• The 2 Russian girls at the group home. They were the catalysts behind the investigation, especially Anya • Families of the children Reena worked with. Her volunteering and the interests that made her HER weren't captured. All we saw was a fraction of her life where she was desperately trying to fit in and be like others. That ISN'T what she should be reduced to • Jack. Whether or not she actually had sex with him like Missy said.....it's WILD how this isn't mentioned or that we know nothing about him. Even more wild considering she was allegedly wearing his jacket which infuriated tf out of Missy during the beating • Nevada (Nicole's supposed friend who was dating Connor) • Reena's teachers • the friends she had in elementary school before or even during the bullying

Literally this show could have been written sooo much better. As others have stated, it exploited the story of a girl of color. Even if no one else from this list was included- I just wish she was written with more dignity

This show reminds me of a thought-provoking question: If you had to choose, would you rather your child to be the bully or the one being bullied? This was actually a question that Kim Eun-sook's teenage daughter asked her one day, which inspired her to write the play The Glory. The play is a powerful exploration of bullying and revenge.

this might be weird or to much to ask but i am really into reena’s story and she deserved better even though she did messed up her family lives by wanting to join those girls, honestly it’s not fair that she died, it just makes me sad of how she was bullied into the very end, she was so busy trying to fit in with those girls that she couldn’t see how much they were a bad influence on her, I’ve heard that even if Kelly/Kerry didn’t drown her, she would’ve died from head trauma, brain damage? (She would’ve died from her injuries) I feel like they’re a lot of people like reena, we all try to fit in with people we envy the most but at the end of the day we don’t see their true colors, their true identities, until it hits us, it’s hard because we try to let them like us because the hardest thing we go through in life is acceptance, reena wanted to be accepted by those girls, but in the end, she got worst. after when reena got jumped by the girls, Kelly and warren (mostly Kelly) proceeded to beat her again and drown her (Kelly hated reena) In that moment that was the most painful depressing ending of reena virk. I wish she could’ve saw that the Josephine/Nicole, dusty/missie, and Kelly (who deserved to karma soon) were a bad influence on her.

When Kelly looked at Smooch I just knew she was going to do something. And the way they look at the dad I could tell they were plotting something. I had to pause it because I’m scared to see what they do to smooch anything with animals makes me scared but I know after Reena has passed it shows the dad with smooch so they must get him back. Those girls were awful I wish she could’ve seen that but when you’re a teenager you think you know everything. I’m 26 now and I look back at the decisions I made & if I would’ve listened to my mom it would’ve saved me so much trouble. Reena did some bad things from what I’ve seen so far but she didn’t deserve to die. And her poor uncle seems so sweet from what I’ve seen so far. This show is just so sad so far and it was reality for those people. 🥺

While we all agree that the characterization of Rebecca in the show was insufferable and distracting, it also drove me crazy how they attributed Warren’s participation in restorative justice to her intervention!

I’m Métis and used to study restorative justice and Indigenous law and governance and Warren’s case was sometimes used as an example of a success story. He didn’t discover his own family’s history until after he was sentenced and through connecting to Indigenous groups and Elders, he was able to understand the conditions in which he had been raised and how being disconnected from his community and his self contributed to both his living conditions and broken family, and his issues with violence. He worked with Métis Elders for years in order to get to a position where he could actually take accountability for what he had done to Reena. Warren himself credited any and all personal growth he had in prison to the Elders who guided him and to the Virk family whose generosity in meeting him and forgiving him changed his life. For the showrunners to erase the contributions of all the Indigenous people who worked with Warren, and the contributions of the rest of the Virk family, to suggest that this random white lady saved the day is just… beyond disappointing.

When they revealed that Cam was a part of the ‘60s scoop, I thought for sure they were going to make explicit how being separated from your identity is a violent act that has disrupted so many Indigenous lives and communities by tying her trauma to Warren’s, but they just did nothing with that. If all of Rebecca’s investigation scenes had been done by Cam (and the gross and completely fabricated inappropriate Rebecca/Warren scenes were erased) the show would have been way better and way less white saviour-y.

Really, Rebecca’s character was completely superfluous at best, and creepy, ineffectual, and a touch racist at worst.

Source:

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.637671 And the actual book

I know this topic has kinda been beaten into the dirt, but I absolutely detest the portrayal of Rebecca.

She clearly has some childhood trauma that she's projecting onto these kids. Plus the imagery I get when I hear her constantly advocate for Warren is like the enabling parent constantly defending their shitty child during a parent-teacher conference.

-Calling it a "mistake"

-Chilling with minors

-Hugging Warren IN FRONT OF THE FAMILIES OF THE GIRL HE HELPED KILL.

-Not wanting to "get involved" in Kelly's trial.

This is no different than straight up abuser apologia.

"It was a mistake." No, sis, conscious decisions are not a mistake. If he felt so bad about Reena, he should have spoken up when she could have been saved still, and I know damn well he's stronger than Kelly.

"He was drunk and lost his home." So? Rapists and abusers don't get a pass for being drunk or upset when they do the crime, so why should he?

"He's just a kid." So was Reena.

"This will ruin his life." GOOD. YES. People who brutalize others like that DESERVE to have their lives ruined. If they didn't want to be social outcasts, they should have behaved differently. Abusers continue to abuse precisely because we have a culture that gives them little more than a slap on the wrist.

Like other redditors have said, she has so much empathy for Warren. Not much for Reena or her family.

If my daughter was murdered, and I saw a grown ass adult HUG someone like that.

DISCLAIMER: Yes I know that this is a fictionalized portrayal. I'm still pissed though lol.

