For the last handful of years or so, I have come to terms with many of life’s little failures by grieving them. I always used to think grief was a scary word, something that belonged to those who have lost a loved one. I didn’t want to know grief. I didn’t want anyone I loved to die.
But then my dreams of being a staff writer for a reputable magazine or newspaper died. Becoming a mother before age 27 died. Living in a cute apartment in Manhattan with my husband died.
And instead of grieving them, I let my grief run my life instead.
TW: SEXUAL ASSAULT and SPOILERS ahead.
Baby Reindeer’s protagonist, Donny Dunn, is deep in the throes of grief at the top of the series. It’s portrayed to the audience that Donny is an average bloke down on his luck. Of course it makes sense for a quirky (and often frightening) stalker, Martha, to make herself at home in the ennui of Donny’s life. As Martha gets closer and closer to Donny, he’s unable to see her behavior for what it is as his grief is clouding his judgment. Martha’s stalking of Donny does serve as the centerpiece which moves the plot, but it only thrives as Donny continues to ignore his need to grieve. I could focus on Martha’s behavior in particular, but maybe I’ll save that for another post.
Until the viewer is let in on Donny’s trauma in episode 4, it appears that Martha has been able to effectively stalk him because he enjoys the attention and wants more of it. She laughs at his jokes that his audiences won’t. She offers him genuine friendship while he has none. Donny becomes aware of the fact that Martha is deeply disturbed and constantly lying about her life, and he continues to humor her. His two-time girlfriend, Teri (also a consequence of his grief) comes to this same conclusion, but she implies it’s inflating his ego. In actuality, Martha’s adoration, regardless of how strange, soothes his grief, allowing his own self-loathing, depression and inability to control his circumstances to take a backseat for a veil of happiness.
It’s revealed in the rather earth-shattering episode 4, titled eponymously, that Donny has been raped multiple times by a man named Darrien. During the famous (and real) Edinburgh Festival, a chance meeting at an exclusive bar leads the two to meet. Donny’s casual, lighthearted banter has Darrien taking a liking to him, and throughout the month-long festival, Darrien takes Donny under his wing. He successfully grooms Donny under the guise of comedy advice, gaining Donny’s trust as an invaluable resource as his act becomes successful at the Festival.
Donny fully believes that Darrien is his ticket to fame as a stand-up comedian, and it’s only then that Darrien begins to break him. He encourages Donny to take harder and harder drugs, assuring him that he’s safe in his home while he has one bad trip after another black out high. When Darrien first sexually assaults Donny during a vulnerable moment, it’s clear something in Donny dies. His voice over blames himself constantly for not leaving, for not saying anything to anyone and for not fighting Darrien back. The assaults continue while Donny is primarily unconscious, and it is this death of his bodily autonomy, the death of the career Darrien had promised, and the death of his own self-image that drives his decision-making moving forward.
Donny can no longer enjoy sex since being assaulted, and it ends his relationship with his current girlfriend, Keeley as he lies to her, ashamed. He tries in vain to understand his sexuality and desires by engaging in anonymous and risky sex and ditching first dates with a litany of different people, all to no success. Later, when he fails to properly report Martha’s behavior to the police, he blames not also reporting Darrien to the police as an excuse to justify it. All consequences of not facing and allowing himself to heal from the horrors he experienced at the hands of someone he thought he could trust.
For Donny, grief is the disappointment of losing what could have been and what once was. It’s paralleled when he accidentally walks in on the repass for his ex-girlfriend’s brother, where everyone is clearly in the throes of sorrow. Donny very easily succumbs to the whims of Liz–his ex’s mother–and her particular ways of melancholy, accepting her dead son’s clothes and keeping her company during and after dinner. But he does nothing to help himself, as his grief is ultimately intangible.
Multiple times throughout this limited series I found myself saying at my TV, “Just be honest! Tell them what happened! They will understand!” It frustrated me watching Donny’s choices, or lack there of, continue to ruin him. But I had to wonder if he was falling prey to toxic masculinity, which tells men to always suffer in silence, or just simply not properly grieving what had been taken from him. Reflecting on his inability to stand up to his male co-workers (notice, Donny never once raises his voice or confronts a man) and his ultimate fear of coming out to his very gruff, manly father, I think both are true.
Donny tried to dig himself out of his depression on his own and only managed to make things worse. It’s when he confesses what happened to him on stage to the entire world fearlessly that the veil lifts. He comes to something like peace when he’s no longer burdened by the things he’s lost, but all this allows is for him to mourn the loss of his relationship with Martha, despite knowing how much damage she caused him.
His grief cycle is never ending it seems, as he falls back into a pattern of feeling sorry for his jailed stalker and seeking comfort in the company of his rapist. With the foresight of his past, does Donny have a clearer view on how to heal? Or does his suffering ultimately end up for naught as he falls into old habits?
The show ends pretty succinctly and rather poetically, as Donny finds himself in Martha’s exact position at the beginning of the series; at a pub, without any cash. But to me, I feel as though we are left on a cliffhanger. Healing is not linear, clearly, but there’s more to Donny’s story (aware that the show is somewhat autobiographical) that we’ll never know.