''Chloe'' is a 2022 British six-part psychological thriller series created by Alice Seabright for

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...

and

Amazon Studios Amazon Studios is an American television and film producer and distributor that is a subsidiary of Amazon. It specializes in developing television series and distributing and producing films. It was started in late 2010. Content is distributed th ...

that premiered in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 6 February 2022, and released worldwide on 24 June on

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. It received critical acclaim, with praise going towards Erin Doherty's performance.

Premise

A mystery about obsession, deceit, identity, and grief from creator and writer Alice Seabright (director,

Sex Education Sex education, also known as sexual education, sexuality education or sex ed, is the instruction of issues relating to human sexuality, including emotional relations and responsibilities, human sexual anatomy, Human sexual activity, sexual acti ...

). Through her alter-ego, a woman becomes a powerful, transgressive heroine; a popular, well-connected ‘someone’ with a life and lovers that are far more exciting and addictive than the ‘no-one’ she was known as. However, the pretense soon obscures and conflates reality, and the woman risks losing herself completely in the game she is playing.

Plot

A lonely twentysomething, Becky Green, becomes obsessed with the suicide of her estranged childhood friend Chloe and assumes a new identity as Sasha to engineer a "chance" meeting with Chloe's best friend, Livia, at an art event, followed by another run-in at a yoga class. Sasha then infiltrates Chloe's group of close-knit friends. She also gains a job outside her genuine work experience through Livia's contacts as she attempts to discover why Chloe died. Through her new alter-ego, she leads a life that is far more exciting than her life as Becky. A series of flashbacks reveals that Becky had two missed calls from Chloe minutes before her death. As Sasha, Becky eventually uncovers the truth of Chloe’s clandestine activities she has hidden from her husband and friends. Becky starts an affair with Chloe's widowed husband, Elliot; whereas the rest of the group including Elliot's mother disapproves of their relationship. Elliot decides to run for election, Becky and Livia run his campaign along with Elliot's friend Nish. Becky carries on the investigation questioning all the group one by one to find out Chloe was trying to escape from controlling Elliot, who was forcing her to take medication and completely controlled her finances. However on the night of the planned escape, Richard, who was supposed to help her, does not appear. Chloe goes to her parents house and her mom informed Elliot about her whereabouts. Elliot comes to pick her up, Chloe runs from him and is dead, presumably killed by Elliot. Livia exposes Becky and the group abandons her. She meets Elliot one last time to record his angry and vicious outburst and posts it on instagram from Chloe's account. Livia and Becky meet one last time to reconcile and Becky gives Livia her new number and she leaves.

Cast

Erin Doherty Erin Rachael Doherty (born 16 July 1992) is a British actress. She played the young Princess Anne in the third and fourth seasons of the Netflix drama ''The Crown'', and Becky in the BBC/Amazon Prime drama ''Chloe'' (2022). Early life and edu ...

as Becky Green *

Billy Howle William Walter Douglas Howle (born 9 November 1989) is a British actor. His films include ''On Chesil Beach'', ''The Seagull'', and ''Outlaw King''. On television, he is known for his roles in the E4 drama ''Glue'', the BBC miniseries '' The Ser ...

as Elliot Fairbourne *

Pippa Bennett-Warner Philippa Elaine Fanti Bennett-Warner (born 23 July 1988) is a British actress. She was nominated for an Ian Charleson Award in 2010 for her performance as Cordelia in Michael Grandage's production of ''King Lear'', and long-listed for Best Actre ...

as Livia Fulton *

Jack Farthing Jack Farthing (born 14 October 1985) is a British actor. Early life Born and raised in North London, Farthing attended two independent schools; the Hall School, Hampstead and Westminster School in central London. He read History of Art at St C ...

as Richard Greenbank *

Poppy Gilbert Poppy Gilbert (born 14 September 1998) is a British actress. She is known for roles as Barbie in the Netflix series ''Stay Close'' (2021), ''Chloe'' (2022), and ''The Catch'' in 2023. Early life and education Gilbert was born in Stockholm, Sw ...

as Chloe Fairbourne * Akshay Khanna as Anish *

Brandon Micheal Hall Brandon Micheal Hall (born February 3, 1993) is an American actor. On television, he starred as the lead of the ABC sitcom '' The Mayor'' (2017) and the CBS comedy-drama ''God Friended Me'' (2018–2020). Hall also appeared as a series regular on ...

as Josh Stanfield *

Lisa Palfrey Lisa Palfrey (born 9 February 1967) is a Welsh actress. She is known for playing the roles of Gwenny in ''House of America'' (1997), Mrs Nice in ''Guest House Paradiso'' (1999), Maureen in ''Pride'' (2014), Mrs Dai Bread 1 in ''Under Milk Woo ...

