Sticks and Stones viewers have been left heartbroken at the extreme workplace bullying that’s affecting leading man, Thomas (Ken Nwosu).
Over the course of the second episode, we’re left wondering just how much of the harsh treatment of him is even real, as he begins to struggle under the pressure.
With pitches seemingly being sabotaged by his colleagues and Thomas appearing convinced he’s being ganged up on by the rest of the team, viewers struggled with the imagery on screens.
In one particularly horrible scene, Thomas was subjected to repetitive and invasive questions about his deaf daughter by Isobel, who later gatecrashes a family dinner to get in his head even further.
As redundancies loom and Thomas’s home life being affected past the point of being able to ignore it, the leading man began to crack as viewers screamed at their TVs for him to be taken seriously.
In fact, some almost found it unbearable to watch as Thomas began to crack under the pressure.
Taking to Twitter, viewers shared how the awkward viewing was – even though they couldn’t bring themselves to turn off.
#sticksandstones this show is evoking all the worst emotions in humans watching…not sure it’s healthy…watching a person disintegrate
— Julian Hilaire (@julianhilaire) December 17, 2019
This is so uncomfortable to watch I feel frustrated and anxious for him they are a bunch of sickos #sticksandstones
— Amy (@_amystweets) December 17, 2019
#sticksandstones way too distressing to watch but will to see what happens. Bullying and mocking in the workplace to real unfortunately….
— Denise (@Freckles54321) December 17, 2019
Usually fine with the dramas on @ITV but #sticksandstones is really unnerving to watch, worse that the characters are actually in a lot of companies these days
— Simon Driscoll (@StattoSi) December 17, 2019
Unfortunately for viewers, actor Ken has hinted that it’s all downhill from here for the businessman as the story heads into the final hour.
Laughing he added: ‘It got very dark, very quickly.’
Talking about his own bullying experience, the stage actor continued: ‘The show is so topical and unfortunately it’s a timeless subject from the playground when you’re at school.
‘It’s something I connected with and I myself was bullied as a kid, that’s one of the biggest challenges for Thomas in the show, as bullying is such a thing that you associate as a kid and if you’re a kid you go to an adult but as an adult, you are the adult who do you go to?’
Even we have a lot of questions before Wednesday night’s finale.
Sticks and Stones concludes tomorrow at 9pm on ITV.
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