Accused: Series 2 Episode 3 - Stephen's Story

This was a very interesting episode, exploring the destructiveness of grief, especially when the issues of terminal illness and moving on are explored.

Focusing on 17 year old Stephen Cartwright, portrayed by Robert Sheehan, whose mother is terminal ill and later dies. His grief starts to cause his mental state to fall apart, especially when his father, Peter played by John Bishop, starts a relationship soon after his wife's death with the nurse who looked after her. The story is very good at the displaying the deterioration of Stephen's health as he believes the nurse, Charlotte played by Sheridan Smith, is poisoning him and his family.

His paranoia tragically leads him to push away his family, friends and then stab Charlotte, landing him in court for attempted murder. One interesting thing is Stephen's denial of his mental state which is probably quite realistic and the twist at the very end of the episode might support this. I also hope that this will be picked up in the next episode as the final episode will feature Stephen as he goes to the juvenile detention centre and supported by the prison guard Tina, who the episode will centre around.

I think the performances by Sheehan, Bishop and Smith were superb, displaying the different viewpoints of the situation and I think the script works well to deal with the issue of mental illness in a very understanding way.