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I May Destroy You takes us on a quest for wholeness

As Arabella struggles to remember the night she was assaulted, other memories emerge as well.

In the penultimate episode of Michaela Coel’s brilliant, riveting HBO drama I May Destroy You, the lead character, Arabella, finally has a breakthrough as she plots out the memoir she’s been trying to write all season. She stands back from her bedroom wall papered in Post-it notes.

“I thought you were writing about consent,” her writing coach says.

“I thought so too,” she remarks. In that moment she realizes, and we realize with her, that while I May Destroy You is a story about rape and consent in the social media age, it is about a lot more, including Arabella’s search for wholeness.