The Girl From Plainville Review: Star-Crossed Lovers and Things Like That / Turtle / Never Have I Ever (Season 1 Episodes 1-3)
The Girl from Plainville brings Michelle Carter into the spotlight once again while also giving Conrad Roy III a voice.
As it stands, The Girl from Plainville Season 1 Episodes 1-3, “Star-Crossed Lovers and Things Like That / Turtle / Never Have I Ever,” offer a quiet start to a potentially devastating series.
Based on the 2017 Esquire article, this series is the latest piece of media to bring the infamous “suicide texting case” to the screen. HBO’s 2019 docuseries I Love You, Now Die follows the events of the couple’s relationship, and Lifetime’s 2018 movie Conrad & Michele: If Words Could Kill, starring Bella Thorne, also tackled the case.
The case is very well-known, but Hulu’s 8-episode miniseries isn’t just trying to rehash facts about the case. Instead, it is trying to take a deeper look at the mental health issues that plagued Conrad and Michelle. The series stars Elle Fanning as Michelle, Colton Ryan as Conrad “Coco,” and Chloe Sevigny as Conor’s mom Lynn Roy.
The first three episodes of The Girl from Plainville focus on Conrad’s depression. Viewers often see Conrad looking in the mirror in tears. He also talks about his social anxiety.
One scene that showcases Conrad’s social anxiety is him attending a party in “Never Have I Ever.”
He tries to play it cool by mentioning Kimye to his friend Rob (Jeff Wahlberg), but it is clear that Conrad lacks social skills. The show also emphasizes Michelle’s manic behavior, especially after Conrad commits suicide.
However, the show doesn’t offer any clarity about either of their diagnoses.
Both mention that they take pills, but the show doesn’t clarify what those pills treat — at least not during the first three episodes.
Seeing Conrad and Michelle’s mental health struggles allows the show to be even more heartbreaking to watch with the knowledge of how it all ends.
On “Turtles,” Conrad and Michelle meet. It immediately plays out like a young adult rom-com. Viewers can’t help but root for them — it’s young love at its finest.
Fanning and Ryan are effortlessly charming in these scenes, so it is easy to see why they attach to each other. The portrayal of Michelle and Conrad’s declining mental health and the entire cast’s acting is some of the best parts of The Girl from Plainville.
The show is at its best when it finds ways to make reading texts more attractive to the audience.
One of those strong creative decisions comes during “Never Have I Ever,” as we watch a text conversation between Conrad and Michelle play out in real-time on the basketball court.
This helps emphasize the emotions of every text. It also shows them growing closer and drifting apart with every new message. It helps demonstrate how these two characters start to develop their own little world through their conversations.
The Girl from Plainville starts to lose its momentum with the police force. The show walks the line between regular drama and true crime drama, and because of that, it makes the police officers crucial to the story.
This isn’t necessarily a major problem as a plot point. However, the portrayal of the police is where the issues start.
So far, they’re extremely unlikable. Instead of coming across as people driven to solve this case or right a wrong, they come off as people who want to prove they’re right.
This doesn’t seem to be the show’s intent, but the character of Gordon (Kelly AuCoin) especially doesn’t come off as a man driven to find the truth.
Instead, he seems like someone who may want to prove something to himself and the world, or he’s obsessed with his hunch. Maybe Hollywood has made us expect cops with an emotional investment in the case, but that felt missing and needed here.
On “Never Have I Ever,” Rayburn (Aya Cash) joins the case, but she’s even less emotionally invested. On the other hand, Lynn may become more involved in the case, which could fulfill the lack of emotional investment by the police force in The Girl from Plainville.
The police scenes come off far less interesting than they could be, but The Girl from Plainville has an interesting start. So we cannot wait to see how the show continues to unfold in the coming weeks.
—
What did you think of these episodes of The Girl from Plainville? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Critic Rating:
User Rating:
New episodes of The Girl from Plainville are streaming Tuesdays on Hulu.
Follow us on Twitter and on 
Instagram!
Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!
Jerrica Tisdale
Jerrica Tisdale is your favorite neighborhood pop culture junkie. She will annoy you with random TV and film facts, while complaining about whatever is the hottest new book. She has been a TV fan all her life but writing about it for over a decade. You may find her work all over the internet especially reality TV rants. She is a senior writer at Tell-Tale TV.