How Does 'The Girl From Plainville' Differ From the Actual Case?
Editor's note: The below article contains subjects that may be triggering for some, including suicide and depression.
The Girl From Plainville is an American miniseries created by Liz Hannah and Patrick Macmanus that premiered on Hulu in March 2022. It was inspired by the true story of the "texting-suicide" case of Michelle Carter (Elle Fanning) and explores her relationship with Conrad Roy III, the events leading up to his death, and her subsequent arrest and conviction for involuntary manslaughter.
The case took place in Massachusetts in 2014 and was notable because of its nature and the questions it prompted regarding the extent of not only criminal but personal culpability. The real Carter (17 years old at the time) had encouraged her boyfriend, Roy (aged 18) to commit suicide via text messages, hence it being given the name of the "texting-suicide" case. It is known that Roy had been struggling with his mental health for quite some time before these events took place, and it has been recorded that he had seen multiple professionals in the weeks leading up to his death. On July 13, 2014, Roy committed suicide in a parking lot by poisoning himself with carbon monoxide fumes from his truck. This happened following digital exchanges with Michelle, where she pressured and supported him in ending his life.
With the Hulu series now available to stream, how closely does The Girl From Plainville resemble the real-life case of Michelle Carter?
Generally, The Girl From Plainville stays pretty true to real-life events. When compared to the 2019 documentary I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth v. Michelle Carter, a lot of the information presented in the show is something that happened in the actual case (including the text messages), and even some of the most shocking moments are confirmed by the documentary as fact. The Hulu series does a good job of elaborating on different aspects of both Michelle and Conrad’s life stories, their respective struggles with mental health, and certain details of the case, which are important to know in order to understand and comprehend how such a tragedy occurred. We learn what happens to Michelle after Conrad’s death and the intricacies of their relationship with one another. The series is also good at making a distinction between context and the justification, or explanation, of their behavior. These two things are by no means interchangeable, however they are essential, as the story can be used as a window into a much wider, systematic problem, and helps us to realize what needs to be improved upon to prevent anything similar happening again in the future.
There are, however, a couple of things that flag up as having been changed or omitted from the drama series. The character of Susie Pierce (Pearl Amanda Dickson) does not exist in real life, but is likely inspired by one of Michelle’s real-life friends, Alice Felzmann. Felzmann and Carter were on a travel softball team together in 2012, and their friendship is often described as something fast and intense. At one point, Michelle texted her friend Olivia Mosolgo to ask, "Is it possible to be in love with two people at the same time, If [sic] they both weren’t boys?" and in other messages called Felzmann her best friend and questioned her own sexuality. Felzmann eventually cut Michelle off because of pressure from her mom, which we see Susie also do in the show, and the two eventually stopped being friends around the same time that Carter and Roy started to become closer. But even during her relationship with Conrad, Michelle often reminisced about Felzmann and wrote, "I still really love Alice and I can’t get myself away from it and its [sic] a problem because I’ll just compare everyone to her."
It’s hard to say with certainty why Felzmann doesn’t actually appear in the show, but it is likely a result of her distancing herself from Michelle and the fact that their relationship did not play a large role in the trial that followed Conrad’s death. Despite this, the addition of Susie’s character is important to the show because the presentation of the relationship between her and Michelle helps to show Michelle’s delusions and offers an explanation for her actions and behaviors.
There is also an argument made about the case which aligns with the relationship being presented between the two girls in the series, and that is touched upon in the second episode of I Love You, Now Die; a young woman using her boyfriend’s death to "help" him whilst vying for the attention from a lost lover makes more sense than her encouraging her boyfriend’s suicidal urges in a truly selfless way. It alters the narrative slightly, regardless of the character being fact or fiction. Michelle still comes across as naive and delusional, but through Susie, we are introduced to a more selfish motive for Michelle’s actions.
Another thing that The Girl from Plainville deviates slightly from, or doesn’t provide as much detail for, is the explanation of some of Michelle’s behaviors. This is specifically concerning Dr. Peter Breggin, a medical expert who offered to testify in the trial on behalf of Michelle to explain things on a biochemical level. There is much more context on this in the previously mentioned documentary, and we do hear from him a little in the Hulu series, but many details appear to have been omitted. This may be purely because they didn’t flow well within the dramatic narrative, however it would have been important to hear so that the audience could then form their own judgments about the events.
The expert had mentioned that antidepressants could cause nightmares, which was seemingly relevant to some of the conversations between Michelle and Conrad and is something that could have fed into their suicidal ideation. There were mentions of how the two had seen the devil, which Breggins said could be attributed to a side effect of certain medications they were taking, and explained that Michelle, specifically, had been in a state of ‘involuntary intoxication’ caused by switching her medication from Prozac to Celexa, which resulted in a disruption of her neurochemistry. He also said that Michelle would have been acting in what he referred to as a "hypomanic state."
Although this information is rather tedious and clinical, it would have been nice to include as the typical audience member doesn’t usually know the influence medication (and its side effects) has on emotions and behaviors. The level of detail in his explanations and his cross-referencing with the text messages would have been important to include. Understandably, though, the inclusion of this amount of detail would have been difficult without completely derailing the pacing of the story as it applies to a fictionalized, scripted series.
Overall, The Girl from Plainville succeeds at mostly presenting the events of this tragedy as they happened in real life. The Hulu series expands the scope of the audience’s view of what went on beyond the oversimplified, and sometimes sensationalized, narrative put forward by the media during the trial. It forces viewers to look deeper into the complexities of the case without the influence of third-party reports or judgments, and it doesn’t sugarcoat the events of the tragedy in its dramatization.
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