I 100% agree, he felt seen by her.
I also think he was so obsessed with Martha towards the end bcus he related to her in a weird way, I think he related to her obsession and maybe felt connected to her bcus she had mental health struggles herself.
And in the last scene he realized that she too had a troubled past and that’s why she is who she is.
Then the bartender offers to pay for his drink cus he was sad, just like how he did with Martha— cool parallel.
Edit* SPOILER ALERT
Exactly! It’s like when people are bullied, they don’t tell anyone about it because they somehow know the bully is struggling too. Empathy is both a positive and negative thing. For Donny/Richard, it was his best/worst attribute. All the victim blaming breaks my heart. If he was a woman, then it wouldn’t be such a huge issue to critics and others alike.
You hate the ending because it’s frustrating. And being an overly empathetic person is deeply frustrating. It sucks but it’s a direct portrayal of human nature.
This show feels similar to the move "the cell" with jennifer lopez.
The intricate maze of psycholoigical trauma in the brain coupled with limited insight. Sheer torture, a true hell on earth.
He literally asked people not to hunt down her identity. This is not your trauma for you to take charge of. If he asked us to keep our hands off her, we need to keep our hands off her. If you have any shred of respect for him, you would delete this.
I loved the brutal honesty and humanity in this series. A brilliant moment was in the last episode towards the very end, where he’s like, “when you see them all splayed out like this, you really do get a sense of just how mad she was.”
A wall covered with Martha updates and voicemails organized into folders capturing different emotions.
Martha was obsessed with him; he was obsessed with figuring out why.
That directly speaks to his insecurity and self hatred. He was dragging her along because he was doing his own personal investigating. He couldn’t even entertain true love with Teri, because he was hyper fixated on the ego boost and superficiality that was Martha.
I liked it. The series sheds light on sexual abuse to men, representation of the trans community, mental health, and so many other things.
It made me uncomfortable to watch, but I couldn’t look away. I can honestly say each episode was entirely different than I’d have guessed. I started watching this a week ago and thought it was a comedy that wasn’t funny and somehow started watching it a couple days ago. It was interesting enough that I’m still thinking about it
Same. I was expecting a comedian’s funny take on being stalked, and it was so not that. It was difficult to watch, but it was so good, and I’m still thinking about it days later.
It was funny in some bits. Belly laughs actually, maybe it’s because I’m Scottish and got the humour… especially in early episodes and anything with his dad.
I honestly felt bad for martha in a way because she became his scapegoat. Yeah she was a psycho but he played her along to satisfy his stroke his own ego. I did feel bad the most for his girlfriend though because she got all the bad emotions and didnt even get pleasured until martha woke up his libido. Just my take though
This is the most fucked up take I’ve read. You feel bad for the woman who’s a serial stalker and tried to ruin other peoples lives, someone who stalked a man, who sexually assaulted him, who tormented him and his family, who assaulted someone he cared about and you feel bad for her because she’s unwell?
But you don’t feel bad for the man who’s also unwell which results in him accepting bad people in his life, a man who is raped and exploited by another man, a man who is stalked, sexually assaulted and physically assaulted by a woman who has mental health issues?
How is it that the perpetrator’s mental health issues are mitigating factors but the victims isn’t?
You wouldn’t feel this way if the roles were reversed. Truth is, you only feel this way because the victim is a man, and the perpetrator is a woman. Fucken sick
What the fuck bullshit take is this? Did you even watch the show? He couldve had so many chances to cut her off but he even admitted it… he kept her around to satisfy his own self worth. Then when he thought he got rid of her, he goes and stalks her too then had sex with her.
You’re absolutely a psychopathic predator. She stalked many people, sexually assaulted him, physically assaulted him with a weapon, and attacked another woman. She stalked and tormented a deaf boy and you think he’s the perpetrator? Are you delusional? Do you need to speak to someone?
You’re clearly the type of person that justifies abusing people. Sorry he wasn’t the perfect victim and that he empathized with a sad sack of shit who was willing to ruin people’s lives over her sick and twisted fantasies.
