London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Jul 10, 2025

Michaela Coel - “I May Destroy You” & Writing About Sexual Assault

John Doe
If you are a woman, this show will make you stronger. If you are a man, this show will make you human, and will teach you what never ever to do to any woman under any circumstances. A fearless, frank and provocative half-hour series exploring the question of sexual consent and where, in the new landscape of dating and relationships, the distinction between liberation and exploitation lies.
Set in London, where gratification is only an app away, the story centers on Arabella (Coel), a carefree, self-assured Londoner with a group of great friends, a boyfriend in Italy, and a burgeoning writing career. But when her drink is spiked with a date-rape drug, she must question and rebuild every element of her life.

HBO’s I May Destroy You might be the best TV show of the year. The British import brings searing emotion and dry wit to a story about sexual assault.

In “Line Spectrum Border,” the eighth episode of Michaela Coel’s mesmerizing, borderline-perfect dramedy, I May Destroy You, Arabella, a young writer played by Coel herself, attempts to kick down a door. She’s been locked out of an apartment where she was intending to crash, and she’s not particularly happy about it. When her stylish boot nearly kicks the door in, the apartment’s occupant, her ex-boyfriend, opens it. He is holding a gun. She turns and runs.

The door-kicking incident is one of the show’s most blatant and physical displays of its core idea: No matter what boundary you put up between yourself and another person, that other person might knock it right down and leave you feeling violated. Arabella’s encounter with her ex isn’t nearly as scarring as other boundary violations on the show, but he’s still going to have to fix his door. Every transgression leaves a mark.

I May Destroy You begins with Arabella’s life being ripped in two by a sexual assault she first tries to compartmentalize, before trying to simply slog through the trauma as best she can. The slog is the only path available to her, but others around her, no matter how sympathetic they are, kind of need her to just be the person she was before her assault. She has a draft due, after all, and her friends need her for emotional support. Yeah, she’s been through a lot, but the world keeps trying to get her to move on, even if nobody would be so gauche as to say that.

At the center of I May Destroy You, which aired on the BBC in the UK (where it was primarily made) and airs on HBO in the US, is the very vagueness contained in its title. Who’s going to destroy who? Each and every episode answers that question a little bit differently. And with nine episodes of its 12-episode first season having aired in the US, it’s safe to say this is one of the best shows of the year.

In addition to starring in I May Destroy You, Coel is the show’s creator, writer, and co-director. The story was loosely inspired by her own sexual assault, which happened when she was at the height of an early career upswing following her critically acclaimed series Chewing Gum.

“A young writer is the victim of rape” is maybe not what you’d expect to be at the center of even a dark comedy, but I May Destroy You’s strength lies in how unflinching it is in staring directly at Arabella’s trauma, while also allowing just enough humor around the edges to keep from becoming pitch black.

The show is not about rape but, rather, survival, and all of the ways we find to withstand even the most mundane violations of our consent. Sexual assault is hundreds of times worse than somebody you’ve asked not to hang out with you continuing to hang out with you — but both violate the boundaries you’ve painstakingly built around yourself. The series is incredibly smart at exploring the ways the world asks us to just let these boundary violations slide, until it actively makes us put up with something we never wanted in the first place.

Every episode features a moment where someone’s consent is violated. Sometimes that violation is obvious and easy to spot — a man non-consensually humping another man. Sometimes, it’s a little harder to notice, as when Arabella’s best friend Terry (Weruche Opia) is asked a series of too-intimate questions at an acting audition. It’s easy to call out the former as sexual assault; it’s far harder to consider the latter as such, especially when Terry offers up more information than she might normally in hopes of getting the job. Isn’t she just playing along?

The details of Arabella’s rape are hazy, lost to a faulty memory. She doesn’t know who raped her, and it seems unlikely she’ll find him. But even when characters are quite aware of who assaulted them, justice is hard to come by. In one episode, Arabella calls out a fellow writer sharing the stage with her who takes off his condom while having sex with her. After she hears from another person that this is a pattern with him, she names him publicly as a rapist (non-consensually removing a condom during sex can be charged as rape in the UK). But doing the right thing rarely feels good in the way we hope it might. Arabella spends that night clicking “like” on all the adoring Instagram comments she receives; it doesn’t stop the emptiness from gnawing at her gut.

None of this would work without Coel, who’s brilliant at little flickers of half-expressions that let you know there’s some vast ocean of rage and sorrow threatening to spill out of Arabella at a moment’s notice. Her performance is essential, but it also wouldn’t work without her writing. No story quite goes where you expect it to — such as when one episode devotes itself to a lengthy flashback of Arabella and some of the show’s other characters in high school.