as Pam * Scott Rose-Marsh as Jerome * Alexander Eliot as Phil Fulton

Episodes

Production

Development

Series creator Seabright co-wrote the series with Kayleigh Llewellyn, Poppy Cogan,

Bolu Babalola Bolu Babalola (born 24 February 1991) is a British author, screenwriter, and journalist. Her debut anthology ''Love in Colour'' was published in 2020 and became a '' Sunday Times'' Bestseller. She appeared on the 2021 Forbes 30 under 30 list for ...

and Sam Baron. It is produced by Joanna Crow and executive produced by Tally Garner and Morven Reid at Mam Tor Productions, and Ben Irving at the BBC. The series was first announced by the BBC in February 2020. On April 20, 2021, Amazon Studios announced that it would co-produce the series.

Cast

The cast was announced in April 2021, with

, and

set to star. Seabright has said they had Doherty in mind for the lead role at a very early stage.

Filming

Principal photography took place on location in

Burnham-on-Sea Burnham-on-Sea is a seaside town in Somerset, England, at the mouth of the River Parrett, upon Bridgwater Bay. Burnham was a small fishing village until the late 18th century when it began to grow because of its popularity as a seaside resort. ...

Brean Down Brean Down is a promontory off the coast of Somerset, England, standing high and extending into the Bristol Channel at the eastern end of Bridgwater Bay between Weston-super-Mare and Burnham-on-Sea. Made of Carboniferous Limestone, it is a c ...

and

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

The Bottle Yard Studios The Bottle Yard Studios is a British film and television production studio facility in Bristol, South West England. It is the largest dedicated production space in the West of England. History The studios are located on Whitchurch Lane, approxima ...

. The work of local artists is featured in ''Chloe''.

Music

The score is composed by

Will Gregory William Owen Gregory (born 17 September 1959) is an English musician and record producer. He is best known as the lead keyboardist, producer, and composer of the electronic music duo Goldfrapp. Early life Gregory was born in Bristol, the son ...

of the music duo

Goldfrapp Goldfrapp are an English electronic music duo from London, formed in 1999. The duo consists of Alison Goldfrapp (vocals, synthesiser) and Will Gregory (synthesiser). Despite favourable reviews and a short-listing for the Mercury Prize, their ...

, featuring his musical partner

Alison Goldfrapp Alison Elizabeth Margaret Goldfrapp (born 13 May 1966) is an English musician and record producer, known as the vocalist of English electronic music duo Goldfrapp. Early life Goldfrapp was born on 13 May 1966, in Enfield, London, the youngest o ...

, and

Adrian Utley Adrian Francis Utley (born 27 April 1957) is an English musician and producer, and a member of the band Portishead.Jurek, ThomAdrian Utley Biography, Allmusic. Retrieved 31 December 2016 Career Born in Northampton,Mejia, Paula (2015)In Search ...

of Bristol band Portishead.

Broadcast

The BBC released a trailer for the series in January 2022, announcing its 6 February 2022

and

BBC iPlayer BBC iPlayer (stylised as iPLAYER or BBC iPLAYER) is a video on demand service from the BBC. The service is available on a wide range of devices, including mobile phones and tablets, personal computers and smart televisions. iPlayer services del ...

airdate. The series will be released on Amazon Prime internationally.

Reception

On the

review aggregation A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the series holds a "Certified Fresh" approval rating of 94% with an average rating of 7.8 out of 10, based on 31 reviews. The website's critical consensus said, "''Chloe'' can sometimes strain credulity, but Erin Doherty's excellent performance brings a human touch to this technological thriller." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which uses a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

, the series received a score of 86 out of 100, based on 13 critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".

Lucy Mangan Lucy Katherine Mangan''England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1916–2007'' (born 1974) is a British journalist and author. She is a columnist, features writer and TV critic for ''The Guardian''. A major part of her writing is related t ...

of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' wrote, "There is not one false note in this fierce, fresh murder mystery... It's an absolute feast of a show," adding, "It is a fierce, fresh sort-of-murder-mystery that is as keenly scripted as it is paced, and whose many threads are held firmly together by an outstanding performance from Erin Doherty." Sabrina Barr of ''

Metro Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to: Geography * Metro (city), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urba ...

'' wrote that the series "highlights the unhealthy obsession that many of us can have both on social media and on comparing our lives to others."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Chloe (Tv Series) 2022 British television series debuts 2022 British television series endings 2020s British drama television series 2020s British television miniseries BBC Television shows British thriller television series Amazon Prime Video original programming English-language television shows Television shows shot in Bristol Television series about social media Television series by Banijay Television series by Amazon Studios