Chloe: Becky's story is one of loss and grief rather than that of social media mania

Prime Video's latest psychological thriller, Chloe, revolves around a lonely woman who spends her days envying the Instagram life of a former friend.

The six-part series, created by Alice Seabright, stars Erin Doherty (of The Crown fame), who delivered a stunning performance as Becky Green. It was released on the streaming platform on June 24, 2022, after it had already premiered in the UK on BBC One earlier this year.

Other cast members include Poppy Gilbert in the eponymous role, Billy Howle as Elliot Fairbourne, Pippa Bennett-Warner as Livia Fulton and Jack Farthing as Richard Greenbank.

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Chloe explored Becky's social media obsession gone awry in a The Talented Mr. Ripley meets You fashion

Unlike the classic whodunnit mysteries, the murder mystery in Chloe progresses hand in hand with contemporary advancements, namely the evolution of social media.

Becky Green, a lonely woman working as a temp and living with her dementia-stricken mother, became obsessed with the Instagram life of a certain Chloe Fairbourne.

Becky would find herself going back to Chloe's page and envying her life. In the process, she began to spice things up in her own life by means of some fraud and deceit.

Becky entered a cocktail party using her boss' wife's identity and maneuvered her way through a night of free wine and food, intermingling with the moneyed class.

However, her life was turned around when Chloe mysteriously died and her last two calls were made to Becky.

In the pursuit of answers, Becky dons another fake identity of a woman named Sasha Miles, who had recently returned to the UK from Japan, where she worked in marketing.

Sasha/Becky used her wits and street-smartness to quickly make her way into Chloe's inner circle. In a Joe Goldberg fashion, she stalked Chloe's friends and learned more about them through social media. Much like Tom Ripley, she mixed in with Chloe's elite friends through lies and deceit.

However, the deeper she fell into the rabbit hole that was Chloe's life, the more she realized that it was far from the perfect façade she presented on social media. Her friends were a group of shallow and vacuous people, and her seemingly doting husband was manipulative and aggressive.

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Chloe was an unraveling of Becky's loss and grief as each episode peeled another layer of mystery

Although the use of social media was central to the plot of the British psychological thriller, Doherty's Becky was more than a nobody trying to be somebody.

As the series progressed to reveal more about her and Chloe's lives, viewers got to see the trauma that possibly shaped Becky into the person she became.

Oftentimes during the series, Becky admits that there is something wrong with her. Viewers can sympathize with the troubled and borderline-obsessed Becky when they learn about the loss of her baby sister during early childhood and the loss of her childhood best friend.

Things started to make a lot more sense when it was revealed that Becky and Chloe were childhood best friends who drifted apart when the latter went to a new school.

What's more noteworthy is that Becky did not just lose Chloe after her death; she had lost her best friend after a sudden severance of their friendship. It was only in the final episode that viewers got to see what drove them apart so abruptly.

Becky's younger sister Sasha died after drowning in front of her while the two were in the bathtub as very young kids. Although Becky's mother never explicitly blamed her for her sister's death, their relationship was strained thereafter because of the accident. One can only imagine the stress and trauma that arises from witnessing a sibling die and tending to a bitter mother with early-onset dementia.

Chloe was the only person Becky confided in after the accident and that further strengthened their friendship. This is why it was all the more devastating for Becky to suddenly lose a close friend without an explanation.

It probably impacted her ability to socialize, which would explain why a twenty-something Becky was obsessed with her friend's social life instead of having her own.

Furthermore, Chloe's death and the knowledge that Becky was her last contact made her even more manic and obsessed with finding out the truth behind her untimely demise. The search for truth was evidently not easy and showed Becky being vulnerable and distraught plenty of times.

Chloe is now available to watch on Prime Video.