There are times when the interrogation of consent I May Destroy You is perhaps a bit much — one episode ends with a reminder of all of the ways humans are violating the boundaries the very planet has thrown up in our faces — but at its core, it’s a bracing show about all of the ways power dynamics can go sour. Each and every boundary stretched, each and every door kicked in, each and every bit of consent obliterated is an act of destruction. And because human beings keep constructing hierarchies that give some people undue power over other people, that destruction keeps rippling outward, a stone thrown in a pool.

I May Destroy You can be a tough watch, but it’s also a bracingly human one, because it never looks away where other shows might. It never focuses on the crime when it can focus on the survivor.

I May Destroy You airs Monday nights at 10 pm Eastern on HBO. Its season finale airs Monday, August 24. Catch up with the show on HBO’s streaming platforms.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Severe Heatwave Claims 2,300 Lives Across Europe
NVIDIA Achieves Historic Milestone as First Company Valued at $4 Trillion
Declining Beer Consumption Signals Cultural Shift in Germany
Linda Yaccarino Steps Down as CEO of X After Two Years
US Imposes New Tariffs on Brazilian Exports Amid Political Tensions
Azerbaijan and Armenia are on the brink of a historic peace deal.
Emails Leaked: How Passenger Luggage Became a Side Income for Airport Workers
Polish MEP: “Dear Leftists - China is laughing at you, Russia is laughing, India is laughing”
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
Weinstein Victim’s Lawyer Says MeToo Movement Still Strong
U.S. Enacts Sweeping Tax and Spending Legislation Amid Trade Policy Shifts
Football Mourns as Diogo Jota and Brother André Silva Laid to Rest in Portugal
Labour Expected to Withdraw Support for Special Needs Funding Model
Leaked Audio Reveals Tory Aide Defending DEI Record
Elon Musk Founds a Party Following a Poll on X: "You Wanted It – You Got It!"
London Stock Exchange Faces Historic Low in Initial Public Offerings
A new online platform has emerged in the United Kingdom, specifically targeting Muslim men seeking virgin brides
Trump Celebrates Independence Day with B-2 Flyover and Signs Controversial Legislation
Boris Johnson Urges Conservatives to Ignore Farage
SNP Ordered to Update Single-Sex Space Guidance Within Days
Starmer Set to Reject Calls for Wealth Taxes
Stolen Century-Old Rolls-Royce Recovered After Hotel Theft
Macron Presses Starmer to Recognise Palestinian State
Labour Delayed Palestine Action Ban Over Riot Concerns
Swinney’s Tax Comments ‘Offensive to Scots’, Say Tories
High Street Retailers to Enforce Bans on Serial Shoplifters
Music Banned by Henry VIII to Be Performed After 500 Years
Steve Coogan Says Working Class Is Being ‘Ethnically Cleansed’
Home Office Admits Uncertainty Over Visa Overstayer Numbers
JD Vance Questions Mandelson Over Reform Party’s Rising Popularity
Macron to Receive Windsor Carriage Ride in Royal Gesture
Labour Accused of ‘Hammering’ Scots During First Year in Power
BBC Head of Music Stood Down Amid Bob Vylan Controversy
Corbyn Eyes Hard-Left Challenge to Starmer’s Leadership
London Tube Trains Suspended After Major Fire Erupts Nearby
Richard Kemp: I Felt Safer in Israel Under Attack Than in the UK
Cyclist Says Police Cited Human Rights Act for Riding No-Handed
China’s Central Bank Consults European Peers on Low-Rate Strategies
AI Raises Alarms Over Long-Term Job Security
Saudi Arabia Maintains Ties with Iran Despite Israel Conflict
Musk Battles to Protect Tesla Amid Trump Policy Threats
Air France-KLM Acquires Majority Stake in Scandinavian Airlines
UK Educators Sound Alarm on Declining Child Literacy
Shein Fined €40 Million in France Over Misleading Discounts
Brazil’s Lula Visits Kirchner During Argentina House Arrest
Trump Scores Legislative Win as House Passes Tax Reform Bill
Keir Starmer Faces Criticism After Rocky First Year in Power
DJI Launches Heavy-Duty Coaxial Quadcopter with 80 kg Lift Capacity
U.S. Senate Approves Major Legislation Dubbed the 'Big Beautiful Bill'
Largest Healthcare Fraud Takedown in U.S. History Announced by DOJ
×