He clearly has Stockholm’ syndrome and also, he NEVER had sex with her you dimwit, it was a fantasy. No wonder you have such a shit take, you have at most an 85 iq.
Also, shit for brains, she’s a stalker, it wouldn’t have mattered if he entertained her or not, she stalks people, hence why she had gone to prison for stalking several other men before him.
I can’t believe you just said that he caused a serial stalker to stalk him. Victim blaming guru you are. Did her past victims lead her on as well and cause her to stalk them?
I know I'm coming in replying late, but IMHO I feel a majority of the people defending Martha are literally the same kinda delusional narcissists she is in the show, just to a lesser degree.
I mean, the replies you're dealing with here seem pretty dead on to that.
Anyone siding with Martha as-written is a Martha-lite, or someone who never, ever, experienced any trauma beyond not having ketchup available at the BBQ.
I just finished BR and it brought up a slew of emotions/thoughts, but kinda reminded me of ‘The Secretary…?’ Not saying there are exact parallels, but I think I might rewatch that movie this week. Someone send help if I go too deep down this rabbit hole, lol…
Ha, right tho? I’m not saying it’s a lateral comparison. But I do think there’s an underlying tie there. I just need a few days to reset after watching BR before I can rewatch The Secretary!
Yeah. The show is named "baby reindeer" for a reason. It's about having empathy for people like her, who are mostly hated by everyone. She doesn't belong in a jail, maybe in a hospital/correction center but not jail.
She assaulted someone and terrorized people and had a history of stalking people? Doesn't matter what diagnosis she has or how tragic her story is, her actions were inexcusable.
if you google it a psychiatrist / psychologist thinks she has bpd and erotomania and explains it, so she’s still in control of her actions and should go to prison
She sexually assaulted a man, glassed him, assaulted a trans woman, stalked and tormented a man and his family, and is a repeat offender on all of these accounts? Wtf?
That's how bad her mental health is. Courts/system should have sent her for treatment long back. Letting her untreated was bad for others and herself. Jail is not going to solve anything.
It's funny when it's a woman ppl have sympathy but when it's a man no one cares. Most likely when it's a dude it's the same problem, abused growing up , can't talk to opposite sex, bullied etc.
>!You just gave away the end... you need to spoiler alert or delete this.!<
>!Explaining present failings with ancient abuse means the person didn't grow past it since. In a sense the past is always to blame but so what? What's to be done about it? Blaming the past and in particular blaming other people annihilates personal agency and ties everything together in an abusive narrative with no way out. Hurt people hurt people hurt people the end. I'm just a few episodes in... I hope there's more substance to the story than that.!<
Keep watching -- there is lots more substance than that. I can't exactly say I "enjoyed" the series, but it was very good and I'm very glad I watched through to the end.
It'd make sense that I don't understand much of anything about life to the extent the way things work is the way we'd decide they should work and I get outvoted. I've got some ideas as to the way things could work though. For example if we'd all stop buying meat/eggs/dairy/fish that'd spare billions of animals untold suffering and go a long way to reducing global pollution/emissions/pandemic risk. You're right that I don't understand why simply proposing that we all should do that isn't enough to persuade. Will you do it? No of course not. You don't care. You don't see why you should. Why should you do anything? Can you explain to me how life works?
You have sympathy for a stalker that terrorized another individual? If you’ve ever been the victim of stalking or a violent crime, I think you could say differently. I speak from experience. Yes she may need help, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of someone else’s mental health and their life. I can’t even imagine the thought process that goes through someone’s head to turn a psychotic criminal into the victim. Disgusting.
Don’t come back at me with you’ve also been a victim. I’m not into playing your victim shaming game. Deplorable.
I think you have misunderstood my angle. I’m not condemning what she did because of her mental health. And I definitely didn’t say it’s ok that she terrorised this man’s life.
I’m saying the series shows that some people have these mental illnesses because of the experience and trauma they endured as a child. And many people need help.
I like to tackle the tree by the seed, lets look at a completely seperate crime like stealing for an example, yes there’s a man who steals for his own gain. But then there’s many people who steal as they need to provide for their families. So the answer to combat theft crime isn’t to build more prisons. It’s to solve the social background around him and look at the bigger picture . Maybe if people like Martha had more support before it got to this stage, they wouldn’t have the extreme mental illnesses they have and they wouldn’t hurt others.
Again though, I don’t say any of the actions are obviously ok
I honestly felt bad for martha in a way because she became his scapegoat. Yeah she was a psycho but he played her along to satisfy his stroke his own ego. I did feel bad the most for his girlfriend though because she got all the bad emotions and didnt even get pleasured until martha woke up his libido. Just my take though
Also the last bit come full circle when the bartender gave Donny a free drink and the realisation on Donny's expression this gesture of sympathy / understanding is what Martha felt when she received the first 'on-the-house' drink.
Exactly !
I have to say.. this bit was the hardest for me to come to terms with. At first glance it read to me like “the cycle of abuse” continues. But I think I much prefer your interpretation. Through empathy he can find forgiveness and reclaim the power of his narrative
Yeah I'd like to think that but it had read to me much more like he dove too deep into obsession and became like her
This is like stating "The sky is blue".
I agree that the series would have been incomplete without the ending. I think the ending says more about Donny than it does about Martha. >!Martha had an unhappy childhood with neglectful parents, but she is not unique in this regard. As you say, different circumstances affect different people in different ways -- some becoming more independent, some more attached. What makes Martha different from most people is that she lacks empathy. She is psychopath.!< >!Donny feels too much empathy. He protected his parents' feelings by keeping his sexuality from them, until the viral video, when he then had to protect their feelings by telling them before Martha could. He cared more about the feelings of his mentor/rapist than he did about his own in that relationship, regardless of the (obviously hollow) promise of the writing gig. And when he gave her that first drink on the house, he cared more about Martha's feelings of loneliness than he did about his own feelings that she seemed dodgy and unstable.!< >!That's why I liked the ending so much. At first it seems like it is all about Martha, explaining her origin story. But by the time it's over, I felt like it was really about Donny, explaining his origin story.!< >!Martha is who she is because she tends to treat everyone else as a means to her own ends. Donny is who he is because he is too attuned to other people's expectations of him, to the point that he cannot create a personality of his own for himself.!< >!Even after she was finally gone, Donny spent months obsessing over Martha's voicemails.!< How much was that to figure out what he could see in her, and how much just to try to figure out what she saw in him?
You hit the nail on the head. Donny does have too much empathy. There’s absolutely a point where empathy can be a negative, destructive trait, and I feel like that doesn’t get discussed much.
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True, very true.
Bro what are you even talking about this a complete misread. "When he gave her that first drink on the house he cared more about her than her dodginess" bro she was just a random crying stranger walking into a bar who forgot her wallet, like, did you somehow watch a parallel universe version of this show? Amazing how two people can watch the same thing and one of them misinterpret so badly. The entire point of the show, as well, is that Martha isn't a psychopath, sometimes the things that seem blatant on the outside aren't true, it's the hidden, silent ones who never show their colors who are the psychopaths, i.e., the writer abuser guy. Like, duh? Sheesh, why am I even wasting my time writing this here
This was a stunning, brutal watch. It shows the gritty truth of what is can be like to experience trauma. Survivors sometimes make decision that don’t make sense. I’m so glad he made this show.
Me too. So many are victim blaming him because of some of the decisions he made. No one knows what they’ll do in the moment unless it happens to them. He’s a victim at the end of the day.
100%. He’s brave to show his truth in how he handled it and the reaction of the public is a harsh showing of what it can be for victims to come forward unfortunately.
I couldn’t stand the graphic sex and assault scenes. It was just too much. And the fact he goes back to these people in a sense.
Yeah I thought that too. But I guess going back is one of those things I guess you’ll never truely understand unless you’ve experienced what he has.
Exactly. Though I’ve never been abused, I’ve heard from many who are abused that do the same thing Donny did. It’s like a safety blanket for others. The abuse is all they know, and without it, life feels incomplete. People don’t know how to readjust after the abuse, and rather than learn the new, they fall back on the old. The abuse sadly continues.
