The Sister
Episode 1 of Clickbait Season 1 begins with a family birthday dinner. Everything goes awry though when Pia lashes out over her big brother Nick getting her Mum the wrong present. Or at least the wrong present in her eyes. After ruining the entire evening, selfish Pia skips out, heading off to get drunk and establishing herself as the absolute worst character in this show. After dropping her phone in the toilet (karma, perhaps?) she heads home for the night. Pia is a nurse too, as we soon find out, and as she heads in to see her patient Vincent, they end up stumbling upon a viral video. This video includes Nick sporting a cut across his forehead holding a number of placards claiming he abuses women. Now, if this video reaches 5 million views then they’re going to die. Is this a prank? Is it real? Either way, Pia watches the video and immediately heads into school to find his partner, Sophie. Pia reports the video to the police but with it now at 9000 views, it’s definitely a race against time. Pia’s obnoxious and erratic behaviour continues through this interview, as she struggles to bite her tongue when Detective Amiri arrives on the scene. He’s overseeing the case now and remains determined to take things seriously. Well, things certainly get serious when a second video crops up on the internet. This one is similar to the first but has Nick holding a sign reading “I kill women.” However, the handwriting isn’t actually Nick’s so it could well be the perpetrator’s. Either way, the video hits 1.5 million views – and continues to spread. Pia heads back to see Vincent and decides they should check notes hack Google. Okay then. After explaining how utterly ridiculous that is, Vincent does agree to help with trying to find Nick. In fact, there’s a whole forum trying to decode the videos and figure out where it’s been recorded from. That works pretty well too, with a detective from Norway figuring out that these two videos, which have a slightly different camera angle, actually show a sticker behind in the corner of the video. How haven’t the police seen this? Anyway, this sticker is only found within one specific delivery van brand, which certainly narrows down the search. However, the original video hits 5 million views and time runs out. Just as it does, Amiri gets a call for a delivery van matching the description Pia has given to the officers. They show up and surround the vehicle, Opening the back they find… a cliffhanger ending.
The Episode Review
Clickbait is the latest thriller on Netflix, combining a cat and mouse chase with a bunch of hit and miss characters. The execution too is a little hit and miss. Pia is, quite frankly, an awful character. It’s a weird choice to start the show off with her perspective, given each chapter seems to be focusing on a different character if the titles are anything to go by. Pia is the absolute worst though. She’s obnoxious, arrogant, foul-mouthed and completely selfish. I’m not quite sure how we’re supposed to root for her, but hopefully she’ll have a redemptive arc across this season. Or she could end up being the killer, who knows. Either way, Clickbait does have a rather interesting premise, even if it is a little contrived and farfetched at times. Given people absolutely loved Big Sky when it dropped on ABC and that too had a similarly farfetched scheme, this one does seem like it’ll be a big hit with people. It also seems like each of these episodes are going to end with a big cliffhanger, leaning into that notion of a “clickbait” conclusion. So who took Nick? And why? Is he really guilty? We shall see in the upcoming episodes!
