Netflix's new miniseries "Baby Reindeer" is a must-see, but viewers who are going to watch it blindly might appreciate a word of warning. Created by and starring Richard Gadd, the seven-episode series is a fictionalized account of a difficult time in the life of a Scottish comedian named Donnie Dunne. One day, he buys a tea for a weeping woman named Martha who comes into the pub where Donny works. Martha becomes obsessed with Donny and continues to stalk and threaten him and his loved ones.

As "Baby Reindeer" progresses, we learn more about Donnie and how a period of traumatic abuse affected every aspect of his life, from his fledgling comedy career to his relationship with a trans therapist named Teri, whom he tries to keep secret. the impact it has had on his life. By the final episode, Donnie has lost almost everything to Martha's threats, but in a cathartic standup set piece, he finally tells the truth about everything he has done, opening a new path toward a resolution to the story.

Despite ending at what may have been Donny's low point in episode 6, the final episode of "Baby Reindeer" finds the aspiring comedian's career on the upswing. It turns out that an audience member was filming the set, and Donny goes viral and quickly becomes a household name, with supporters sharing his work and big comedy spots welcoming him with open arms.

At one point, he narrates, "My life was like 30 years from now, and all I needed to do to achieve that was to be honest with myself."

This coincides with a lull in the flood of emails from Martha, so much so that Donnie forgets she is there. In the biggest moment of his professional career, as she slips from Donnie's mind, he makes a terrible mistake: he sets up an auto-reply to a rapidly filling email and includes a phone number for an urgent matter.

Later, as Donnie walks down the street in the sun haze that symbolizes his happy mood, he receives a phone call from Martha, and Donnie's smile instantly falls.

Martha asks Donnie if his parents have seen the video and if she should let them know his secret. Donnie immediately goes to Scotland and has an emotional talk with his parents, where he tells them all about what happened with Martha, Teri, and Darien. He admits that he didn't want to talk about it because he didn't want his parents to think less of him "as a man." His father replies, "Do you think less of me as a man?" and simply adds that he was raised in the Catholic Church. (Once again, "Baby Reindeer" demonstrates a deftness of restraint and leaves the untold truth untold.) After a few days of bonding with his supportive parents and turning off his cell phone, Donnie seemed ready to return to his life without fear.

While Martha continues to spam his voicemail, Donnie shows how much progress he has made by not getting involved. But he also knows that he can't just wait for her to go away. The police are useless. Martha literally calls him when he is talking to the front desk clerk, but the cop says he cannot act because she is calling from an unknown number. Instead, the cop suggests that Donnie come back when Martha says something actionable (read: threatening) on one of the voicemails.

"Over the next few months, Martha's voicemail became the podcast of my life," Donnie says, beginning a sequence in which her voice constantly plays in the background while he walks through life with headphones on. With hundreds of hours of recordings as evidence, he sets his career back on track. (Donnie's empathy for Martha reappears as he tries to understand why she thinks the way she does, an impossible task. After a cycle, their relationship returns to functioning as a distraction, with Martha as the source of recognition, especially since his ex has found someone new. At one point, he even "fights with all his might" not to call Martha back.

Some emails included threats, but Donnie would refrain from reporting back to Martha. I just want to keep her in my life, no matter what excuses I have." Still, Martha always goes too far, and eventually she threatens his family again in a truly horrific tirade that concludes with "I might stab someone someday." She is arrested the day after that voicemail and sentenced to nine months in prison and a five-year restraining order after pleading guilty to 18 months of harassing and stalking Donnie. Her guilty plea is the last time Donnie sees her, and when he returns home, he begins writing a witness statement, typing the same lines he heard at the beginning of the series. He says, "I felt sorry for her; I felt sorry for her. That was my first feeling."

In the weeks following Martha's sentencing, Donnie was a wreck. The next time I saw him was when his ex-girlfriend Keely checked on him and saw that he had turned his bedroom wall into a clean version of a conspiracy theory meme and was still trying to figure Martha out. He had spent a long time sorting her voicemails by emotion - anger, sadness, happiness, depression, horniness, and longing were some of the things he could see in the close-ups on his laptop. He also said he gave up comedy because "there's nothing like getting everything you want in life and realizing it's not for you."

In a sweet moment, Keely throws him a lifeline: she offers to pay his rent on the dreaded party apartment so he can return to his mother's house where he was comfortable. Martha's ghost can still be felt in his old room, but he finds another surprise there. It is a copy of his "Hangman Harry" script with a note of praise from his assailant Darien.

Donnie returns to Darien's apartment, but there is no great explosion or moment of triumph as the groomer meets some sort of justice. Instead, the two enter into an amicable pattern of sipping tea and Donnie entertaining Darien with stories of his flatmate's parties. The only mention of past abuse is Darien's admission that he saw the viral video. He says he was "really brave" and denies his role in Donnie's wounds with his insidious gaslighting. He offers Donnie another job and says, "It's not like last time." Outside his apartment, he has a panic attack. It is a deeply affecting scene, portrayed in a very realistic way. Rarely do victims of abuse receive a proper apology from their abusers.

Donnie collapses outside Darien's apartment and comes up for air, retrieving Martha's voice mail under a file folder called "Complimentary." He hears her crying and walking around town, admiring his jawline and charm, and eventually walks into a bar and orders a vodka and a Coke. He pulls out one of the Not Listened To recordings, which is filled with insightful recollections of her childhood and baby reindeer.

Martha's earliest memories of her childhood were as a child, sitting happily at Christmas with her favorite toy that never left her side. It was "the only good thing about my childhood," she said, and "they" comforted her when she was constantly fighting. Martha added that Donnie looked just like that reindeer and that both the reindeer and Donnie were very important to her. When the voicemail ended, Donnie broke down crying and the bartender brought him a drink. However, Donnie left his wallet at home, and the bartender buys him a drink. It's the same kindness Donnie did for Martha all those years ago, but that's the end of it. The screen cuts to black as Donnie's eyes widen and he realizes that he is now in Martha's shoes. (There is also an ending card on Netflix's mental health information website: wannatalkaboutit.com.)

Even before the abuse Danny suffered was revealed in episode 4, it was clear that Danny and Martha were more different than similar. One of the themes that "Baby Reindeer" brilliantly weaves together is a sympathy for Martha that is not usually shown by stalkers, at least in a series told through the stalked's point of view. It's one of those truths of life that is often never realized or pushed to the back of the mind: anyone can escape the kind of pain that Martha and Donnie both had, after a couple of life-altering incidents.

Another point that this wonderful Netflix series always points out is that this kind of pain doesn't go away with an easy ending. We are left with Donny in an ambiguous place because the neat finality is not real. Donny's end in the bar is an ending that honors both the characters and the messy real-life circumstances of this fictionalized true story.