'I May Destroy You' Episode 4 Preview: What role does Arabella's past play in her processing the trauma?
Taking us back to a time when Arabella (Michaela Coel) was a fun and carefree person on her own, Episode 3 of 'I May Destroy You' gave a glimpse of her Italian rendezvous. Immersed in foreign flings, drugs and alcohol, Arabella was clearly someone who couldn't handle partying hard well. Her losing it at the club with someone having to drop her home seems like a pattern. And by the looks of it, it is the very thing that she keeps fidgeting over after blacking out the night she was sexually assaulted. The question we find asking ourselves right now is what role does that past have to play in the way she processes her trauma.
Based on the synopsis of Episode 4 'That Was Fun', we are about to find out where Arabella stands seven weeks after learning she was sexually assaulted. Her immediate response to the revelation was breaking down into tears and going totally numb. But it does bring to mind that before she realized she was the victim of the white man thrusting in the toilet cubicle, she was heavily invested in learning how she made her way back to her publisher's office.
Arabella first sought answers from her friend Simon(Aml Ameen), who was with her in person on the night of. Hearing how evasive he was over the phone, she ambushes him at his home only to be evaded further. Simon keeps giving sketchy answers to how he dropped Arabella off at her publisher's place and where he went from there for the simple reason that he's been cheating on his wife. But Arabella knows she can't handle her drugs and alcohol and Episode 3 gave us a clear picture of how even in Italy, Biagio (Marouane Zotti), who was just a drug dealer she had met that very morning, had to walk her back home after she was stranded at the club by her friend Terry.
Knowing Arabella, and her total numbness towards processing trauma, she might continue to follow the same patterns of heavy partying and hookups, but perhaps she will be wary of whom she lets into her personal space in an inebriated state. But then again, Micheala Coel's show has always been about the varying degrees of consent and the many ways they can be breached, so maybe there's more trauma to come Arabella's way before we see her story and arc as a sexual assault survivor come full circle.
'I May Destroy You' airs on Mondays at 9 pm only on HBO.