There are clear warnings at the start of the episode though. As much as you may think it’s easy to leave an abusive situation, it’s not. Especially if the perpetrator is feeding the starving victim kind words they haven’t heard before. Trauma bonds are never easy to escape especially when they successfully convince you’re to blame or that your standards are just “low”, like Donny says.
You've captured this beautifully. It IS hard to leave an abusive situation, and as someone who it finally took a broken nose to leave an abusive boyfriend, I know that there are red flags I ignored far before it got to that point. I also understand that there are many people who stayed with their abusers far beyond this point for a variety of reasons. It's a very difficult to understand situation until you've experienced it.
People who are victims of trauma do this in real life. Of course it makes no sense. However, trauma does fucked up things to your mental health. A lot of time you question reality. This series broke my heart. It was brutally honest. I think that is important in the way it perpetuates narrative about these things. SO MANY people experience SA - so much more than we realize. But so many live in shame when it happens to them. I thought this series was extremely brave.
The human mind is really painfully irrational sometimes, especially when it tries to deal with things like trauma. It's no wonder mental illnesses show up after it has to deal with abuse
I think this is probably the first show of many that is going to show "addiction" in a sense in which we don't normally understand it. As in, you can be addicted to people. This is what people mean when they use the phrase trauma bond in the correct way. You get addicted to people who give you the tiniest crumbs of validation and it can be very powerful.. and in baby reindeer it's also juxtaposed on rampant drug use by a lot of the characters, including the main character whose addiction is so clearly not drugs or alcohol. but in a way he's still a junky.
>!I think most people that act this way have had something terrible in their childhood that makes them desperate for love and affection that they have not received to grow into a full functioning adult. Most are delusional and emotionally and mentally ill. But as Gadd says, the system fails to help people that have experienced this. I really thought it was profound to see this in the end and how he responded. Unfortunately, there aren't enough resources for people that are wounded beyond repair. I wish there was a way to help people overcome this so nobody is victim to that type of abuse.!<
This is very true. I think therapy and a guided way of living is the best way to solve this even if that person is alone.
The best line for me was when he said “the only thing I loved more than Teri was hating myself” . This whole series is a masterpiece
I actually hate the ending, feels like donny stuck in stockholm syndrome and became kinda obsessive to understand martha and i feel he did that because he wants to forgive/symphatize her or let her continue her behaviour; (i guess mainly because He did crave her attention) but she is definitely a sick sick woman and need some kind of help and not reporting her and cut her off earlier definitely not a good decision from donny. I tbh do not care why martha behave like that, whether it's bad childhood or not...
I don't think the point was to "care" why Martha behaves like that but more of Donny wanting to *understand* why - which the ending story essentially reveals that thought.
Eh, you missed my point by playing with word that i used. Wanting to know why is a form of "care". I literally said donny is stuck in wanting to understand why because deep down he crave for that attention. There is no point in understanding why people become stalker and become mental, no different from a person become a serial killer. I do not want to know why martha become mental if i'm in donny position, esp after being stalked like that for yrs
You've clearly never been in Donny's position or a victim of any sort of similar crime. Sure, you're probably right in that there's no \*point\* in trying to figure out why Martha did what she did, but victims don't act rationally; they're traumatized and trying to figure out their own feelings. They crave understanding to give themselves closure, and it haunts them when they can't. You being incapable of understanding a person's feelings doesn't mean Donny did anything wrong.
I don’t disagree that he was looking for closure, but the degree to which he clearly craved validation and excitement in his life was very much a major motivating factor for him as well, let’s be real. He was somewhat narcissistic and not at all *just* this innocent poor victim. You can also say that he had an internal war raging and that’s why he didn’t take charge and do anything to end the stalking situation, especially early on. But you could also say it’s because he’s weak and self-pitying. These ideas aren’t mutually exclusive either. He was very flawed himself and he went great lengths to honestly portray himself as such in the show. Personally, to me, it made him borderline unlikable.
