Diabolical Love Squares and Astral Projection in Blindsiding Thriller ‘Behind Her Eyes’
Nightmares aren’t the only frightening thing in this London suburb.
A classic and complicated affair that propels into full speed is only the baseline of Netflix’s Behind Her Eyes. Based on Sarah Pinborough’s novel of the same namesake, it brings her twisted psychosexual love story to life on streaming screens in a way that you won’t forget.
The first scene introduces us to Louise (Simona Brown), a divorced single mom getting ready for a much-needed girls night out with one of her ‘mates’; but when she’s left waiting at the bar with a full glass of wine about to go home, she bumps and spills her drink all over a Scottish stranger who’s easy on the eyes with a charming accent — an unoriginal and totally predictable trope in the romance genre. After chatting, layered with awkward first-date cliches and long stares, the alluring encounter ends with a forbidden kiss that left Louise alone on the sidewalk, and me wanting more of this sordid duo.
The next day at work, Louise finds out she has a new boss who is none other than the charming Scot from last night’s nightcap David, or Dr. Ferguson (Tom Bateman). I metaphorically hid in the bathroom with Lousie as she dodged her new boss/lover who’s also married. They don’t meet face-to-face until the next day when they anxiously agree not to let their past transgression interfere with work. This scene featured in the show’s trailer is what prompted me to watch; it was hilariously written to be scandalous that riddled me with second-hand embarrassment.
The morning before Dr. Ferguson starts his shocking first day at work, we see his wife Adele (Eve Hewson) who seems like a submissive troubled partner, especially when he watches her take her medication and doesn’t return her ‘I love you’s’. On the first watch, concern grows for Adele as she seems stuck in an unrequited relationship with a serial cheater. Her storyline in the first four episodes of this miniseries paints her to be a sort of “battered wife”, especially since the couple keeps referring to a situation that caused them to move to central London and start over. I have to admit, I started to think David was actually the monster, just based on her behavior and responses to him as a husband.
The next few episodes are a slow burn, but the mystery set up in the series premiere keeps you watching to figure out what the hell is going on. The show’s creator Steve Lightfoot, also known for Hannibal (2013), Narcos (2016), and The Punisher (2017), does a fantastic but extremely frustrating job of putting in easter eggs that you only understand towards the end of the series.
An important character that we get to know only in flashbacks is Rob (Robert Aramayo), Adele’s friend she meets at a treatment center. He’s there for his night terrors and heroin addiction which is a common theme as Louise also suffers from night terrors and Adele uses Heroin throughout the show (yet another easter egg). Depicted as an innocent infatuation, it turns into a diabolical obsession that ends in what we think is Rob’s death.
(Spoiler alert: Stop reading here to still be surprised at the permanent jaw-dropping ending.)
This show explores lucid dreaming and astral projection, represented by glowing butterfly-like flurries that piqued my interest immediately. This was not a topic explored often in anything I had seen; Lightfoot does a terrific job of representing it in a way that makes me check the corners of my room to make sure there are no unwanted souls lurking about. What I didn’t know was that these color-coded souls traveling in this dimension, would be the catalyst for the disturbing explosion that is this series’ ending.
I wish I would have picked up on Rob’s blue soul and Adele’s pink soul. This was a dead giveaway because when Adele astral projected in real-time her soul was blue, whereas in the past it had been pink. Lightfoot is incredibly effective at getting us to pay attention to only certain surface-level aspects, while there is so much more bubbling underneath.
What you’ll find most bizarre is Louise befriending Adele while she was sleeping with her husband. It felt like she was playing with fire, but added to the overall thrill of the plot. It wasn’t revealed until later on is that Adele knew the entire time. I actually guessed this and the overarching astral projection theme way before they spoke about it, because we would often see a blue light following Louise around and spying on her. That’s what kept me watching, waiting for them to address the obvious after-a-while astral projection element.
Once the secret affair is no longer a secret, and Adele is threatened by legal punishment for her crime-ridden past, (Trigger warning) she prepares for suicide by setting her house on fire after leaving Louise, who’s grown to care for her, on edge by declining her calls and texts. This made me upset; By this point in the show, Louise already knew everything about psycho Adele’s dangerous past. In terms of this relationship, this was a last-ditch effort by Lousie who pitied her, despite knowing that she was behind Rob’s mysterious death. Adele takes a heavy hit of heroin to presumably overdose and goes to sleep. Louise heroically drives over to the Ferguson flat and tries to break in. Adele is astral projecting again and watching her every move. When Louise can’t break in, she astral projects as well, sending her soul up to Adele’s body where the two souls switch into opposite bodies.
The masterminded plan comes to fruition when Louise-now-Adele drags Adele-now-Louise’s body out of the burning house as the hero. Just when you think the series is ending there, we see another flashback of Adele-obsessed Rob doing the same thing to Adele ten years earlier. The foreshadowing moment that flipped the story upside-down for me was Rob’s full-on crush on David after meeting him. Since we knew about his death early on, I originally thought that David and Rob had an affair that would send Adele into a blind rage, but I was so wrong. Critics point out that this is problematic because the show is perpetuating the idea that a gay man has to be in a women’s body to love a man. I think It’s a bold claim because Rob really wanted Adele’s life and purpose. His addiction to drugs and rocky family life made him fantasize about Adele’s affluent life and upbringing which is a clear theme created in the show. While he’s “killing” Louise at the dramatic ending twist, he says “you will not take him[David] away from me.” making it look like it’s all about his love for David, but then goes on to say that Louise has no idea what he had to go through to get his current life, proving to me that the soul-switching was always about having the life he dreamed of and David was just a perk. It’s an important conversation to bring up nonetheless.
The final scene nods to Jordan Peele’s Us (2019) when Louise’s son Adam points out that she hates boats when Louise-now-Adele, who’s actually Rob, suggests a cruise for her and David’s honeymoon. I thought it was a sloppy job on her part because if I put my soul into someone else’s body I would act just as they did so I wouldn’t raise suspicion. She turns to her son with a sinister look and says “Maybe I’ve changed.” dismantling the loving and close relationship the mother and son once shared, sending chills down my spine.