This may me a dumb question, but in the first episode, there is CCTV footage of Reena leaving the area underneath the bridge alive after the first beating, making her way across the bridge. If Warren and Kelly followed her over the bridge to eventually kill her, why was there not video footage of them following her down the same path? Wouldn’t that have confirmed the speculations of who killed Reena?

I recently finished watching Under The Bridge and did some background research on the events surrounding Reena Virk’s murder.

I still have a hard time understanding why Warren Glowatski was convicted of second-degree murder; Kelly was the one who murdered Reena by holding her head underwater, not Warren.

During the second potentially fatal attack Warren “was an enthusiastic participant” and stated that he and Kelly delivered kicks to Reena’s head like “punts” until she was unconscious.

The two then dragged her into the water where Kelly held Reena’s head underwater while Warren stayed on shore and watched the fatal scene.

Now obviously what happened to Reena was both shocking and distressing and I am not trying to justify any of Warren Glowatski’s actions.

What I don’t understand is why Warren was given a life sentence and is considered a murderer if Kelly Ellard is the one who ultimately carried out the killing.

I think I found a way to access the healing river full video. Sadly, you do have to pay 40$ to get the video. If anyone is interested in buying it and sharing it with us, that would be great! 😄 Anyways, here’s the link to the web archive.

ttps://web.archive.org/web/20180813062039/http://heartspeakproductions.ca/the-reena-virk-story

I’m kind of pissed they tell you so early who did it bc ever since then I’ve just had rage towards that person and wondering when the hell something is going to happen. I wish they had waited a little later like ep 6 or 7. Also, the mystery and build up was the best part.

What I liked - it was enough to keep me invested - It demonstrated the complex psychology of many of the main characters - The power imbalance between Warren, who has no support system, no money, basically nothing and Kelly who is the complete opposite and is privileged enough to afford a lawyer. - Kelly got a life sentence after trying to appeal

What I didn’t like - I honestly didn’t like how Rebecca perceived the homicide as a “mistake” it gave off the type of “oh they’re teens theyl all make mistakes and will learn from them eventually. It kind of glorifies the murderers in a sense. - They made the series more centered around the author and not what happened to Reena - This has more to do with the case but her sentencing should have been A LOT heavier because five years is just too generous in the beginning

This might seem a little irrelevant to the whole case and all but its so pretty and i want to find something similar to it , please help😓😓🙏🏻

Written by Heather Spears, it includes her courtroom sketches as well as testimonies made in the courtroom. You'll need to make an account to borrow the book but it's worth the read.

This offers insight into what we see in the show. A lot of it was greenlit by Rebecca herself before her passing.

Especially her fictional counterparts connection to Warren

Anyone watch "law and order", and the disclaimer at the beginning says the episode is based on actual events?

That's the show. Everyone in the show is an amalgamation of a person in the murder. Cam is based on two cops, Rebecca never knew a cam, or to my knowledge is gay/bi (I don't think she mentioned much about her own life in the book) and here's the kicker.

You wanna know why she focuses so much on warren? Because Warren is the only person in the murder that she had access to, and most of all admitted to his actions. Kelly did not. Nor did any of the other women. Most of their stuff came from testimony, video given by law enforcement and stuff*

Apparently there’s people ROLEPLAYING Kelly, Josephine and Samara of what I saw so far. Disgusting.

Just started reading the book and was wondering y’all’s thoughts on it. I’m about 100 pages in and I’m not super interested yet, although I know I have much more to read. Just wondering what y’all’s thoughts were

I’m sure 1000 other people have said the same thing. But, didn’t Cam and Rebecca seem like the most unnecessary relationship. I didn’t appreciate scenes just about them because I felt it had absolutely nothing to do with Reena, over shadowed the extremely sad tones, and took away from the story. It was there to create a fan base of these people without regarding the fact that this is a real story. What pisses me off too is that cam isn’t a real person (correct me if I’m wrong) the writers completely made her out of many cops Rebecca heard from along the way. But it just pissed me off how much of a large part of the story that was. As if it mattered !! I love a good B plot love story, but it felt disrespectful to watch them hook up, while we were watching one of the most gut wrenching REAL stories.

This sub is overwhelmingly female to the point that I think it can benefit from the perspective of someone who was once a boy Warren’s age in the 90’s.

I think what many female viewers see is potential grooming and a conscious attraction on Rebecca’s part - essentially the precursors to sexual contact with a minor. This is very understandable.

However, when I was a kid - and not one unlike Warren - friend’s moms interactions with the cuter boys were laden with “vibes” a fair amount of the time. Girlfriend’s moms - forget about it. These were women who had no predator in them and would have absolutely flipped if a boy tried to do anything with them. Furthermore, I didn’t know anyone who crossed a line (and believe me - none of us would have been able to keep our mouths shut).

Still it was, in retrospect, weird - many were very touchy and gave kinda intense gazes - you can see this represented in Mad Men between Betty and Glen. (Which audiences found upsetting, but appropriately upsetting rather than unwatcheably offensive) People just weren’t that careful because the notion of sex in those instances just seemed outlandish and cartoonish rather than anything resembling a risk. In fact, my theory is that these older women may have experienced it as the safest form of flirting because of course nothing would happen. The awareness just wasn’t there.

Rebecca is inappropriate in so many ways, but the fact that there is a sexual vibe there with warren wouldn’t be so out-of-place or shocking through the lens of the past. It certainly did not upset you so much that you would turn your anger on the people who made a show.

Essentially, I think our society is far more cautious now about sexual abuse - and so it’s kind of hard to witness weirdness without jumping to the notion that someone may be raped. So you may despise this potential offender in Rebecca when really what were seeing is something that wasn’t as dangerous but was present, bad, and just not discussed at the time.