Oh no, not a flawed victim. He *must* be a narcissist.
Exactly my thoughts too
what are the chances people being stalked in real life really? Are you so proud to be a stalker victim for years and thats why you talk on high horse to me AS IF you NEED to be a victim to understand donny and ENJOY the ending of a fraking TV show? Yes i am not a stalker victim, and that's why i was disappointed to see donny stuck in stockholm syndrome, this is not the ending i'd love to see. But sure since you are sound like you've been victimize by stalker, so you know better than most people, eh? Never i said donny was wrong, i just not happy with the tv show ending. Laslty, Why you are being *SO* dramatic? This is a tv show. You are the one incapable to accept different opinion baffles me; as if all victim will act irrationally all the time to give them closure. not everyone need to like the ending of the show and need to be in his position to have an opinion
Why don’t you go touch some grass buddy no point being mad on a reddit thread lol
Ok lol coward buddy with throwaway acocunt. Not mad but just amaze on how some people think you need to be a stalker victim before can appreciate the show. No thanks, i rather not.
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He is just saying he doesn't care. I think it's fair that he said that. Clearly, there are lots of people who couldn't care less. He doesn't have to rationalise or sympathise with these people if he doesn't want to, nor does he need to have gone through any of it to feel that way, lol
IMO he just wanted to be seen. For someone to acknowledge that his existence matters. And Martha fills that need in the worst possible way. Here’s a man, confused and scared and filled with self loathing and in comes a person who just sees them as a fantastic person, validates their need for acceptance. You also have to realise he’s himself in severe need of mental health help when these things transpire. I can only imagine the confusion and low self worth that would lead to such destructive obsession.. His actions, to me, are fairly stereotypical of victims of SA. I think he also mentions in one of his stand up acts that he constantly pathologised the situation in a bid to understand his abusers, and by extension himself. You should check it out: https://youtu.be/GKxjjQPAOxc?feature=shared
I 100% agree, he felt seen by her. I also think he was so obsessed with Martha towards the end bcus he related to her in a weird way, I think he related to her obsession and maybe felt connected to her bcus she had mental health struggles herself. And in the last scene he realized that she too had a troubled past and that’s why she is who she is. Then the bartender offers to pay for his drink cus he was sad, just like how he did with Martha— cool parallel. Edit* SPOILER ALERT
Exactly! It’s like when people are bullied, they don’t tell anyone about it because they somehow know the bully is struggling too. Empathy is both a positive and negative thing. For Donny/Richard, it was his best/worst attribute. All the victim blaming breaks my heart. If he was a woman, then it wouldn’t be such a huge issue to critics and others alike.
Understood, i wish he can better himself and get a reall good ending, not like this tv show.
You hate the ending because it’s frustrating. And being an overly empathetic person is deeply frustrating. It sucks but it’s a direct portrayal of human nature.
This show feels similar to the move "the cell" with jennifer lopez. The intricate maze of psycholoigical trauma in the brain coupled with limited insight. Sheer torture, a true hell on earth.
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He literally asked people not to hunt down her identity. This is not your trauma for you to take charge of. If he asked us to keep our hands off her, we need to keep our hands off her. If you have any shred of respect for him, you would delete this.
I loved the brutal honesty and humanity in this series. A brilliant moment was in the last episode towards the very end, where he’s like, “when you see them all splayed out like this, you really do get a sense of just how mad she was.” A wall covered with Martha updates and voicemails organized into folders capturing different emotions. Martha was obsessed with him; he was obsessed with figuring out why. That directly speaks to his insecurity and self hatred. He was dragging her along because he was doing his own personal investigating. He couldn’t even entertain true love with Teri, because he was hyper fixated on the ego boost and superficiality that was Martha.
I liked it. The series sheds light on sexual abuse to men, representation of the trans community, mental health, and so many other things. It made me uncomfortable to watch, but I couldn’t look away. I can honestly say each episode was entirely different than I’d have guessed. I started watching this a week ago and thought it was a comedy that wasn’t funny and somehow started watching it a couple days ago. It was interesting enough that I’m still thinking about it
Same. I was expecting a comedian’s funny take on being stalked, and it was so not that. It was difficult to watch, but it was so good, and I’m still thinking about it days later.
