This Show Is Number One on Netflix. As a Woman, I Can’t Stop Watching

You’ve heard stories like these on television series. You’ve seen news reports. And maybe something like this has happened closer to home. If any or none of these are true for you, the new streaming series on Netflix, Worst Ex Ever , is your must-watch. The docuseries (currently #1 on Netflix) shows domestic abuse in grippingly real scenarios illustrating how surprisingly easy it is to find yourself trapped in a relationship with a monster—and how victims have found their way free.

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In each one-hour episode, director Cynthia Childs and Blumhouse Television ( Worst Roommate Ever ) detail stories of multiple people whose intimate partners seem so loving, until their true colors emerge when they are set off by stressors such as jealousy or job loss. Trigger warning—I watched the first episode and it's not for the faint of heart, with police file victim photos as well as graphic tales of kidnapping, injury and fatalities. (Each episode focuses on separate cases with a new set of individuals, so I'm pacing myself to watch the rest of the series.) What really jumped out to me in the first episode is how expertly woven together these three women’s narratives are, all of them strangers to each other, but for the fact that they dated the same Oregon native. Early on, I thought how his rugged good looks and love of nature and animals would be anyone’s natural swipe right on a dating app —until I watched the toxic trail of terror and destruction left in the wake of multiple assaults and an interstate manhunt.

“I didn’t tell any of my friends because I was embarrassed, I just didn’t want them to know that I was one of those girls who was with a guy who was beating me,” says one survivor, as she details how isolated she became as a situationship devolved into abuse. That’s the kind of evocative-without-being-oversimplistic insight that’s offered repeatedly in Worst Ex Ever , which tells its story through interviews with survivors, victims’ families and investigators. I noted the sensitivity with which Worst Ex Ever depicted its violent episodes—they are narrated by the survivors, with non-exploitative animation reenacting the broad strokes of the abuse. And I appreciate the series’ nod to gender equity: In episode three, the baddie is an ex-wife who launches a malicious scheme against her ex-husband during a long custody battle.

This might sound odd, but I recommend this show as a viewing party for girlfriends to watch together, or at the very least to call out for comments on your besties’ text chain. That’s because Worst Ex Ever details occurrences that are all too usual in our lives—stalking and domestic abuse—and we all can learn from these women’s experiences. (I’m still reeling from the time an abuser knifed his girlfriend—then the perpetrator gaslit police into arresting her.) So yeah, you may also want some emotional support while watching the more intense scenes. But there's empowerment and strength on display here too. Call it a mild spoiler alert, if you will, but ultimately (in the first episode anyway), it's a woman who saves the day.

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