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This article includes spoilers for all of \u201cBaby Reindeer.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The mini-series \u201cBaby Reindeer\u201d<\/a> arrived on Netflix on April 11 without much advance hype, but it quickly became one of the most talked-about TV shows of 2024.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not hard to understand why. Based on the Scottish comedian Richard Gadd\u2019s award-winning 2019 one-man stage show, \u201cBaby Reindeer\u201d baits its hook in the first episode, which introduces Martha (Jessica Gunning), an emotionally fragile middle-aged woman who appreciates the kindness shown to her by Donny (Gadd), a struggling stand-up comic who offers her a free drink in the pub where he works.<\/p>\n By the end of that first episode, Martha\u2019s neediness has begun to shade into creepiness. And by the time Donny discovers that his new friend has a history of stalking, she\u2019s already begun what will eventually become a torrent of abuse, as she floods his email and social media with poorly spelled messages that insult his character and sometimes threaten sexual violence.<\/p>\n What makes \u201cBaby Reindeer\u201d so effective is that as Martha pushes further and further into Donny\u2019s personal life \u2014 attending his comedy shows, befriending his landlady, calling his parents \u2014 the audience shares his mounting feelings of powerlessness and frustration, cut with flashes of pity for the woman who is ruining his life. The show has the \u201cslow-motion train wreck\u201d appeal of a twisty true-crime documentary, but balanced with empathy for two profoundly broken people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A story as dark and uneasy as this one needs a proper ending, though. \u201cBaby Reindeer\u201d has one that is satisfying in its particulars, if haunting in its implications.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Gadd (who wrote every episode) plants the seeds for the finale in the penultimate episode, the sixth, which ends with Donny having a career-altering meltdown while competing in a stand-up comedy contest. Donny\u2019s comic style is highly conceptual, involving corny props and awkward jokes, designed to leave his audience wondering whether or not they\u2019re meant to laugh. He\u2019s like a Scottish (and much less effective) version of Steve Martin in his \u201cWild and Crazy Guy\u201d days. (Or, as Donny puts it: \u201cI\u2019m a comedian when they laugh, a performance artist when they don\u2019t.\u201d)<\/p>\n When the crowd can\u2019t get on his wavelength at the competition, Donny ditches his props and just talks, sharing with a stunned audience the story that we have been watching for the previous five episodes. He tells them about how when he was a young and inexperienced comedian, he took an unpaid gig working for Darrien O\u2019Connor (Tom Goodman-Hill), a well-respected TV writer who repeatedly drugged and sexually assaulted him. He tells them about his transgender girlfriend, Teri (Nava Mau), whom he\u2019s too embarrassed to kiss in public.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And, of course, he tells them about Martha, the angel and the devil on his shoulders: sometimes telling him how sweet, funny and handsome he is, and sometimes calling him a weak-willed, talentless degenerate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n As the show\u2019s seventh and final episode opens, a video of Donny\u2019s train-wreck performance has landed on YouTube (under the title \u201cComedian Has Epic Breakdown\u201d), bringing him viral fame and new opportunities. The pressure of that higher profile \u2014 coupled with Martha\u2019s ceaseless string of threatening voice mail messages \u2014 prompts Donny to confide in his unexpectedly sympathetic parents about being raped. All of these confessions feel liberating.<\/p>\n Not too long after, one of Martha\u2019s threats is dire enough to get her arrested \u2014 and eventually jailed. Gadd brings the conflict between Donny and Martha to a logical conclusion, with Martha finally acknowledging the harm she\u2019s done by pleading guilty.<\/p>\n So Donny lives happily \u2026 but not for ever after. More like for a day or two.<\/p>\n The unsettling ambiguities of the \u201cBaby Reindeer\u201d epilogue \u2014 the real ending, which comes after Martha is safely locked away \u2014 are a big part of what has made the show a word-of-mouth hit.<\/p>\n First, Donny finds himself going back over Martha\u2019s old messages, and turning every one of their past interactions into pieces of a puzzle that he then pins up on his wall \u2014 like a detective trying to crack a complicated case. His inquiry even leads him back to the doorstep of the man who molested him, where Donny falls into an old pattern of deference and eagerness to please.<\/p>\n Then, in the series\u2019s knockout closing scene, a bartender gives a teary-eyed Donny a free drink, echoing what Donny once did for Martha. What makes Donny so upset? Take your pick: He\u2019s still processing what Martha and Darrien have done to him. He\u2019s furious with himself for not standing up to his abuser. He attained the fame he always craved and found that it didn\u2019t solve his problems.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The final trigger comes when, as he listens to one of Martha\u2019s old messages, he hears her explain that she always calls him \u201creindeer\u201d because he reminds her of the stuffed toy that comforted her during a rough childhood. For a moment, this former terrifying nuisance goes back to being a person worthy of understanding and even grace. Or maybe, again, it\u2019s actually empathy: Donny ending the story in the same state in which he first encountered Martha makes manifest the bond between them.<\/p>\n