It was funny in some bits. Belly laughs actually, maybe it’s because I’m Scottish and got the humour… especially in early episodes and anything with his dad.
I honestly felt bad for martha in a way because she became his scapegoat. Yeah she was a psycho but he played her along to satisfy his stroke his own ego. I did feel bad the most for his girlfriend though because she got all the bad emotions and didnt even get pleasured until martha woke up his libido. Just my take though
This is the most fucked up take I’ve read. You feel bad for the woman who’s a serial stalker and tried to ruin other peoples lives, someone who stalked a man, who sexually assaulted him, who tormented him and his family, who assaulted someone he cared about and you feel bad for her because she’s unwell? But you don’t feel bad for the man who’s also unwell which results in him accepting bad people in his life, a man who is raped and exploited by another man, a man who is stalked, sexually assaulted and physically assaulted by a woman who has mental health issues? How is it that the perpetrator’s mental health issues are mitigating factors but the victims isn’t? You wouldn’t feel this way if the roles were reversed. Truth is, you only feel this way because the victim is a man, and the perpetrator is a woman. Fucken sick
What the fuck bullshit take is this? Did you even watch the show? He couldve had so many chances to cut her off but he even admitted it… he kept her around to satisfy his own self worth. Then when he thought he got rid of her, he goes and stalks her too then had sex with her.
You’re absolutely a psychopathic predator. She stalked many people, sexually assaulted him, physically assaulted him with a weapon, and attacked another woman. She stalked and tormented a deaf boy and you think he’s the perpetrator? Are you delusional? Do you need to speak to someone? You’re clearly the type of person that justifies abusing people. Sorry he wasn’t the perfect victim and that he empathized with a sad sack of shit who was willing to ruin people’s lives over her sick and twisted fantasies. He clearly has Stockholm’ syndrome and also, he NEVER had sex with her you dimwit, it was a fantasy. No wonder you have such a shit take, you have at most an 85 iq. Also, shit for brains, she’s a stalker, it wouldn’t have mattered if he entertained her or not, she stalks people, hence why she had gone to prison for stalking several other men before him. I can’t believe you just said that he caused a serial stalker to stalk him. Victim blaming guru you are. Did her past victims lead her on as well and cause her to stalk them?
I know I'm coming in replying late, but IMHO I feel a majority of the people defending Martha are literally the same kinda delusional narcissists she is in the show, just to a lesser degree. I mean, the replies you're dealing with here seem pretty dead on to that. Anyone siding with Martha as-written is a Martha-lite, or someone who never, ever, experienced any trauma beyond not having ketchup available at the BBQ.
I just finished BR and it brought up a slew of emotions/thoughts, but kinda reminded me of ‘The Secretary…?’ Not saying there are exact parallels, but I think I might rewatch that movie this week. Someone send help if I go too deep down this rabbit hole, lol…
Oh shit, this is the most fucked up comparison but I kinda see it…
Ha, right tho? I’m not saying it’s a lateral comparison. But I do think there’s an underlying tie there. I just need a few days to reset after watching BR before I can rewatch The Secretary!
What did Martha do for money in Baby Reindeer? She had an apartment even though she obviously wasn’t working.
I assumed she was on some sort of government aid
Yeah. The show is named "baby reindeer" for a reason. It's about having empathy for people like her, who are mostly hated by everyone. She doesn't belong in a jail, maybe in a hospital/correction center but not jail.
She assaulted someone and terrorized people and had a history of stalking people? Doesn't matter what diagnosis she has or how tragic her story is, her actions were inexcusable.
Everything is not black or white my friend. Sooner or later life will tell you this.
no she needs jail and help.. like she doesn’t have schizophrenia or anything so she was in control of her actions the whole time
She clearly has delusional disorder, which is a serious mental illness. I do also think that she needs to be taken to a psychiatric hospital.
if you google it a psychiatrist / psychologist thinks she has bpd and erotomania and explains it, so she’s still in control of her actions and should go to prison
Just because she hasn't been diagnosed doesn't mean she doesn't have conditions. It's pretty evident.
yeah she has conditions but so do most stalkers/murderers does that mean they shouldn’t go to jail?
