REVIEW: It’s ‘The End Of The F***ing World’ And E4s/Netflix’s new Series is freaking fun&#8230

Christmas and New Year is over, folks, so Culturedemandsgeeks are back at work. We’ve run out of tea, no biscuits to eat either, and in the market for another screamer of a television programme. Oh look, up pops, ‘The End Of The F***ing World’ And You Should Feel Good About A New Netflix Series that offers a frightening friendship between two blossoming outcasts. Did I mention, one might be a psychopath!

Photo: E4/ Netflix

I’m James. I’m 17. And I’m pretty sure I’m a psychopath.”

This is the opening line of The End of the F***ing World, a UK series debuting on Netflix. Within the first five minutes, we get flashbacks to a nine-year-old James sticking his hand in a deep fryer just to feel something, and abundant evidence that he kills small animals.

In this first episode we meet James, who indeed has displayed psychopathic tendencies since he was young. To be fair, he did have a disturbed childhood. His parents divorced and his father has been looking after James ever since. And with the standard of lame Dad jokes that James is subjected to, it’s probably not surprising that he has rebelled (albeit in a violent fashion).

The show actually gets much darker from there.

But also, somehow, much more lovable.

The End of the F***ing World, with Charlie Covell adapting the comic by Charles S. Forsman (it premiered in UK in the fall; Culturedemandsgeeks have seen all eight episodes) is a dysfunctional romance, a tender coming-of-age tale, a twisted, dark, black comedy, and a fugitive thriller all rolled into one.

It’s your basic “boy meets girl, boy decides to murder girl, girl talks boy into running away with her, girl and boy get into far more trouble (cue, death and destruction wherever they go) than either could have possibly imagined” tale.

You know, that kind of simple dilemma that we’re (I mean some people) are thrown into, once in a while.

The boy is James (Alex Lawther, who was the terrified lead of “Shut Up and Dance,” the cyber-blackmail episode from Black Mirror season three). James is now after something bigger to kill, and it’s fortuitous that he meets Alyssa in the school canteen. They’re similar creatures in that they are both outsiders, and they’re both children of broken marriages.

His new partner in crime, as well as James, turns out to be a less-than-reliable narrator of they’re own story.

The other half of this dysfunctional duo, is Alyssa (Jessica Barden, who played a vengeful teen in the final season of Penny Dreadful.) She hates her school, her friends, her creepy stepfather, and, especially, her mother for moving on with the (strong language up next) ‘twat’ and new baby twins. Alyssa admits that she loves the smell of the babies’ heads – it’s just a pity that Tony (stepdad) makes comments about her needing a bigger bra.

Alyssa finally decides that she has had enough after Tony lays a possessive hand on her hip at a family party, and her mother sees it all with a sad, resigned eye. She runs round to James’ house, and suggests that they run away. James hides the knife with which he was going to stab her, and agrees.

Also, Alyssa hasn’t seen her father since she was eight, although he does send her a birthday card each year which obviously makes up for everything that she’s lost, hence, that is where the road-trip comes into play.

After James punches his father in the face, they drive off into the unknown in James’ father’s car, Alyssa asks James if he’s scared.

‘A little, yes,’ he says.

Alyssa holds her chin up bravely. ‘I’m not,’ she says.

“She probably should have been”, James thinks.

Both James and Alyssa are without one of their biological parents, (James: mum. Alyssa: father), though the explanation for each absence keeps shifting from episode to episode as they travel together, get to know each other, and attract the attention of law-enforcement while they stumble into one bad situation after another.

The two titular characters are truly mismatched and perfectly matched at the same time.

On one hand, James claims to feel nothing, while Alyssa feels everything much too deeply. She thinks she’s found a dark and mysterious boy who’s the perfect accomplice in her plan to get out of this ‘shitty tow’ where nothing ever happens.

While he thinks she’d be interesting to kill as he graduates from animal victims to human prey.

Throughout the short series, the two friends, lovers, accomplices (we are not quite sure!) bring out something new from one another, even as they’re pushing each other deeper and deeper into this mess they’ve created.

Are both of them putting on a front?

Maybe.

Neither?

Who knows?

Exactly how damaged are they, and are they making each other better or worse as they travel the countryside (literally, in blood), occasionally in fu##ed up circumstances — in search of Alyssa’s natural father?

These are the tricky question that the creative team and these two superb young actors get to explore across eight episodes (all hovering around a bizarrely, but brillant, brisk 20 minutes), along with the larger audience question of whether this is ultimately a comedy, a tragedy, or both?

It’s a very UK-made series, and appropriately peppered with US pop culture references. In one episode, Alyssa admits, “If this was a film, we’d probably be American.”

When the two decide to change appearances (with mixed success) James at one point dons a Hawaiian shirt just like the one Christian Slater wore in True Romance.

The soundtrack is filled with mid-20th century American pop and country songs: Alyssa and James dance raucously to Hank Williams, while Brenda Lee’s “I’m Sorry” plays over a particularly violent act.

The music is great, great in the sense that it helps the viewers connect with the two teens. How? Because their in an upside down world where bad things happen all the time, and there’s a bleakness in which everything can be seen in a different light, when the right choice (the not-so-teeny-fied music) plays in the background.

When the end of the, ‘The End of the F***ing World’ ends, it ends with a heavy hitting call from Thor himself. There’s bleakness in it, even as the show plods along at a fantastic pace, with the couple revealing themselves to be much more — and much less — than either seems at first.

At the end, James is running away from armed response (literally running with a loaded shotgun), and then the screen fades to darkness, and a loud gunshot echoes. Cut. Wrap. The end of the show.

The show’s good. Great in fact. Dark. Devilish with a twisted sense of humour. That’s why, Culturedemandsgeeks devoured the whole thing, and only don’t want more because the season concludes in a place that works much better on every level if it’s treated as a definitive ending rather than the tease for a second season.

This superb collaboration between Netflix and E4 at least gives me hope that well get to see a second season, possibly a third, but I’m not sure how much the creators can expand the storyline into a second season.

If Alyssa and James aren’t always truthful about themselves — even to themselves — they’re honest enough about the world around them to see that these eight episodes should be a sad, strange, perfect little entity unto themselves, and a fitting eight, perfect episodes into the world of two disillusioned teens..

The flashes of knives and blood are a little used, but hey, the show is a dark comedy, after all. However, Alex Lawther and Jessica Barden, who play James and Alyssa, bring a certain charm to their roles. If we don’t get a second season, expect great things in the future, from the two rising actors.

5/5 stars