The Commenter
Episode 4 of The Premise begins with a reminder of how people always focus on negative comments rather than the positive. This goes for everyone really, as we hone in on our main character for this week’s episode, Allegra. She has a loving girlfriend called Beth and lives a pretty successful life. In fact, she’s even on the cusp of winning an award at the New Jazz museum for the title of “Miss Generational Inspiration.”
As she posts a picture of their group meal that night online, Allegra notices a comment from an anonymous poster reading “your smile is as fake as your life.” Beth doesn’t care and is nonchalant toward it but Allegra dwells on it all night long.
Whoever this person is, they continue to comment on all her photos. Allegra is so dead-set on these comments that she’s convinced they’re right and starts doubting her own abilities. One comment, reading “none of these people care enough about her to tell her the truth” really gets under Allegra’s skin.
Off the back of this, Allegra writes out a whole message and sends it on to this troll, telling them she’s happy in her life and wishes them well. This person’s reply? “lol”.
This eventually leads to the pair trading texts, as the anonymous figure claims she’s given up on her life and is now simply an echo chamber for #goals instead of following through with genuine goals. As we soon come to learn, Allegra used to have dreams of becoming a writer but this has fallen by the wayside in recent years.
Allegra decides to change her life, listening to this troll and quitting her job. After doing all of this, the troll’s account becomes inactive and leaves Allegra in limbo. She eventually turns to Beth and forces her to say something mean, which is eventually met by a tentative declaration of how Allegra is not as intelligent she thinks she is. This whole chat breaks down Beth’s defences, as she sobs and admits to Allegra how much she loves her.
In the middle of this though, Beth admits that she managed to track down who the random troll is online – she’s the one who had her blocked. With a location tracker to show exactly where they’re at, Allegra heads to the office building where she finds the troll in the women’s bathroom.
As the two stand next to one another, Allegra eventually leans forward and kisses the surprised woman, deciding she’s ready to embrace the real her now, walking out and hearing her true inner-voice for the first time.
The Episode Review
The Premise rolls round with another satirical episode, this time focusing on our obsession with social media and the need to please others. This whole Insta generation, with the need to photograph perfect shots of oneself with no imperfections, ultimately leads to a desire and hunger for validation. It also breeds a lot of toxicity if there’s something that’s not quite right in a photo.
I was bullied for 5 years at school, received numerous messages across MSN Messenger after school (remember that one, guys?) and I can still remember almost every hurtful thing that was said about me and my weight. I mean, I weigh the same now as I did in secondary school (high school.)
It’s strange how your brain retains this sort of information and The Premise manages to capture that perfectly, leaning into the extremities of what would happen if you listened to the trolls and caved to their expectations.
This has been a pretty turbulent anthology thus far but this is easily one of the better episodes.
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Episode Rating
(3.5)
A little late to the party here..
Finally getting around to watching this. One hidden point is the troll’s user name: C1010. In certain programs / hardware, this is an error code for end of life. Is it possible that the troll was either trying to get Allegra to kill herself or become a new person?
You completely missed the scene where the real troll with the same purse was revealed! The woman in the bathroom was not the right person.
In this day and age, why would anyone (who is not a clueless highschooler) believe that obvious trolls have anything worthwhile to say and actually go so far as to engage with them? It’s been well publicized that these guys (it’s almost always guys) are manipulative, sadistic sociopaths who get off on making other people miserable. They’re also cowards and therefore only able to get their kicks from behind the safety of internet anonymity, not by, say, drunkenly picking a fight at a bar. So the only sensible and mental health preserving response to such anonymous bullying is to block them after the first handful of incidences. “Don’t feed the trolls.” is what we used to say in my younger years. (When online life happened on open forums and via emails – the latter of which you only gave to your actual friends, obviously.)