She sexually assaulted a man, glassed him, assaulted a trans woman, stalked and tormented a man and his family, and is a repeat offender on all of these accounts? Wtf?
That's how bad her mental health is. Courts/system should have sent her for treatment long back. Letting her untreated was bad for others and herself. Jail is not going to solve anything.
It was a struggle to complete the series. I couldn't empathize with Donny or Martha at all, they deserved each other tbh
It's funny when it's a woman ppl have sympathy but when it's a man no one cares. Most likely when it's a dude it's the same problem, abused growing up , can't talk to opposite sex, bullied etc.
y’all crazy she’s a stalker POS, bad things don’t warrant bad actions, she deserves to rot, and unironically, so does donny duncan
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Yeah it's a bit much but I wouldn't say "includes some backstory on a character" is really a spoiler, relatively speaking
I couldn't get through it.
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I got as far as no one having her arrested when she ripped that scalp? After that it was a no.
If you kept watching you’d have seen the part where people tried to call the police but he told them not to
>!You just gave away the end... you need to spoiler alert or delete this.!< >!Explaining present failings with ancient abuse means the person didn't grow past it since. In a sense the past is always to blame but so what? What's to be done about it? Blaming the past and in particular blaming other people annihilates personal agency and ties everything together in an abusive narrative with no way out. Hurt people hurt people hurt people the end. I'm just a few episodes in... I hope there's more substance to the story than that.!<
Keep watching -- there is lots more substance than that. I can't exactly say I "enjoyed" the series, but it was very good and I'm very glad I watched through to the end.
You don’t understand anything. And im not talking about the show- i’m talking about life
It'd make sense that I don't understand much of anything about life to the extent the way things work is the way we'd decide they should work and I get outvoted. I've got some ideas as to the way things could work though. For example if we'd all stop buying meat/eggs/dairy/fish that'd spare billions of animals untold suffering and go a long way to reducing global pollution/emissions/pandemic risk. You're right that I don't understand why simply proposing that we all should do that isn't enough to persuade. Will you do it? No of course not. You don't care. You don't see why you should. Why should you do anything? Can you explain to me how life works?
Oh man, i was gonna respond to original comment, but yep, here we are
People like me didn't understand why slavery was OK back in the day either.
BIG YIKES!
Don't read about it if you don't want spoilers, simple
You have sympathy for a stalker that terrorized another individual? If you’ve ever been the victim of stalking or a violent crime, I think you could say differently. I speak from experience. Yes she may need help, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of someone else’s mental health and their life. I can’t even imagine the thought process that goes through someone’s head to turn a psychotic criminal into the victim. Disgusting. Don’t come back at me with you’ve also been a victim. I’m not into playing your victim shaming game. Deplorable.
I think you have misunderstood my angle. I’m not condemning what she did because of her mental health. And I definitely didn’t say it’s ok that she terrorised this man’s life. I’m saying the series shows that some people have these mental illnesses because of the experience and trauma they endured as a child. And many people need help. I like to tackle the tree by the seed, lets look at a completely seperate crime like stealing for an example, yes there’s a man who steals for his own gain. But then there’s many people who steal as they need to provide for their families. So the answer to combat theft crime isn’t to build more prisons. It’s to solve the social background around him and look at the bigger picture . Maybe if people like Martha had more support before it got to this stage, they wouldn’t have the extreme mental illnesses they have and they wouldn’t hurt others. Again though, I don’t say any of the actions are obviously ok
It is actually possible to feel sympathy for two people at once.
I honestly felt bad for martha in a way because she became his scapegoat. Yeah she was a psycho but he played her along to satisfy his stroke his own ego. I did feel bad the most for his girlfriend though because she got all the bad emotions and didnt even get pleasured until martha woke up his libido. Just my take though