

In the third episode, she gives the audience a glimpse into the messy relationship between Arabella and her exasperated and worried best friend Terry (Weruche Opia) when they hang out during Bella's stay in Italy. She jumps forward and back in time to unravel who Arabella is before and after her rape. But while the first two installments of I May Destroy You have the trappings of a mystery, as Arabella attempts to untangle the facts of the night, Coel quickly pivots away from that. HBOĬoel has said that the circumstances of that incident are based on her own sexual assault, which occurred while she was writing the second season of Chewing Gum. The second episode deals with Arabella coming to terms with the realization that she'd been drugged and raped at some point that night. The next thing she knows, she's back in her agents' office, typing on her computer. At one point in the night, she starts stumbling. Under deadline to finish a draft, she decides to procrastinate by meeting up with an old friend. I May Destroy You's first episode begins as Arabella returns to London following a sojourn to Italy where she was supposed to be working on a book, but spent the time partying and falling in love with a drug dealer instead. It's a show that lives in nuance and discomfort, but is also filled with laughter and love. It's too intense to watch all at once, with each episode packing in so much for the viewer to sit with and mull over. I certainly haven't been able to rush through it. You may have a difficult time binge-watching I May Destroy You. I May Destroy You doesn't abandon Coel's uproarious humor or her incredible gift for physical comedy, but its subject matter, as you may have guessed, is quite a bit more serious.
#ZAIN I MAY DESTROY YOU SERIES#
Prior to I May Destroy You, Coel was best known for the 2015–17 British comedy series Chewing Gum, which aired exclusively on Netflix in the U.S., on which she played Tracey, an extremely horny 20-something whose libido causes conflict in her extremely religious household.

The half-hour series resists easy categorization. But it's moments like this one that make I May Destroy You the most compelling show on television right now. Was Arabella's admission a slip of the tongue? A hallucination? I almost had to rewind to understand Coel's intention with the scene. But then she continues by thanking him for his help with her manuscript. And then, without missing a beat, she says the name of the person sitting across from her. As she talks, she says she even knows the name of her attacker. In a matter of fact but almost uneasily calm manner, she describes what happened.
#ZAIN I MAY DESTROY YOU UPDATE#
Sitting at the same table with him at the meeting, Arabella says that she'd just come from the police station, where she'd received an update on about a prior incident that was chronicled in the series' first episode. It's not until later that she realizes how violating his act was. But, afterward, he owned up to having removed his condom during sex, even claiming with practiced naivete that he thought she'd known.

In the previous episode, the two had a sexual encounter that started out as consensual and protected. Also attending the meeting is another writer Zain (Karan Gill), who Arabella has just realized had raped her. Arabella, the protagonist writer played by Coel, is at a meeting with her agents and publisher. There's a moment in the fifth episode of I May Destroy You - the HBO drama-comedy created by and starring Michaela Coel - that briefly feels like it must be a hallucination.
