This contains spoilers for Netflix's Clickbait.In late August, Netflix debuted a new mystery crime series entitled Clickbait. News of Clickbait's surprise ending that many deemed impossible to correctly solve spread like wildfire, leading many binge-watchers to test their own detective skills.
As the recipient of such viral attention, Clickbait quickly surged to number one on Netflix. Despite appearing to have been intended as a limited series, Clickbait's popularity may have creators Tony Ayres and Christian White imagining what a second season might look like. With only eight episodes, all the surprises offered by the mystery crime series remind people how fresh and exciting a plot twist can be.
RELATED: Chess Champion Sues Netflix Over The Queen's Gambit Scene
One of the most refreshing aspects of Clickbait is that the twists don't solely revolve around the crime. Typically, when a crime series works at solving a specific crime, the twists occur within the crime and not the circumstances surrounding it. The twists might be that the suspect isn't who investigators thought or that the crime wasn't committed in the way they anticipated. Clickbait builds on this, altering the perception of its suspects, circumstances, and victim. Within this, Clickbait doesn't stop at one twist for each character or circumstance, enabling the audience's opinion to fluctuate many times.
The case Clickbait aims to solve involves the peculiar situation involving Nick Brewer (Adrian Grenier). As a respected figure in his community, no one expects to see Nick plastered all over the web in a scandalous video. The strange video features a beaten Nick restricted to a chair as he is forced to hold a number of signs that admit to heinous crimes, including that he harms women. While these are shocking words for his family to stomach, the most shocking is the sign that vows once the video reaches five million views, that Nick will be killed.
While the mystery seems clear-cut, Clickbait demonstrates that no story is as simple as it first appears. Within Nick's case, there are a number of mysteries that need to be solved. Among the first questions in desperate need of answers are what the signs are referring to and who is behind the video that has now been spread across the web at an alarming rate. These questions result in a lot of surprising and confusing answers that begin to question Nick's character and the type of relationship he had with his wife. As the investigation (led by Phoenix Raei as Detective Roshan Amiri) tries to resolve these questions, the case becomes much more complicated than an abduction.
Crime series arguably provoke the most participation from an audience as they hope to solve the case before the detectives manage to. Clickbait is no different and is strategically designed to make viewers change their minds. With a number of suspects who all have reasons to potentially hurt Nick, it's hard to narrow down who may have done it and if they acted alone. Could it have been Nick's sister, Pia (Zoe Kazan), who feels betrayed after he lashed out at her? Maybe it was his wife, Sophie (Betty Gabriel), who was having an affair. If not Sophie, it has the potential to be the man she was having an affair with, hoping to have her all to himself. Perhaps Nick's death is a result of unsatisfied children, a brutal form of justice, or jealousy from a friend, coworker, or mistress.
Clickbait's sixth episode, "The Brother," discredited someone who had the strongest motive for wanting Nick to suffer. After learning of Sophie's affair, it appeared that Nick had also established a number of dating profiles using fake names to create relationships with women all over the world. One of those women turns up to assist with the investigation, while another doesn't have the same opportunity. One profile was linked to a woman named Sarah Burton, who tragically died a few months prior after receiving harsh comments from his profile. "The Brother" reveals that Sarah's older brother, Simon, discovered who Nick was and abducted him to achieve justice for his sister's suicide. While guilty of abducting him, Simon appears innocent of Nick's murder, leaving a huge piece of the puzzle still to be solved.
As many viewers tested their detective skills, almost everyone found that their guess was wrong. In their range of suspects, Clickbait slowly led everyone to believe that Nick's friend and coworker Matt Aldin (Ian Meadows) was the one responsible for his death. Matt was shown to have an eerie presence at the school he and Nick worked at and traveled with Nick anytime they went out of town. No one had the access to Nick that Matt appeared to have, making him a reasonable suspect. By the end of the seventh episode, "The Son," Matt is ultimately cleared as Nick's abductor and killer. With Matt now cleared of the crime and one episode to go, it was hard for anyone to imagine who the culprit actually was.
Clickbait recalls the often worn-out crime show warning that suspects sometimes insert themselves into the investigation. The final episode reveals that even when the tactic is used, it can still deliver a shocking twist. Following the angry incentives for people like Simon and Matt, no one expected to see the culprit was the sweet front desk lady, Dawn. Dawn is revealed as the face behind the profiles, the person behind the words that led to Sarah's death, and ultimately the reason Simon abducted Nick and nearly killed him. After Nick figures out who the culprit is, he makes the tragic decision to confront her, which kills him.
The final episode left many in denial that they were not only wrong about what happened to Nick but about the type of man he was. Viewers are forced to accept that like the community that once worshipped Nick, they were swept up in the rumors of the scandalous life he and his wife had. Clickbait also forces viewers to abandon the belief that the person with the strongest motive is always the one that's guilty. The Netflix series also offers a surprising twist by breaking up the abduction and killing, making two different suspects with no relation to one another guilty of Nick's untimely death. While it may not be perfect, Clickbait is one of the most entertaining and surprising mystery crime series that has come out in recent years.
Clickbait is now streaming on Netflix.