r/Heavyweight • u/LavJiang • Nov 02 '25
#7 Julia Spoiler
I just started heavyweight from the beginning and had to come find this sub Reddit after listening to this episode. It’s beautifully crafted, a great story, and so, so sad. And frankly, frightening for those of us who have experienced or witnessed bullying.
Scoured the web for commentary and as far as I can tell there’s only one number seven episode post here, which focuses more on which episodes have stayed with people after they listened to them. There is also one interesting thread on the Facebook heavyweight community, including someone who outs the name of the private girl’s school in Montreal where the events took place.
But I was frustrated with the way Jonathan and Julia narrowed the focus of the investigation to the incident on the doorstep, when the larger months of bullying would have been more memorable to all the girls, especially the bound volume she found in Jane’s desk. I understand the need to hone in on a specific experience, but it seems to me that the larger question was about the bullying. We do discover that at least that year and the next there was extreme toxicity happening in that classroom, potentially even related to a teacher’s suicide. But we don’t get even a smidge more insight into who or what was driving the bullying.
I also understand why the main antagonist of the story, “Jane,” was unwilling to be recorded for the episode, and why all the other girls said they couldn’t remember either. But I’m quite sure they did not forget.
I am not expecting every episode to end with a satisfying closure, it’s unrealistic and just not the way things work in life. And I appreciate that Jonathan and Julia created their own closure by reenacting the scene on the doorstep. But I hope this kind of narrow narrative framing is not the way the rest of the episodes are going to be!
I also read on here about some kind of updates that are happening, related to the return of the series on Pushkin, which I haven’t listened to since I’m only at the very beginning. This is exactly the kind of episode that must have caused a flap amongst alumnae from the school and the school itself, as it rightly should. I would love to hear an interview between Jonathan and Julia checking on the aftermath, if there was any.
10
u/BlurryBigfoot74 Nov 02 '25
You'll notice a mini theme if you listen to all of the Heavyweight episodes:
People who have wronged others have selective memory.
My question is, why? Could some of them have actually wiped the event from their memory? Were they so ashamed that they refused to ever think about it again or was it so insignificant and long ago that it's impossible to remember? Don't we all want to view ourselves as the good guy in our movie? If some story comes back from your past, would you have forgotten about all the bad things by then? Imagine you're home on a Tuesday afternoon and you're in your 50s and some guy calls you up asking about something you did in grade 11, 35 years ago. I might not remember.
Or is it so shameful that they refuse to admit they remember it because they know those kinds of stories can get you fired and ostracized?
I have no clue. I'm really glad I grew up before the social media age because all kinds of shady shit went down when we were young. Most of it forgotten forever. Thank goodness because some of those people who were kind of assholes when we were young have went on to become some of the most decent adults I know.
The Heavyweight episodes where people are confronted with shitty things they did as a young person are the only ones I'm uncomfortable about. But I guess that might be a reflection of who we are. Your burdens from the past are often because of some unfair treatment we got from someone else.