Baby Reindeer's Cotton Mouth show comes up when Donny (Richard Gadd) meets Darrien (Tom Goodman-Hill), a successful older TV writer, at Edinburgh Fringe. In the Baby Reindeer universe, Darrien is the creator of the series Cotton Mouth that Donny so admires, with the two striking up a conversation at an event.
Ignorant to the fact that he's speaking to the show's creator, Donny gestures to Darrien's writing assistant and says “He wrote Cotton Mouth. It’s fucking amazing. Have you seen it?”
Darrien plays along until Donny eventually realises who he is and attempts to save face by adding “I knew who you were. The writing was the best bit about that show.”
Nava Mau just gave us the closure we were craving.
This awkward interaction leads to Darrien coming to Donny's Fringe show and the two keep in touch, with him offering to help Donny improve his stand-up act and potentially help with writing in the future.
Slowly but surely, under the guise of being a mentor to Donny, Darrien grooms and eventually sexually assaults him on several different occasions, guiding him into drug addiction and alcohol abuse along the way. It's an incredibly dark relationship based on Gadd's own real experiences.
Among other things, Darrien's character had many viewers wondering whether Cotton Mouth is a real show, or if not then what it's based on.
A psychologist weighs in.
Is Baby Reindeer's Cotton Mouth a real show?
The short answer is no, Cotton Mouth isn't the name of a real series.
However, given that Baby Reindeer is based on much of Richard Gadd's own real experiences, many fans believe that Gadd used the show as a way of referring to another real series, or simply as a plot tool in order to cement Darrien's standing in Baby Reindeer as an entertainment industry heavyweight and someone who therefore represents a lot of opportunity for Donny.
Though Gadd made a concerted effort to keep the real identity of the real Darrien secret, Donny says the following about Cotton Mouth in Baby Reindeer: it's a sketch show, it was popular at one point, it ended or was cancelled, though was eventually rebooted.
That said, several details in the series have been omitted or embellished in order to prevent fans uncovering the real identities of the Baby Reindeer characters, so it's likely that these specific points aren't based on reality.
How many emails, letters, voicemails and tweets Richard Gadd recevied.
