One of the most chilling scenes in Adolescence was never meant to happen.

If you've been anywhere near Netflix lately, chances are you've either watched or heard someone raving about Adolescence. The four-part crime drama starring Stephen Graham is all anyone has been talking about.

And it's no wonder we're all completely hooked — each episode is filmed in one unflinching and continuous shot. Yes, you read that correctly. ONE. CONTINUOUS. SHOT.

The series follows the heartbreaking story of a family whose world is turned upside down when 13-year-old Jamie Miller (played by Owen Cooper) is arrested for the murder of a teenage girl from his school. The gripping drama unfolds in real time as we watch the family and detectives search for answers.

But honestly, the show has left us all with some burning questions. Here's a rundown of every question (and answer) you might have about Adolescence.

Watch the trailer for Adolescence. Article continues after video.

How was Adolescence filmed?

By now, you would have heard that each episode of Adolescence was filmed in one shot. How did they manage to do this? Well, Director Philip Barantini explained that the key was planning and preparation across the board.

"Basically, we press record on the camera, and we don't press stop until the very end of the hour. But it's much more complicated than it sounds," Barantini told Netflix.

"It takes months of preparation and weeks of rehearsals and an incredible team of people to pull it off at every stage, from the script to the locations to the production design to where exactly the camera is going to be able to shoot and from what angle."

Image: Netflix.

Initially, the plan was to shoot every episode 10 times, but in the end, it ended up being more in some cases.

"It was initially planned that they would film each episode in full 10 times (once in the morning, once in the afternoon, across five days) — but in reality, a few attempts had to be abandoned and restarted, so some episodes had many more than 10 takes," Netflix UK wrote on X.

Was there any ad-libbing?

Despite the tight planning and rigorous filming process to capture every episode in one shot, there were a few instances of ad-libs throughout the show.

Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the final scene, where Stephen Graham's character Eddie tucks in his son Jamie's teddy bear — a moment that wasn't originally scripted, but emerged during filming.

"We rehearsed it, and it was great… but I just felt like there's something about him tucking in Jamie's teddy," the director explained. "This is the only thing that Eddie's got that he can touch — that's malleable, that Jamie's cuddled, and Jamie's been with. And then Stephen made it his own."

Another instance of improvisation that turned out to be arguably one of the most chilling moments in the entire show was done by the young actor who played Jamie.

In the scene where Jamie is talking to child psychologist Emma (played by Erin Doherty), he does a yawn while Emma is speaking, to which Emma responds, "Am I boring you?". Jamie then subtly smiles.

That smile revealed everything that made Jamie so deeply disturbing — impossible to interpret, with just enough twisted self-assurance to leave you guessing whether you were witnessing a killer's satisfaction or merely the defence mechanism of a scared child.

Image: Netflix.

During his guest appearance on The One Show, Cooper revealed that a moment of fatigue unexpectedly inspired an unplanned line delivered by Doherty's character.

"In episode three, it was the second take of the day — we do two takes a day," he explained. "I was tired, so a yawn came to me. Then Erin did an amazing line; she said, 'Am I boring you?'

"That took me back and made me smile because it wasn't in the script. I wasn't expecting that at all, but it was amazing."

The spontaneous moment between Cooper and Doherty surprised even the show's director.

"Owen didn't do that in any of the other takes," Barantini told Tudum. "I didn't tell him to do that. That was the very last take."

Who sings the song at the end of Episode 2?

If you've already binged your way through Adolescence, there's a devastatingly beautiful detail in episode two that might have slipped past you.

In the episode's final moments, as Eddie stands at the scene of Katie's murder to leave flowers, the soundtrack shifts to something truly special. A hauntingly beautiful rendition of Sting's 1987 classic 'Fragile' begins to play, but it's not just any cover.

The director made an incredibly poignant choice, featuring both a choir and — in a gut-wrenching twist — the voice of Emilia Holliday, the actress who portrays Katie herself.

"There's a beautiful song at the end and Phil had this wonderful idea from the very beginning. He said what he wanted to do was have a choir and the voice of young kids singing this particular song that he had in his head from the get-go, actually," Stephen Graham said in a post shared to Instagram by Netflix.

"The beautiful process of it is, is that we used the choir from the actual school, and the kids from that area. The girl singing this is the girl who played the girl that got killed."

Barantini also told Tudum: "The voice in the score is Katie's voice. Katie is a part of the whole series. Her presence is always there."

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How did they film the drone shot at the end of Episode 2?

That stunning drone sequence at the end of Adolescence episode 2 was achieved through an impressively technical hand-off. As explained by Netflix in a Q&A on X, a team was waiting to attach the camera to a drone which then flew to the murder scene.

"The DOP carries the camera and follows a school pupil to the traffic lights with a wide shot as she goes at the end of the school day. Before she crosses the road, a team attach the camera to a drone, which then flies a distance of 0.3 miles across the site to the murder scene, where it comes down to a camera operator and team of grips who smoothly catch the camera and transition into a close shot of Stephen Graham. Easy," Netflix UK shared on X.

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how the drone shot from ep 2 of #Adolescence was filmed 👀

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Did they actually ram down the door during the opening police raid in Episode 1?

That police raid sequence in Episode 1 of Adolescence was every bit as authentic as it looked on screen. Production actually did ram down the door during the scene, and proceeded to ram through 12 doors altogether.

"They sure did, and they rammed through 12 doors in total! Then, they had a PVC door specialist on set to fit a new door each time. What a job that is," Netflix UK wrote on X.

Did Stephen throw paint on the van for every take in Episode 4? If so, how did they get it off?

One of the most emotionally charged moments in Episode 4 of Adolescence comes when Eddie, in a fit of rage, hurls paint across a van. The raw, unfiltered emotion in this scene perfectly captures the character's spiralling mental state, but it also presented a unique challenge for the production team committed to their one-shot filming approach.

Image: Netflix.

Since each episode required multiple takes to perfect, the production team had to find a way to quickly reset after each paint-throwing scene.

"They created a special paint that was the same consistency and would stick to the van, but that could be jet washed off after each take," Netflix UK shared on X.

Feature Image: Netflix.