In 2017, Michelle Carter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for egging on her boyfriend Connor Roy III while he committed suicide. This case was explored in depth in Erin Lee Carr’s 2019 HBO documentary I Love You, Now Die, but now the story has been turned into a Hulu limited series starring the exceptional Elle Fanning. The case was splashed all over both the online and print media with the broad stroke that Connor Roy was basically texted to death. As this series tries to show, the case was much more nuanced than that.
Opening Shot: Scenes of phones as two teens named “Conrad” and “Michelle Carter” text each other. The Lowland Hum cover of “Be My Baby” plays in the background.
The Gist: “July 13, 2014. Mattapoisett, MA.” A police officer responds to a report of a missing teenager. Lynn Roy (Chloë Sevigny) wants the cops to look for her 18-year-old son Connor “Coco” Roy III (Colton Ryan). When the responding officer gets a report that a truck matching Connor’s is in a K-Mart parking lot, he finds Connor inside, unresponsive, a running generator in the back seat.
As the authorities examine the crime scene, Coco’s grandfather, Conrad Sr. (Peter Gerety), demands to see him. Coco’s father, Connor “Co” II (Norbert Leo Butz), calls Lynn to tell her the tragic news, saying “There is yellow tape around our son’s truck.” Obviously distraught, Lynn goes into Coco’s room to see if there was any evidence that he might want to kill himself. What he sees is a journal where he writes love letters to a girl named Michelle Carter (Elle Fanning), but nothing else.
When Det. Scott Gordon (Kelly AuCoin) gets the case that Monday, he immediately spots something unusual: There are no texts on Coco’s phone other than from Michelle, and before a certain time, they’re deleted. Michelle’s frantic and unanswered messages indicate that he went through with something.
An hour away in Plainville, word gets back to Michelle that Coco killed himself; she’s distraught, and her friends come to console her, even though they’ve never met Coco. She insists on going to Coco’s funeral, even though her family is going on their traditional vacation. Both her parents question her need to go to the funeral, but Michelle angrily insists.
She goes to the funeral with her mother Gail (Cara Buono), and meets Lynn for the first time. Lynn appreciates that Coco loved Michelle so much, even though they only met once or twice in person. As happens in the 2010s, their relationship grew through texts. Michelle tells Coco’s best friend Rob Mahoney (Jeff Wahlberg) that she’ll help raise money in his name. Rob reluctantly says yes, but barely looks at Michelle, as if he knows something about her.
Michelle becomes distraught when she finds out that she wasn’t invited to spread Coco’s ashes at the beach. At that ceremony, Co wonders if it was their divorce that triggered Coco’s suicidal thoughts. But Lynn thinks they did what they could; “What were we supposed to do; chain him to the fucking radiator?” she angrily replies.
Det. Gordon looks through deleted data recovered from Coco’s phone and not only sees the many texts between him and Michelle, but sees a video by Coco saying that he’s ready to end it all. In the meantime, Michelle practices a Lea Michele speech from Glee to tell people how she feels.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Take the socially-weird vibe of The Dropout and cross it with the stalker vibe of The Thing About Pam and you’ve got The Girl From Plainville. (Of course, if you’ve seen I Love You, Now Die, this will DEFINITELY remind you of that because it’s the exact same story, only in B.O.A.T.S. format.)
Our Take: The Girl From Plainville is based on the real-life case of Carter, who was convicted of manslaughter in juvenile court for pushing Connor Roy to kill himself via texts and calls (the judge felt it was the calls she made while he was in the truck with the generator on that were the culprit). Showrunners Liz Hannah and Patrick Macmanus definitely take a slow and steady approach to telling the story, which lulls the viewer into a bit of a complacent state before scenes like the final one of the first episode jar them back into realizing that, yes, there’s something very wrong with Michelle Carter.
Of course, Fanning does a great job of showing just how off Michelle is throughout the episode. Even though her emotions over Connor’s death seems appropriate, Fanning applies some undercurrent of obsessiveness to her performance that comes out in ways that creeped us out. She just seems like she’s too into the role of grieving girlfriend, especially considering every one of Coco’s friends and family have never met her.
That performance, and Sevigny’s down-to-earth take as the grieving Lynn anchor the show, keeping it from moving into camp or Lifetime movie territory. In subsequent episodes, we’ll likely go back and forth between examining Michelle and Coco’s relationship and how it got to the point where she goaded him to kill himself with the investigation into the case.
Are we going to see scenes of pure insanity? Likely. But as sensationalistic as this case was, it does feel like the showrunners want to treat it with some care, showing what can happen when someone in a fragile mental state like Coco meets someone with an obsessive streak like Michelle. In other words, it’ll be less about the “text-to-death” aspect of the case and more about just why this relationship proved to be so deadly.
Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.
Parting Shot: As Michelle practices the speech from the Glee episode following Finn’s death, she sings along with Rachel’s rendition of “Make You Feel My Love.”
Sleeper Star: Peter Gerety was one of our favorites from Sneaky Pete, and we’re looking forward to seeing what he does as Connor’s grandfather.
Most Pilot-y Line: We see a “Boston World Champions” poster in Coco’s room that’s supposed to be a Red Sox poster, but it’s so generic — including the “B” — it becomes more conspicuous than it’s meant to be.
Our Call: STREAM IT. The Girl From Plainville is a nuanced look at a sensational case that played out with the usual media-induced broad strokes. It may be too nuanced for people looking for a show that utilizes those broad strokes, but the approach will probably be appreciated by those tired of campy true-crime scripted series.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.