Maybe She Was the Crazy Girlfriend,
but She Was Right
If you know you are crazy, are you still crazy? If you are self-aware enough to notice the difference in your treatment within society if you go up Ladder A or down Ladder B—are you crazy? Or are you simply aware of how the world will label you the moment you behave outside its expectations? I want to preface by explaining there will be slight spoilers, and if you retain one thing from this analysis, let it be this: if you loved the show’s ending (which you should), don’t read the book. If you hated the show’s ending, read the book! The Girlfriend by Michelle Frances is a psychological thriller novel following a young 27-year-old man named Daniel, his incessant “boy mom” Laura, and his new girlfriend Cherry. While the novel provides insight into the actual retelling of events, the show provides perceptions that amounts to four different characters: Cherry, Cherry from Laura’s point of view, Laura, and Laura from Cherry’s point of view. Combined with a man who avoids conflict and confrontation like the plague, the underlying question is constantly being asked. Who is actually crazy here? Cherry knows how the class system works, knows the image she needs to project, and is willing to act accordingly to rewrite the narrative she was born into. And that—her refusal to remain where she was placed—is what makes her a threat.
Cherry was born into a low-class life that she had been tired of from the first second she experienced it. Her father had vanished fresh after Cherry was brought into the world, leaving only the trace of detrimental debt behind for Cherry and her mother to deal with. Tired of her life of scraps, mixed with the dreadful fear of becoming like her mother—a sweet woman who has put 23 years into the same supermarket with little to no promotions, all to support her daughter—Cherry sought any means of escape. She is quite calculated, strategic, and charming enough to be confused with a siren. She holds a candle to Amy Dunne from Gone Girl in their intelligence levels—both from opposite ends of the wealth spectrum, both utilized every tool at their disposal. For Cherry, this was the internet. She got drunk on TED Talks and The Guardian articles enough to learn what the ideal resume and CV would look like—enough to land her a job at a high-class real estate agency that tends to only hire those with well-known surnames. Doing her best to climb the economic ladder, in walked Daniel.
Daniel is an aspiring doctor who comes from a rather wealthy family, rich in both money and veiled tension. His mother Laura is a mother through and through, who suffered the loss of her daughter Rose, when she was 11 months old, prior to Daniel. With the immense loss of a child so soon after birth, came the shattered marriage between Laura and her husband Howard. While Howard soon sought the arms of another woman after the death of Rose, Laura found comfort, solace, and fixation in her newborn son Daniel. Following his birth, Laura had vowed to always protect him—a vow that stemmed from the pain and fear of losing another child. This protection, however, has a habit of breeding fixation and possessiveness that is hard to shake. Laura was present in every single day of Daniel’s life so much that it shocked her to hear that Daniel was looking for his own apartment after 27 years of living with his mother. When that new apartment came with a new real estate agent for a girlfriend, Laura began to spiral a bit as she was pestering Daniel to introduce the two, not even a week into their relationship. At first, when the two met, she did seem to try to bond with Cherry, however Cherry had been far too nervous and anxious to keep her upbringing hidden from the wealthy family—so she resorted to clipped, one-word responses to questions and white lies. To them, she went to a private school, not public. She previously worked in hotel management, not as a pub waitress. She had a retired architect for a father, not a phantom ghost for one. This tactic stemmed from a previous relationship with a wealthy man named Nicholas who she was always honest with when it came to her class-level and lifestyle, and it bit her in the ass when he had broken up with her for that sole reason. Determined not to repeat prior mistakes, she kept her past hidden and did her best to keep all perceptions of her higher than the truth. An understandable strategy, however one that—to Laura—somehow warranted some snooping into Cherry’s past, profession, and personal property. Thus snowballing into thinly veiled distrusts and blatant, horrific lies from both sides (mostly Laura though). While both women act in ways neither could comprehend, there are methods behind the madness.
Class-level and status is a perpetual issue long lived since the dark ages. While it might be much easier to hide nowadays, it lives as an underlying stain in Cherry’s life that she does her absolute best to keep unseen. In Laura’s searches and seizures of Cherry’s things and past, she learns of this status and deems Cherry a social climber and gold-digger. The only concrete evidence to back such a claim is the internal monologue from Cherry—visible to no one outside of herself. Her low-class status has followed her like a shadow every day of her life and she has sought any means to change it. Little lies are told throughout her relationship with Daniel, as well as the constant avoidance of her mother in order to keep her past buried. Her attempts to better herself are survival tactics, not direct manipulation—her behavior is strategic, reactive, and rooted in desperation. It is only when others threaten to rip away the future she envisions for herself that she retaliates in the only power she has. After a white water rafting incident—Daniel is taken to the hospital and falls into a coma that lasts almost a year. In the final moments deemed by the doctors to be his final hours, Laura decides she wants his final moments to be his and hers alone, sans Howard nor Cherry. In order to achieve this, she tells Cherry that Daniel had passed away days before. Quite the horrific lie, that only intensifies once Daniel has a miraculous recovery and Laura decides to not rectify her told falsehoods.
