What is Clickbait?
Clickbait was based on a disturbing premise: a video of a man, who has been tortured, holds up a sign to a video camera, saying ‘I ABUSE WOMEN’. Later, another video sees him with another sign, explaining that once the video reaches five million views, he will be killed.
This promised fate comes to fruition in episode two – when Nick is found dead, and his killer is nowhere to be found.
Nick, played by Adrian Grenier, is a family man, happily married with two sons. Although his family believe him to be innocent, and are attempting to find him before the video reaches the deadly five million viewer hit, they are up against the beast of the internet and social media.
With eight episodes, all of which are dedicated to an individual character, the plot unfolds and we begin to understand that Nick really is innocent.
Although a string of suspect dating profiles are unearthed, and strange relationships with two women called Emma and Sarah, it’s revealed to not be Nick behind the profiles.
Instead, they were orchestrated by the only person who had access to Nick’s phone – Dawn, an administrator at his work, who borrowed it to connect it to his computer.
Dawn, portrayed by Becca Lish, is a mild-mannered woman in her 60s, living a simple life with her husband, Ed, who loves model trains.
Her loneliness, and need to feel appreciated, lead her to begin a number of catfish accounts. Posing as Nick, she strikes up the relationships Emma and Sarah, and her ensuing brutal dumping of Sarah leads the young woman to commit suicide.
It’s Sarah’s brother, Simon Burton, who kidnaps Nick and sets up his clickbait-driven end.
However, once Nick convinces Simon that he never knew Sarah, and that it was someone else posing as him, Simon releases him.
So, who killed Nick?
It is revealed in the final, unexpected twist, that although Simon freed Nick, Nick then went straight to confront Dawn.
The confrontation culminated in Ed (of all people), brutally murdering Nick in defence of Dawn, our resident catfish. The reveal led to a big split among viewers, considering the murderer only appeared in one episode, and was completely unexpected for the entirety of the show.
It’s only Nick’s sons, Ethan and Kai, who realise they are suspects by using tracing technology to find where the pictures were being used from.
This realisation leads Ed and Dawn to kidnap Kai in a panic, with the twisty reveal seeing Ed use Kai as a human shield in the final standoff with police.
Will there be a season two?
Although the show was designed as a limited series, the amount of characters, and the intricacies of their worlds and relationships, might set this series up to continue.
Leading man Adrian Grenier has already said there could be more to come.
“I think a lot of what the show is about is perspectives and incentives... This could go on for a long time. I mean I think it's gonna keep fragmenting out, becoming more complex and more interesting,” he told Metro.
Betty Gabriel, who played Nick’s wife, Sophie, agreed.
“There’s so many characters, there’s so much story to tell. So, I think definitely [we could get a series two],” she said.
