Baby Reindeer's most shocking things you'll have missed – from Martha's creepy email address to a scene that changes the story
Baby Reindeer has been a huge success for Netflix, with the seven-part series, based on the experiences of comedian and writer Richard Gadd, becoming one of the most talked about of the year. Even if you haven’t watched it, it’s likely you will know the general gist of the show: a stand-up comedian named Donny (Richard Gadd) finds himself being stalked by a woman named Martha (Jessica Gunning) who comes into the pub where he works.
The series follows their tumultuous relationship, as Martha bombards Donny with emails and messages and he also tries to cope with the aftermath of a sexual assault. There are shocking scenes throughout Baby Reindeer that everyone who has seen it will remember, but there are also some moments you may just have missed:
The cursed numbers
Throughout the series, we are shown Martha’s messages and emails on a black screen. Eagle-eyed viewers have noticed there is something familiar about her email address – ma4815162342@yahoo.com – even though it seems like a random collection of letters and numbers. The ‘ma’ at the start could, of course, refer to the first two letters of Martha’s name, but it is the numbers that are interesting, as they are the same as the ‘cursed’ numbers from cult TV series Lost.
In that show, the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 frequently recurred during the story of a group of plane passengers who survive a crash and end up stranded on a deserted island, with them eventually revealed to correspond to six of the survivors as well as being the lottery numbers that fan favourite character Hugo decided were cursed. Jacob Stolworthy, host of The LOST Boys podcast, was one of the first to notice the use of the numbers, commenting on X: "Baby Reindeer: the 'random series of numbers like spam' used in the stalker's email address are, in fact, the cursed numbers from LOST."
The location with links to one of the cast
One of the locations in the series is a real life one, The Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London, where Donny’s new girlfriend, a trans woman named Teri (played by Nava Mau) takes him on a date. The LGBTQ+ venue appeared in acclaimed movie All of Us Strangers, with Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott, and it also was used in the 2014 movie Pride, in which Baby Reindeer’s own Jessica Gunning appeared, alongside Bill Nighy, Dominic West, Joe Gilgun and Imelda Staunton.
The missing scene that changes the story
In an interview with GQ, actress Nava Mau revealed that there is a scene that was filmed but not used in the series that changes how her character Teri’s relationship with Donny ends. The pair split up following Martha’s attempts to target Teri, who she views as a rival, and it is an abrupt break up that left fans hoping the pair would reconnect.
Nava said: “There actually was one more piece of Teri and Donny's relationship in the script, and I performed it. Teri leaves Donny a voicemail five months later. So I think, for me, I got closure because Teri did too. That's what gave me so much comfort, knowing that they found peace with regards to their relationship. Teri got her happy ending, you know? Teri found a new man, she didn't lose her friends, she didn't lose her job, she didn't lose her smile. She's good. And I think that is remarkable, because so often we've seen stories of trans people that end with them broken.”
The mis-spellings that have a hidden meaning
Throughout the show, as has been noted, Martha’s messages and emails appear on the screen. There’s one little detail about them that give a hint of what is to come in the drama, and it is the words, “Sent from my iPhone” that appear alongside them, a phrase people often used to add to their messages to excuse spelling mistakes and more curt messages than you would expect from an email written on a laptop, for example.
Donny notes that Martha doesn’t actually have an iPhone, and it’s a little clue to her state of mind that she is typing out those words every time - maybe thinking having one of the Apple phones is a status symbol. Later on, it also indicates her unravelling mental health as she starts to slip when she types the words, making a lowercase mistake in the second episode (“ s ent from my iPhone”) before resorting to more erratic spellings as the series progresses – “sent from my ihpon” and even just “iphoen.” It’s a simple but effective way of portraying her mental battles onscreen, for everyone to see.
