There’s no denying that this is an all too timely topic; with 3,000 offenses recorded each day and one in every 12 women victims each year, violence against women and girls is a deepening epidemic in the UK. And a survey by Vodafone has revealed that 69% of 11–14 year-old boys in the UK have been exposed to misogynistic content online. It’s often tricky, though, to confront people with these statistics in a way that truly underlines how horrifying they are. Netflix’s Adolescence does it incredibly deftly, offering up just enough details for us to draw our own conclusions about Jamie’s apparent radicalisation.

At the same time, the series offers up another dark dilemma: would it be worse to learn your child is a murderer or to have them become a victim? It’s a controversial and unspoken thought that I suspect many parents turn over in their minds whenever any story like this hits the news cycle – one which I suspect has no real answer. Both options result in a child being lost; both might leave you wondering if there was more you could have done to save them from their fate. Both, too, might leave your happiest memories overshadowed by one terrible event.

Perhaps, though, the guilt would be far more painful if you knew your kid – the one that you had loved from the moment you first clapped eyes on them – had been radicalised without you ever noticing. Had done something so heinous that it made you wonder how you could ever look at them again. Had grown up, under your careful watch, into someone you barely recognise. It’s little wonder that the Millers refuse to even so much as entertain the idea that their son has killed another person in cold blood; the alternative is unthinkable.

All in all, Adolescence is a truly striking triple threat: a technically brilliant series filled to the brim with powerhouse performances, with the kind of heart pounding story that keeps us engrossed from start to finish. It’s no exaggeration to say that I bit my nails down to the quick while watching it, and I stayed up long after the credits rolled on the final episode, unable to stop thinking about everything that had transpired on the screen before me, and unable to stop thinking about my own little girls sleeping soundly upstairs. Here’s hoping it makes a difference, eh?

All four episodes of Adolescence are on Netflix from 13 March.

Netflix’s Adolescence review: how this gripping crime drama forces us to confront some horrifying home truths