The reasons to watch and to question The Girl from Plainville, an eight-part Hulu mini-series based on the infamous “texting suicide” case from mid-2010s Massachusetts, are both contained in the final scene of the first episode. The camera hovers behind Michelle Carter, played mesmerizingly by Elle Fanning, who stares at herself in the mirror, face distorted by grief. It’s summer 2014, a few weeks after Conrad “Coco” Roy III (Colton Ryan), with whom Carter had a years-long text-based relationship, killed himself via carbon monoxide poisoning in a K-mart parking lot. Michelle appears to be practicing a speech for his memorial. “I loved him, and he loved me, and he loved all of you guys. I know he did,” she says through tears.
But then the tears abruptly stop. Michelle turns around to her laptop to restart a scene from Glee in which Rachel Berry, played by Lea Michele, sings a tribute to Finn Hudson, the character played by Michele’s on and off-screen boyfriend, Cory Monteith, who died of an accidental overdose in 2013. Michelle’s heartfelt words are actually, we realize, merely heartfelt mimicry; her monologue is lifted near-verbatim from Glee. Michelle follows Lea Michele’s monologue to the end of the scene, singing To Make You Feel My Love with operatic gestures, voice raw.
