Chloe - General Discussion

[AnimeMania]

Chloe is a drama with all 6 episodes being released on June 24 on Prime Video.

Chloe originally aired in the UK on the BBC in February of 2022.

Chloe follows Becky Green, a young woman living in Bristol, U.K., who works as a temp while residing with her mother. Becky struggles with her mother’s early-onset dementia, and suffers herself from low self-esteem and paranoia. Becky does not have much of a social life, and no real friends. She spends her spare time on Instagram, or conning her way into social events using someone else’s identity. Her way of living is turned upside down the day she discovers that Chloe Fairbourne, whom she follows on Instagram, has suddenly died.

Through her alter-ego Sasha, Becky becomes a powerful, transgressive heroine; a popular, well-connected “someone” with a life, and loves, that are far more exciting and addictive than the “no one” she is as Becky. However, the pretense soon obscures and conflates reality, and Becky risks losing herself completely.

From left to right: Poppy Gilbert as Chloe, Billy Howle as Elliot, Erin Doherty as Becky, Pippa Bennett-Warner as Livia, and Jack Farthing as Richard.

Erin Doherty as Becky Green, a quiet, friendless, social media-obsessed twentysomething temp worker who struggles with her mother’s early-onset dementia.  

Poppy Gilbert as Chloe Fairbourne, the wife of a local councillor living in Bristol, U.K., who is seemingly living a flawless life on social media. 

Billy Howle as Elliot Fairbourne, Chloe’s husband 

Pippa Bennett-Warner as Livia Fulton, one of Chloe’s friends

Alexander Eliot as Phil, Livia’s husband

Jack Farthing as Richard Greenbank

Akshay Khanna as Anish

Brandon Micheal Hall as Josh Stanfield

Lisa Palfrey as Pam

Scott Rose-Marsh as Jerome

Eloise Thomas as young Becky

Gia Hunter as young Chloe

[AnimeMania]

Chloe     June 24, 2022    Prime Video

Episodes 1-6       Titles and Descriptions

Spoiler

S01.E01: There Is a Light

Lonely Becky spends her life on Chloe's social media, always on the outside looking in, until a sudden tragedy pulls her in deeper than she ever dreamed possible.
A sudden tragedy pulls Becky into Chloe's world in a way she never imagined.
Lonely, Becky spends her life on Chloe’s social media, always on the outside looking in, until the sudden death of her ex-best friend pulls her into a frenzy to discover the truth behind her death.

S01.E02: Out of Reach

Armed with her new alter ego Sasha, Becky makes herself indispensable to Livia; a party in Elliot's honor gives her the chance to get closer to Chloe's grief-stricken husband.
As her alter-ego Sasha, Becky gets close to Chloe's friends and grief-stricken husband.
Armed with her new alter-ego, Sasha, Becky makes herself indispensable to Livia and engineers her way into Elliot’s life, making it clear there is much more beneath the surface than Becky ever imagined.

S01.E03: The Holy Trinity

Becky begins investigating the secrets which Chloe kept from Elliot, Livia and the rest of her friends; an unexpected run-in with Richard leads to a painful conclusion.
Becky investigates Chloe's secrets and comes to a painful conclusion.
As she earns trust amongst Chloe’s friends, Becky begins investigating what secrets Chloe kept from Elliot, Livia and the rest of the friends, but an unexpected run-in with Richard leads to a painful conclusion for her.

S01.E04: However Rotten

Now lost in Chloe's world, Becky is forced to face ghosts from her past.
As she embraces life as Sasha, Becky loses herself in the luxurious world Chloe left behind, but she’s forced to face the ghosts from her past at Phil’s art exhibition.

S01.E05: Grimy Friend

New information causes Becky to look at everything with fresh eyes.
Becky gets new information about Chloe while suspicions run high with her new friends.
New information causes Becky to look at everything with fresh eyes as she tries to untangle the threads Chloe left behind, while increasingly at risk of being discovered.

S01.E06: She Called Me

Becky's lies crumble and it's a race against time to discover the truth about Chloe.
Becky’s carefully constructed web of lies begins to crumble around her and it’s a race against time to discover the truth before Elliot’s political launch. 

[AnimeMania]

Amazon’s ‘Chloe’: TV Review

The vHollywood Reporter

[bourbon]

I quite liked it. Erin Doherty was very good. She made a heroine who is a liar, a fraud, and a thief very sympathetic. No small feat. 

The mystery isn't terribly compelling, but as a character study, it was very enjoyable. It reminded me a bit of Talented Mr. Ripley -- a "nobody" suddenly getting with the in crowd, how they try to hold onto the power, and the utter devastation when they find themselves on the outside again. 

The one thing that didn't quite ring true...Becky is a friendless loser in her real life, but when she is taking on a new persona as Sasha, she is poised, witty, and charming. So...why doesn't she just act like Sasha when she's Becky. Clearly, she's got social skills. Why not exercise them all the time? One of the characters evens points out that everything Sasha is, Becky is, too. They shoehorn in a childhood trauma and sick mom to address why Becky is so insecure and lonely, but it doesn't quite work, and I never get why the poised and beautiful Becky is such a sad sack. 

Edited June 26, 2022 by bourbon

[SHD]

I thought it was well acted and interesting enough, but ultimately it seemed like they stretched out a story that could've been told better in fewer episodes. And the ending just kind of sat there, not terrible but not intriguing either. I didn't really love the device of seeing the early morning phone call repeated over and over but changing to be something different as the story unfolded. It got tedious.

