Behind Her Eyes’ Louise is just another Plain Jane

“Behind Her Eyes” is a Netflix miniseries adaptation of a novel of the same name written by Sarah Pinborough. It came on the platform in the later half of February and stars Eve Hewson, Tom Bateman, and Simona Brown. The series follows Louise (Simona Brown) as she gets entrapped in the Ferguson’s marriage.

After a full viewing of the series, I can say that the series will keep you on your attention as it makes you want to keep watching. But I do have one bone to pick with Louise’s character. Louise’s is too easily influenced by those she had just met and connects too quickly with the other characters.

As the series goes on, we are told that Louise is a single mother of one with a rocky relationship with her ex-husband. She works as a secretary for David Ferguson at an psychiatrist office. I find it lacking that we don’t get a good type of detailed background of Louise versus what we get with the Fergusons. It can be implied that Louise is an only child and through her night terrors, that someone has died, whether that’s a mother figure or herself isn’t known. To add on, Louise is really only seen as interacting with her one friend, Sophie outside of David and Adele.

What comes with the lack of background to her character, comes how she interacts with other characters. Sometimes in the series she’s too easily influenced by those around her; mainly Adele and other times she’s very stubborn in the face of things she doesn’t really understand. For instance, when Sophie tells her to not get involved in the relationship of the Ferguson’s as she tells about why she wants to remain friends with Adele. Louise pushes the idea that she feels bad for Adele and that Sophie simply just doesn’t understand that Adele is ‘sad all in that house alone’. It’s like she just wants to get to know them more, unfold who they really are inside and outside of their marriage. It’s like her empathy for others takes over her own logic. The logic, here being that she shouldn’t be friends with the wife of the man she’s having an affair with.

Its that same empathy and curiosity that is her undoing because she takes too many things at face value. As she didn’t question enough about the events that happen with Adele and David in the past with Rob, the journal she gotten from Adele, or even the constant hanging out with Adele. The whole time she was getting manipulated by Adele, who makes it seem like David is abusing his power as an psychiatrist, murdered ‘Rob’, and was constantly having affairs. She doesn’t investigate enough until the end of the series, where she realizes that Adele is actually more crazy than she had thought.

Then there are the times where she was very stubborn, especially when she thinks she can have it all. From when she thought she could have Adele as a friend and her affair with David to where she thought she got Adele in a corner. Which in that moment, I still don’t understand why she would expose at the knowledge of David and herself, know the real truth about Rob’s death or her running over to their housing after Adele’s suicidal text messages. It didn’t really make sense for her to run over there to “save” Adele.

While Louise’s background is very little shown compared to the David’s and Adele’s, which is to be said, as its the back bone of how everything comes to be. Yet as a main character there’s much to be desired here. I feel that if Louise’s character was written better, developed more, the series could have truly flourished.