Dhruv Trivedi
Netflix’s ‘Clickbait’ is a layered mystery miniseries that centers around the dark world of fake identities propagated by the internet. Not just relegated to the dark web, hidden identities and fake profiles now run rampant on the clear web, and the show dives into the dire consequences that online romantic relationships can sometimes lead to. The show opens with the kidnapping of Nick Brewer, and soon enough, a mysterious woman named Emma Beesly shows up outside his house. Who is she, and did Nick have an affair with her? Let’s find out. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Who is Emma Beesly?
Emma Beesly is first seen outside Nick’s house after his kidnapping. She looks worried and is perhaps not noticed by Nick’s wife Sophie, who is more concerned with dodging all the reporters swarming outside their house. However, Sophie then finds Emma following her, and when confronted, Emma claims to have had an affair with Nick before he was kidnapped. Considering that Nick would often go to LA, where Emma lives, the whole situation seems quite probable, and Sophie is crushed. However, it also means that she was not the only one to have had an affair outside of her marriage (with Curtis Hamilton) and perhaps eases her guilt a little.
Soon enough, the press gets wind of Emma’s story, and she agrees to do a televised interview, which would then be disastrous for Nick’s reputation as it would prove that he was unfaithful and make it easier for the public to believe the other allegations against him of being an abuser of women and the cause of someone’s death. However, as it is later revealed that some of the other women who claimed to have had affairs with Nick never really met him, Emma’s story begins to be doubted. The final confirmation comes when Nick’s son Ethan, on the advice of his mysterious friend AL_2005, gets on a call with Emma and plays her a sample of Nick’s voice. Emma then realizes that she has never, in fact, spoken to the real Nick and that she, like the other women, had been in touch with the person running a fraudulent profile under Nick’s identity.
Did Nick Brewer Cheat on His Wife?
Though Nick is cleared of having had affairs with multiple women, including Emma Beesly and Sarah Burton, the fact remains that when Dawn Gleed first secretly looks at his phone, Nick does seem to have a profile on a dating website through which he is in touch with a woman named Mandy Harrison. In fact, seeing this message on Nick’s phone is what possibly gives Dawn the idea of continuing online conversations with the woman, which then spirals into her making more online profiles and populating them with Nick’s personal information and pictures which she steals from his phone and work computer. Since all of this happens before Sophie tells Nick about her affair, it is also clear that Nick did not start talking to Mandy in response to his wife’s infidelity but was already in touch with her from before.
From the messages between him and Mandy, it seems like the two have never met in real life and have therefore never been physically intimate with each other. There seems to have been some exchange of photographs, but it also appears that Nick then stopped responding to Mandy’s messages, telling us that their relationship did not go any further. Therefore, Nick’s infidelity, if it can be called that, only extended to exchanging messages with Mandy on an online dating forum, and all subsequent allegations against him stemmed from the actions of his colleague Dawn, who formed multiple romantic online relationships under his guise. In the end, it seems like Sophie figures out as much as she returns all the pictures of Nick to their usual spots around the house (having had them taken down earlier) and seems to be at peace with the memory of her husband.
Read More: Best Con Movies & Shows on Netflix
