A Gripping New Thriller On BBC One And Amazon Prime Video

Chloe is a new British psychological thriller, now available to stream on BBC One in the U.K. since February 6, and will be released later this year on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S. The six-part limited series is an absorbing mysterious tale of friendship and loss, with subtle echoes of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca and the Netflix series You.

Chloe follows Becky Green (played by Erin Doherty), a young woman living in Bristol, U.K., who works as a temp while residing at her mother’s. Becky struggles with her mother’s early-onset dementia, and suffers herself from low self-esteem and paranoia. She does not have much of a social life, and no real friends. She spends her spare time on Instagram, or conning her way into social events using someone else’s identity. Her way of living is turned upside down the day she discovers that Chloe Fairbourne (played by Poppy Gilbert), whom she follows on Instagram, has suddenly died.

What is Becky’s connection to Chloe is not at first too clear. This is a series that slowly peels away its layers, leaving you guessing, until its final episode finally unravels everything. It is a tightly woven thriller, created and co-written by Alice Seabright, that is both dark and full of wit and humor. Chloe feels like a great modernized version of Du Maurier’s Rebecca, tackling contemporary issues along the way.

Becky decides to investigate in her own way the reasons that led Chloe Fairbourne to die. Using Instagram to determine who were Chloe’ group of friends and where she might encounter them, she introduces herself as Sasha Miles to one of Chloe’s friends, Livia Fulton (played by Pippa Bennett-Warner). Becky surreptitiously immerses herself in the tight-knit group—that includes Chloe’s husband Elliot (Billy Howle), Livia’s husband Phil (Alexander Eliot), Anish (Akshay Khanna) and Richard (Jack Farthing)—, and begins her own kind of detective work posing as someone else.

The beginning of Chloe feels very similar to the Netflix series You. Becky stalks Chloe’s group of friends using social media and uses a false identity to introduce herself into their social group. But before Becky turns into a full-on stalking murderer like in Netflix’s series You, the story shifts, echoing Du Maurier’s Rebecca, especially in the episodes where Becky moves in with Chloe’s husband. Chloe becomes this absent figure, much like Rebecca in Du Maurier’s novel, an unattainable ideal for the protagonist who appears to view her as the perfect woman with impeccable taste and social standing. Unlike Rebecca, however, Chloe adds another layer to the story. Chloe will turn out to be much more to Becky than the series initially let on.

What is most remarkable about this series is the way it only reveals pieces of the puzzle one at a time. It is only by the end that the viewer will truly get a sense of what Becky was trying to do. This is a story with so many layers The character of Becky also turns out to be more than what we might have assumed upon meeting her in the first episode. As she takes on another identity as Sasha Miles, wearing extravagant designer clothes, Becky blossoms and grows in confidence. It allows her to discover the true life of Chloe Fairbourne, hiding behind the veneer of Instagram images. This is not a story about a social media stalker. Chloe is a story of loss, of losing someone twice in one’s life. This is where the limited series becomes so poignant.

Erin Doherty, who earned acclaim through her portrayal of Princess Anne in Netflix’s The Crown, delivers an incredible layered performance as Becky, a socially awkward young woman who gains in confidence when assuming another identity. Chloe is a coproduction between BBC One, Mam Tor Productions and Amazon Studios.