The Year’s most promising teenage psychopath road trip series.
I remember hearing someone say that listening to happy music can make a sad person more depressed because it adds to their feeling of emotional isolation. Likewise, listening to a sad song by say, The Smiths, can raise someone’s low spirits because it’s reassuring to know other people are going through similar struggles. Going by this logic, watching actors flash their big silly grins on The Big Bang Theory may not be the best cure for my 2017-induced malaise. Based on its title alone, an upcoming comic book adaptation may have provided the perfect remedy for my 2017-blues.
Netflix is teaming with The UK’s E4 to produce a new dark-comedy series titled, The End of the F***ing World. The series is based on Charles Forsman’s 2013 comic book series, “The End of the Fucking World.” The story centers on a 17-year old psychopath named James (Alex Lawther), and a moody teenage girl named Alyssa (Jessica Barden), who thinks James is her soulmate. The duo head out on a journey to track down Alyssa’s biological father, which leads them down a “menacing and surreal path.”
E4’s commissioning editor Roberto Troni had this to say,
It’s by turns funny, brutally violent, ultimately quite uplifting in a screwed-up way. If David Lynch made a rom-com road movie about a pair of teen misfits in British suburbia it might look something like The End of the F**cking World.
I haven’t made the time to check out the comic yet but it has been on my reading list ever since I heard it described as “Catcher in the Rye” by way of Badlands. After watching TEOTFW’s trailer, the description makes perfect sense; there’s even a gorgeous shot of Alyssa and James running through the woods as sunlight shines through the trees which is evocative of Kit and Holly’s rural escapades in Badlands. During the trailer you can feel a dark tension at play just below the show’s quirky surface, as though Wes Anderson directed an episode of Dexter.
The eight-part series launches on Channel 4 in the U.K. on October 24th. There’s no word on when the series will make its US debut.
Here’s Netflix’s official synopsis:
Based on the award-winning series of comic books by Charles Forsman, THE END OF THE F***ING WORLD invites viewers into the dark and confusing lives of teen outsiders James (Alex Lawther – Black Mirror, The Imitation Game) and Alyssa (Jessica Barden – The Lobster, Ellen, Penny Dreadful) as they embark on a road trip to find Alyssa’s father, who left home when she was a child.
Related Topics: Netflix
