Deeply sad, minutely detailed, “The Girl From Plainville” — the new Hulu limited series premiering Tuesday, March 29, based on the sensational Michelle Carter texting-suicide case — can be a tough watch. The gears grind as we observe two troubled teens fumble through what turns into a sick kind of love, needy and ultimately lethal.

There are no answers here, which is perhaps appropriate; the crime remains a painful enigma.

Chances are you remember the case, and if you don’t, you might want to skip this paragraph. In 2014, 18-year-old Massachusetts native Conrad Roy, played in the series by Colton Ryan, was found dead in his pickup truck, a victim of suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. A subsequent police investigation revealed that his girlfriend, Michelle Carter (Elle Fanning), texted him ample encouragement to take his own life, going so far as to suggest methods (“Why don’t you just drink bleach?”). Carter was charged with involuntary manslaughter. The unprecedented case captured the public’s imagination with its macabre questions of motive; it has since yielded a pair of documentaries and the 2017 Esquire magazine story on which “Plainville” is based.

在“Plainville”中,我们看着卡特和罗伊,两者兼而有之on vacation with their families, hook up in Florida and begin a texting correspondence when they return home to Massachusetts. He’s working-class, she’s well-off, but they both suffer from severe depression. Rather than merely show them texting back and forth and leaving us to squint and read their phone screens, the “Plainville” team often puts them in the same room, where they engage, face-to-face, in the conversations unfolding on their phones. It’s an intriguing gambit that intensifies the connection between the characters and works once you get used to it.

The acting is strong, from Fanning and Ryan, who quietly sell the poisonous bond shared by the young lovers, to the supporting players (including San Francisco’s Aya Cash, who plays the lead prosecuting attorney). Chloë Sevigny and Norbert Leo Butz are particularly affecting as Roy’s parents, dropped into a nightmare they never saw coming.

“Plainville” captures an essential, tragic truth about suicide, especially teen suicide. You may know your loved one is struggling, but that doesn’t mean you can stop them — especially not when a third party is pulling the strings behind the scenes. As depicted, and as portrayed by Fanning, Carter saw her encouragement as an act of love. Roy talked of killing himself and Carter imagined her imploring response as support. Instead of the sane response of helping him see the reasons he had to live, she pushed him off a cliff.

“The Girl From Plainville” starts to feel a bit like a “Law & Order” rerun once it enters the courtroom (not that anything is wrong with “Law & Order” reruns). The series does what it can to spice up the procedural elements, playing with chronology and plumbing Carter’s imagination, but nothing can keep “Plainville” from becoming a long march (at least when binged).

To the series’ credit, it doesn’t sensationalize a case that’s already hard to believe. At the story’s core remains the kind of mystery that resists easy solutions, the kind that aren’t provided and don’t belong here.

M“The Girl From Plainville”:Limited series. Starring Elle Fanning, Colton Ryan, Chloë Sevigny, Norbert Leo Butz and Aya Cash. Created by Liz Hannah and Patrick Macmanus. (TV-MA. Eight episodes at approximately 60 minutes each). First three episodes premiere Tuesday, March 29, on Hulu. Subsequent episodes released Tuesdays through May 3.