And I feel fine

February 22, 2018 7:26 PM

"The End of the F***ing World" is an extremely dark-humored British TV adaption of Pennsylvania native Charles Forsman's graphic novel TEOTFW [heads up, animal cruelty]. The 8-episode first series appeared first on the UK's Channel 4 in October, and is now on Netflix.

Episodes are roughly 20 minutes, with very fast autoplay, so the entire series can be binged in under 3 hours. Rotten Tomatoes: 97%.

posted by msalt (22 comments total)

(Spoilers in the following links). The material in the graphic novel, slightly different, has been exhausted. There is controversy over whether a second season is possible or even desirable, but I would bet $20 it will happen.
posted by msalt at 7:36 PM on February 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

I watched the first episode a couple of days ago. It was...quirky. I’m undecided whether to finish it out.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:54 PM on February 22, 2018

As with anything, hang in there past the first episode. It gets really good!

I don’t know if I need a continuation — it ends, right? — but I do need more from everyone involved. I’m amazed at how they balanced the tone; it would have been VERY easy to fuck up.

(I was wondering how they were going to deal with ... They subbed in a deep fryer for the garbage disposal.)

Since Netflix’s recommendations are a bit crap, here’s my “If you liked this dark teen drama thing, you might like these ones”:
- Dark (in German w/ subtitles) (imagine if Stranger Things weren’t a pop culture reference delivery system)
- Hotel Beau Séjour (in Dutch w/ subtitles) (um....ditto?) (but ghostier) (in a good way)
- Rita (the latest season in particular, but it’s all good) (in Danish w/ subtitles) (it’s about a flawed-badass teacher; the latest season is about her flawed-badass youth)
posted by Sys Rq at 7:56 PM on February 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

Thanks! For those who connect with actors, James is played by Alex Lawther (the young Alan Turing in The Imitation Game). Alyssa is Jessica Barden (The Lobster, Far From the Madding Crowd) and DC Eunice Noon is Emma Whalen (aka Tara Greyjoy).

it ends, right?

Oh, you know there was enough ambiguity to let it carry forward. Beyond that I can't say more.
posted by msalt at 8:04 PM on February 22, 2018

I watched the first episode with my wife a couple of weeks ago and it's intriguing. My wife isn't into suspense and violence so she's a bit unsure whether to continue. But how can we possibly stop after just 1 episode and not find out if he kills the girl who befriends him! Might have to go solo on this one :)
posted by temerity at 8:19 PM on February 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Here it is on FanFare where it's been discussed previously.

A second series would be stupid.

You may also recognise Jessica Bardon from Penny Dreadful where she played Justine.
posted by adept256 at 8:29 PM on February 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Hearty endorsement, here. We just encountered Bardon's first episode yesterday.

Side notes: I am an acquaintance of the Fantagraphics editor who arranged for the in-imprint publication and distribution of the original material. Pretty much the week after the show was released, he posted a flabberghastedly delighted plug for the show, which is 100% not a thing that one does historically within Fantagraphics culture - they're like the grouchy opposites of Stan Lee / Marvel style hypester bombast. So what he was saying was perceived by me as accurately reflecting his opinion of the show, as a passionate advocate for his writers and artists and the medium of comics.

Over the intervening few months, the show turned into a global indie hit. I loved it myself, and am grateful for my acquaintance's plug.

Last week, in an online community I belong to oriented toward the needs of adoptees in reunion, a member posted a series of screenshots from the show, with embedded captions, which an attenuated relative, a younger person, within her birth family had posted, apparently in the context of vaguebooking fight with that person's parents. My co-member immediately misinterpreted the posts as intended to communicate directly with her, and was somewhat relieved to learn that the images were just screenies from this show.

I relate this anecdote to illustrate what appears to be the show's profoundly expansive ability to reach people. If you are at all intrigued, check it out. I quite liked it.
posted by mwhybark at 8:46 PM on February 22, 2018

I chucked it on on a whim and around three hours later my partner and I went to bed having binged the whole thing.

The two main characters are odd and totally believable. I wasn’t totally convinced by one of the cops - her actions/attitude seemed more like a plot requirement than what would likely happen in real life.