Instead, his recovery is followed by an onslaught of even more horrifying lies and great lengths to keep Cherry and Daniel apart. Prior to his “death,” Cherry’s choices were not rooted in delusion—rather they were rooted in precision. She knows what kind of woman the world rewards, and what kind it ridicules. Her “crazy” is simply calculated strategy misread by those who never had to strategize to survive. It is in her mourning that Cherry realizes her true feelings for Daniel and the deep love she held for him. With only his memory to hold now, she understood he was more than a first-class ticket out of her burdened lifestyle and as a man she could spend the rest of her life with. She had been told next to nothing regarding Daniels remains, only that a funeral was held and she wasn’t invited to it. It takes her losing her job (at the hands of Laura), her flat, and her self-confidence before she hits rock bottom and yearns for closure. Hoping to say goodbye to Daniel’s resting place, she calls Laura to find out where that is, to no avail. Through several hoops and at least three bribes to hospital staff, she learns Daniel is still alive. This realization fuels her like nothing else could. She realizes how quick and easy it was for Laura to try to rip away everything Cherry ever wanted, and for what? Dislike? Disdain for the lower class? Unhappiness at the thought of Daniel needing another woman? "[Laura] had taken away everything Cherry had worked for, cherished, and aspired to. In one cruel, megalomaniacal swipe. Had Laura been laughing at her all this time? Talking about the poor little Croydon girl who'd got ideas above her station?" (Frances 209). Laura made several deliberate decisions in attempt to rid Cherry in Daniel’s life completely—and so Cherry vowed to return the favor. In her retaliation for Laura we are met with Cherry’s “unhinged” side. However, Cherry harbors what most unhinged don’t: self-awareness. She knows her level of intellect and strategy exceeds most imaginations to minds morally sound. Cherry’s self-awareness isn’t what makes her unstable—it's what makes her threatening. Readers expect the “unhinged” woman to be loud, erratic, and visibly spiraling. But Cherry is the antithesis of this—she is quiet, calculated, and charming. She does not deny her ambition but rather maps it in a way to succeed on all fronts. She becomes reactive only when pushed and even then she is aware of the consequences. This sharp, strategic, portrayal clashes with what readers have been taught to look for in a “crazy” character. Because we (both as readers and members of society) are conditioned to distrust self-aware women who go after their desires, Cherry’s calm control feels almost “off.” In this way, Cherry subverts the entire predetermined trope, both by Laura and the reader—she's not the unhinged girlfriend. She is the aware one, and that might be more dangerous; dangerous to those who prefer to function when women stay small.
Laura’s fear of Cherry isn’t just rooted in classism or distrust—it's also rooted in replacement. As a “boy mom,” her identity it so tightly bound to Daniel that the thought of another woman in his life—especially one who might be smarter, younger, and more ambitious—feels like an existential threat. Even if it weren’t Cherry, Laura would have found a flaw in every partner Daniel ever brought home. However, these attachment issues do not stem from nowhere. Laura’s grip on Daniel is shaped by grief, by the gaping absence of her daughter Rose. When Rose died, so did Laura’s role as the mother of a daughter. Though tragic, it is understandable as to why Laura might want to be the only woman he’d ever truly need. However, Cherry is not just another girlfriend. She is a sharp siren with plots unfathomable to an average person when crossed. She is strategic enough to escape blame, soft enough to charm, and determined enough to stay. She sees Laura’s protectiveness for what is has become—possessiveness. One can understand the maternal urge to protect her child, however in becoming so wrapped in Daniel, she has yet to notice she has lost herself. Throughout the novel, Laura is shown as a TV producer who has had a rough time pitching stories as of late and has had next to zero inspiration for coming up with new ones. Her life revolves around her children, both dead and alive, thus placing an insurmountable level of pressure and tension within the family and this dehumanizes her. "This wasn't how she'd foreseen her life: marriage a sham...and her only child estranged from her. She was suddenly hit with such a severe slice of loneliness she was winded." (Frances 239).
The show adaptation twists the plot in ways the book does not. The Girlfriend on Prime provides layered portrayals of the two women, thus providing a total of four characters: the real Cherry, Cherry perceived by Laura, the real Laura, and Laura perceived by Cherry. This decision to fracture both women into layered portrayals emphasizes the heart of the story: how sanity is never fixed—it's always shaped by who's doing the watching. Cherry is no more unstable than Laura, she is just seen through a less generous lens. An internal monologue is always a gift throughout a novel that grants us insight into the mind of the character. Combining Cherry’s insight throughout the novel with the performative complexity in the adaptation, provides the whole picture that is Cherry Laine—sanity is a performance, and she gave the best one. Cherry meticulously took preimptive mental debates on which actions would result in which outcomes, each more inclined to win the favor of whichever audience she wanted. Cherry’s foresight, her ability to think three steps ahead appears “insane” to those who have never had to plan that far to gain favor. In the end, Cherry wasn’t insane—she was just smarter than anyone was ready for. And for women like her, that’s the most dangerous thing you can be.