[QQQQ]

Omg, I have no idea what happened at the end 😅Maybe I fell asleep... Was there a twist? Was there anything to figure out or solve? Since I cannot put myself through watching the whole thing again, could someone explain it to me using a spoiler tag?

[pasdetrois]

On 6/27/2022 at 1:40 PM, SHD said:

it seemed like they stretched out a story that could've been told better in fewer episodes

I was desperate for a taut British thriller, but this wasn't it. I began to FF after the first episode, especially the endless Chloe phone calls, the repeated childhood friends scenes that told us nothing, and Becky creeping around, opening things, reading things (that I could not see), hiding things, etc.

The actors were great, but this thing dragged on way too long.

[marybennet]

I liked the first three or four episodes quite a lot (not least because I found the Becky-as-Sasha's dresses fun), but it wore itself out, I think.  And I liked the last minutes--thinking about Becky recovering in the caravan and making herself a life.  But it was never really clear to me what the show thinks about the friends.  They all betray Chloe.  We never really know why or (do we?) why Anish hated her.  Elliot's money? mild schoolboy glamour? proximity to power? holdover from when he was doubtless a coercive friend as a teenager?  And I don't much like the idea of Becky remaining friends with them.  But...still happy about the caravan.  I didn't like Livia for finding it awful, and I do think that space in the back over the water (obviously an element important in the life of Becky) was something that could make water beautiful for her again and not the space of bathtub drowning. 

But maybe I'm just feeling landlocked.

[Cementhead]

I was so looking forward to watching this because British thrillers are always a sure thing for me and I was excited to see Erin Doherty in the lead role.  Unfortunately I found it boring and underwhelming and stopped watching towards the end of the 2nd episode. 

[TattleTeeny]

Can someone tell me what happened that caused the rift in the Becky/Chloe friendship? I have finished the series and saw the flashback of Becky running away from a party, but what happened at this party is unclear to me.

Edited July 1, 2022 by TattleTeeny

[jabRI]

Yeah, the ending just sat there for me.  How is this now 'her' caravan?  Lots of empty threads, unresolved.  Like did Richard and Chloe have an affair, or were they just friends?  Why was Richard so scared of Elliot?  Still not clear to me how Chloe died.

[Mabinogia]

While this was very well acted, the story was a hot mess. I can see what they were trying to do, jumping on the unreliable narrator train with what could have been a cool twist with the story slightly changing as it unfolds. But that unfolding seemed to be for the audience and it never made sense why Becky would first imagine the phone call one way and then another way and then even another way until we got to what was probably the truth? It just wasn't done very well. Half the time I had to hit pause so I could figure out what Becky was reacting to.

I wish I had liked it more because there were the bones of a good show there. I think it just got bogged down in trying to trick the audience to hide the fact that it was an incredibly predictable story. 

On 7/1/2022 at 1:24 PM, TattleTeeny said:

Can someone tell me what happened that caused the rift in the Becky/Chloe friendship?

All I can come up with is Chloe moved away and was trying to start over in a new school by building a new group of friends. She had a party without even telling Becky about it and Becky, being something of an obsessive stalker, considered it the worst betrayal imaginable. the trouble with the unreliable narrator type stories is, we don't know how much of and which of the childhood flashbacks are even real. There's also Becky's paranoia, all those times she overheard people talking about her but it didn't seem that was true, so who knows really. 

I just watched the whole 6 eps and the whole thing was just a messy blah to me.  

[millennium]

I'm only two parts in, but Becky isn't a very likeable sort.   Makes it difficult to care.   She's not terribly attractive either which places her apparently irresistible allure in question.   Josh is a welcome relief every time he's on -- everybody else is so dour and brooding.  Stupid, too, apparently, given the ease with which she cons almost all who cross her path.    Also, the mystery of Chloe's death isn't very compelling, at least thus far. 

[Sheenieb]

On 6/25/2022 at 10:11 PM, bourbon said:

The mystery isn't terribly compelling, but as a character study, it was very enjoyable. It reminded me a bit of Talented Mr. Ripley -- a "nobody" suddenly getting with the in crowd, how they try to hold onto the power, and the utter devastation when they find themselves on the outside again. 

I finished the series last night, and I had the same thought. Becky definitely had the Tom Ripley effect going on. Although she wasn't as charismatic as Tom.

On 7/9/2022 at 2:07 AM, millennium said:

Josh is a welcome relief every time he's on -- everybody else is so dour and brooding. 

Josh puzzled me the most. I liked the actor, but I could never wrap my head around him sleeping with her while knowing that she's a fraud. How could anyone be comfortable being around someone like that? 

[30 Helens]

I came here looking for answers… but it seems none are to be found. I pegged Elliot as a controlling possible murderer around episode 3, but that was never verified. And what was the big deal about finding Chloe’s birth certificate? Was everyone in Chloe’s life just an enabling wuss? Because it certainly seemed that way. I guess multiple people should be feeling guilt for her murder/ suicide? How did Becky’s sister die? Yes, in the bath, but what about that put blame on Becky? And what about Josh? He seemed the most sympathetic to Becky’s circumstance, yet he walked away when he was needed most. When she hadn’t done anything worse than he already knew about.

I enjoyed this series, yet I felt let down at the end. Too much was left open. And from what I’ve read, there won’t be a season 2. So some questions will never get answers. (For the record, I think this should have been a one season, contained series. But I would appreciated a better wrap up.) Enjoyed it, but not necessarily glad I watched it.

[Enigma X]

I am on episode 3 and may not finish. I don't see Becky as a person trying to figure out what happened to Chloe, for Chloe's sake. I see Becky as a deeply disturbed individual manipulating others to practice creating a secret identity. Acting was great but a heroine Becky was not.