I May Destroy You musically
The music in I May Destroy You is fantastic, but a couple of moments stand out to me in particular.
As Arabella navigates her way through the staggering aftermath of sexual assault, two distinct personalities emerge as choices for who she will become. These choices, between vengeance and radical empathy, are fully explored in the last episode, but the transition from one Arabella to the other is subtly hinted at with the show’s music choices.
When Arabella publicly accuses Zain of rape, she becomes a powerful figure on social media, an activist who’s identity is predicated by her trauma. She becomes increasingly dependent on her social media as a way of connecting with others while ignoring her real-life friends, such as Kwame who was raped by a man immediately after having consensual sex with him. He doesn’t tell Arabella because there is no room in her real life for other victims.
She uses social media to share her experiences and to receive empathy and learns from others on the platform about vengeance-adjacent practices such as doxxing which she advocates.
Episode 10 is where a softening or synthesis of her experiences start to happen. When the Arabella we meet at the end of the series comes coheres momentarily for the first time. The Universe Wakes Up by The Comet Is Coming starts playing in Episode 10 while Ben (her roommate), Terry (her best friend), and Arabella are in the garden, the place of her eventual peace in the last episode. The song starts at an inflection point in the show and in Arabella’s journey and her understanding of herself. Simon is about to tell her that Terry hasn’t been completely honest about her involvement in the night of Arabella’s sexual assault and other family truths will be revealed at her mother’s birthday. Calm notes are built into chords overlaid with a searching jazz solo that sounds like Arabella’s impending discoveries and growth.
In the same episode, there is an absolutely beautiful moment where Kwame asks for and receives a hug from a man. Just as beautiful is the moment after this scene. Arabella waits for Terry in a chair after a day of revelations from Simon and her family. She has a big smile on her face and she is held by herself, cupping the top of her head gently. Arabella is about to absolve Terry of any guilt she may be feeling for Arabella’s sexual assault. Weruche Opia and Michaela Coel are particularly stunning in this scene. There is only ever one person to blame for sexual assault and that is the perpetrator. It’s a total 180 from the Arabella we’ve seen, the one who is quick to take down even those closest to her and to relish doing so. It shows immediate growth in an episode where she has learned about her own complicity in hurting others, particularly her father. She is full of gratitude for the person who has been there through it all, who, despite Arabella’s imperfections which are newly apparent to her, has always loved her. She radiates with the vulnerability and self-love of someone who has just been enlightened. The Egg by Epic Mountain is the perfect song and song title for the gestures of love Kwame and Arabella allow themselves and the perfect song for the continuation and renewal of Arabella and Terry’s friendship.‘Your birth is my birth.’
The Egg by Epic Mountain is the music in a Kurzgesagt animation (the same Kurz that Arabella and Ben decide to watch in the last episode) of the short story by Andy Weir. A story in which a man dies after a fatal accident and is told by a god-like figure that the entire universe is an egg, made for the purpose of maturing him and that he is in fact, everyone who has ever lived. It is a story about the interconnectedness of humans, one that inspires radical empathy after reading.
”Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born” could be the thesis of the show, it’s nuanced characters and Arabella’s process in the last episode. She first destroys her rapist physically, which reverses their roles as victims and perpetrators. She then destroys those roles with empathy. A drastic exercise in killing with kindness. She then destroys the boundaries that separate them as humans, those boundaries of gender dissolving when she penetrates him consensually. A retelling of The Egg by Arabella might read: Once she has lived every iteration of her and her rapist, once she has lived her experience as him, she has grown enough to be born again.
I made a video blog of this same information! You can find it here:
