To say more would be to say too much, but the way Ayres and White handle their final-reel reveal is a masterclass in advanced whodunnitry. Mind you, his cynical editor is no better. An especially egregious case is Ben Park (Abraham Lin), a morality-free media shark who sees burglary and emotional manipulation as perfectly respectable, indeed crucial, tools of his trade. The writers deliver some powerful jabs at the media too, who camp outside Nick’s home desperate to wheedle out something salacious for further vicarious consumption, online or off. Simon (who’s employed, ironically, as an online content moderator) sets out to avenge her, with tragic consequences. Events take a tragic turn with the story of Simon Burton (Daniel Henshall), whose sister Sarah is driven to suicide after being “catfished” online. Nick’s son Ethan (Camaron Engels) is almost permanently engaged in online messaging with a character known only as AL_2005, whether he’s on the sofa, on the bus or at school, and panic begins to mount when he finally decides to confront the person behind the online handle. Social networks seem to be teeming with antisocial individuals, and the obsessive pull of smartphones and tablets is niftily illustrated by the way screen images are interpolated into the live drama, slipped in at various angles so they become integral to the action. They question the extent to which “real” life is becoming secondary to digitised proxies where it’s impossible to separate the facts from the fakes, a space where an idyllic wifi love affair trumps a physical relationship. As the show’s eight episodes unspool, creators Tony Ayres and Christian White probe different aspects of the online world and its real-life repercussions. When one of the women, Emma Beesly (Jessica Collins), comes forward to talk about her affair with Nick and her love for him, his goose is seemingly cooked ( pictured below, Zoe Kazan as Pia with Phoenix Raei as Detective Amiri).īut you ain’t seen nothing yet. So Nick is the victim, but if the placards he’s holding up are true, is he also a villain? When evidence begins to emerge that seemingly-saintly Nick has been conducting a string of affairs with different women via several online dating accounts, all under different names, clouds begin to gather over his head as his reputation is trampled underfoot. Welcome to snuff-clickbait, and while Nick’s wife Sophie (Betty Gabriel), pugnacious sister Pia (Zoe Kazan) and the cops race desperately to find Nick, seemingly the whole dumb, titillated world keeps clicking on the video, thus bringing Nick’s threatened death hurtling closer. Imagine everybody’s horror when a video of a bloodied, battered Nick appears online, holding up placards saying “I abuse women”, “I killed a woman” and “At five million views I die”. Nick is a physical therapist at a school athletics department, apparently a popular guy with a perfect wife and two kids. The journey of one of the central characters, Nick Brewer (Adrian Grenier), mirrors the switchback ride of the narrative as it jumps between viewpoints and keeps throwing a new light on aspects of the story. The virus is nowhere to be seen in Netflix’s grippingly twisty mystery Clickbait, but it’s the use and abuse of social media that drives its tale of malice, murder and deception.
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