I don’t think they need another season but I’ll happily give it a go if they do.
posted by Foaf at 9:13 PM on February 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

I don’t think they need another season but I’ll happily give it a go if they do.

What Foaf said.
posted by kneecapped at 9:31 PM on February 22, 2018

Even though the show made the ending rather ambiguous, but in my mind, the fate of that one character in the last episode is quite definite for this story to work for me.

(I did not read the comics.)
posted by applesurf at 9:44 PM on February 22, 2018

As others have noticed, I found the strong female character very compelling and the discussion of consent (in the Topher scene) excellent without being the slightest bit preachy. Also, the rare bits of sweetness were incredibly well earned IMHO.
posted by msalt at 1:00 AM on February 23, 2018

If for nothing else, I will be forever grateful to this show for introducing me to the Buzzcocks' "Why Can't I Touch It?", of which I'd somehow been previously unaware.

I want that bass riff to play every time I walk into a room.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 1:49 AM on February 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

I know Charles Forsman through the comics scene and he's a delightful human being who is making a lot of interesting and challenging comics (neither Revenger nor Slasher are for everyone but what they do, they do well). I am not someone who thinks comics needs to be a gateway to TV/movie deals, but I also like when good people I know get some money.

Also, TEOTFW was a great show -- it's less a series and more of a movie (I suspect it may have been written as one, originally). I enjoyed its twists and turns and shifts in tones and just how much it all worked together.

(I used to be an Oily Comics subscriber and I know had some of the original minis. I may still have them somewhere but they weren't in the box with the rest of my minicomics so they either got lost in my last move or they're in some unknown box. Anyway, it's been fun watching all of this happen.)
posted by darksong at 4:31 AM on February 23, 2018

I'm a big fan of Charles Forsman, the author of the graphic novel, so when i learned this was adapted I was a bit shocked, because Forsman is not really a household name. That this little known graphic novel got adapted into a show in Britain is quite strange.
The show is fairly faithful too, even though they changed James to make him a bit more relatable than how he's portrayed in the book and erased all mentions of the satanic cult...
Now i'm waiting for an adaptation of the other great Forsman comic : Revenger.
posted by SageLeVoid at 4:37 AM on February 23, 2018

maybe could use an animal cruelty warning on the graphic novel link?
posted by thelonius at 4:57 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

thelonius: "maybe could use an animal cruelty warning on the graphic novel link?"

Yeah, I closed that link in a hurry and decided that I don't really want to know more.
posted by octothorpe at 5:05 AM on February 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

I haven't read the book, but I loved the show. I absolutely do not need another season.
posted by ZipRibbons at 6:03 AM on February 23, 2018

Since Netflix’s recommendations are a bit crap, here’s my “If you liked this dark teen drama thing, you might like these ones”:
- Dark (in German w/ subtitles) (imagine if Stranger Things weren’t a pop culture reference delivery system)

OT, but Dark was excellent, if a little slow in spots. That seems to be a common theme in European shows subtitled for NA audiences... They all seem to be a little slower than we're used to over here.

But if people who liked TEOTFW also liked Dark, maybe the reverse is true.
posted by Snowflake at 9:33 AM on February 23, 2018

I loved the cops. If a Season 2 was an unrelated spinoff about them, I would watch.
posted by pxe2000 at 10:06 AM on February 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

I loved this and everyone I recommended it to has loved it also. I knew Jessica Barden from her delightful performance in the deeply weird/kind of awesome HANNA, in which she bonds with on-the-run Saorise Ronan. Glad to see her again.

And the soundtrack for this series is fantastic IMHO.
posted by OolooKitty at 5:00 PM on February 23, 2018

Thanks so much for this, really incredible. Absolutely loved it. Everything about it - the performances, the writing, the soundtrack, the direction - was just spot on. I can't recommend it enough.

P.s. It's on All4 in the UK if you don't have Netflix.
posted by Acey at 8:31 PM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

I made myself stop and save the last two episodes for tomorrow. This is excellent, and if I thought that Gemma Whelan was great as Yara Greyjoy, I am in love with her here. Oh, Eunice. Dream that dream.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:47 PM on February 23, 2018