YMMV / Normal People

• Alternate Character Interpretation: While Connell's keeping his and Marianne's relationship a secret in school is a dick move (if only in fear of bullying from his peers), could it have been a little more nuanced? Marianne is already taunted by everyone he knows, and perhaps keeping things secret was partly about sparing her from the bullying getting even worse? It's also possible he assumed Marianne was okay with their arrangement and saw it as a casual fling, with his low self-esteem convincing him that she didn't really love him or want to be with him. He later says he never considered asking her to the debs at all - only regretting it later when he realised how upset she was - raising the possibility that he thought she simply wouldn't want to go and would say no if asked (he asks Rachel right after Marianne gets assaulted at the fundraiser, giving him reason to believe she might not want another experience like that).
• Best Known for the Fanservice: As an Irish drama with emphasis on explicit sexual scenes, it became this in Irish media. During its run, it even trended on PornHub and received the nickname "Fifty Shades of Sligo". People tend to talk about it as though there are non-stop sex scenes in every episode.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Lorraine, played by perpetual dark horse Sarah Greene. She's Connell's kind and caring mother, treating Marianne better than the girl's own mother does, and never fails to lay down some firm true-hearted wisdom.
  • Niall and Joanna also get grouped with Lorraine as fan favorites, as they ended up being Connell and Marianne's only genuine friends in Dublin (since Jamie is a Hate Sink and Peggy is insufferable).
• Estrogen Brigade: Paul Mescal acquired a sizable fan base of young women after the series premiered.
• Fan Nickname: Some viewers nicknamed the series 'Fifty Shades of Sligo', due to the sex scenes not often seen in Irish media.
• Fans Prefer the New Her: Yes, she's meant to be trying too hard and her night gets worse afterwards, but Marianne sure looks nice in that Little Black Dress she wears for the fundraiser.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Connell's treatment of Marianne being obliviously harmful in school. A few months after the series aired, an anonymous Reddit user accused Paul Mescall of being a bully in his own school days.
• Hype Backlash: Given its critical acclaim and high viewership figures, a lot of people didn't find the series to match the hype promised. Granted this is largely due to the fact that it's a romantic coming of age drama that's very character driven with not much emphasis on plot.
• Jerkass Woobie: Marianne in the first couple of episodes is antisocial and hostile even to her teachers, but she's soon shown to be a victim of bullying at school, had an abusive father in her childhood and is in turn bullied by her older brother.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some aren't fans of the story but watch simply because of the incredible acting between Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones.
• Memetic Mutation: Connell's chain got its own Instagram account, especially after it featured prominently in a sex scene in the fifth episode. This led to people joking that the chain itself was the real attraction.
• Retroactive Recognition: Eliot Salt has a small supporting role as Marianne's housemate Joanna. She'd become much more recognisable a year later as a main cast member of Fate: The Winx Saga.
• The Scrappy: Peggy, Marianne's rude college housemate. In contrast to Jamie, who's meant to be disliked, Peggy is supposedly one of Marianne's friends but comes across as very nosy and inappropriate - seemingly going out of her way to make Connell uncomfortable by asking personal questions about his sex life. Likewise, when Connell has literally come in after being mugged, she's more concerned with her night out. And of course she's the ringleader of the Unintentionally Unsympathetic moment below.
• Signature Scene: Connell's emotional breakdown in front of his therapist after Rob's suicide is one of the most memorable moments in the series.
• Tear Jerker: A series this emotionally raw deserves its own page.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Detractors of the book find neither protagonist particularly relatable. Connell's chapters are fairly Wangsty and Marianne comes across as self absorbed.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Marianne making a point in class in the fourth episode is meant to be presented as an Awesome Moment. But the following scene of her girlfriends gleefully talking about how she "emasculated" Kiernan just looks uncomfortable; since Kiernan is black, it looks like three white women gloating about punching down and putting a black man in his place. Not helping matters is the George Floyd protests happening shortly after the show aired.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Given that the protagonists start off in high school, a lot of Moral Guardians were appalled by the nudity and focus on Connell and Marianne's sex lives (never mind that both characters were eighteen and played by twenty-something actors) - assuming it was going to be a tame Teen Drama.

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