Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: David Tennant, Olivia Coleman, Andrew Buchan, Jodie Whittaker, Arthur Darvill, David Bradley, Simone McAullay, Peter De Jersey, Tanya Franks, Jonathon Bailey, Vicky McClure, Charlotte Beaumont, Joe Simms, Carolyn Pickles, Pauline Quirke.
The lifeless body of one of the suspects in the murder of the young teenage boy is found near the same spot at the bottom of the cliffs and it is hard to ignore the witch hunt, both by the national press and the local townsfolk, the latest episode of Broadchurch.
The episode drew away from the investigation slightly to focus its attention on some of those that live within the shadow of the cliff face and put them under the microscope to see what stones get upturned and see what creeps underneath.
Whether it is the damning indictment and sensationalised front pages in in which broke an old man’s heart for the second time, the way that even a season professional journalist gets her own words twisted by those above her which kicks starts the townsfolk rising and seemingly misplaced anger or the way that two people for one evening have to reconnect just to be able to grieve and not hurl accusations and recriminations at each other, whichever way the dirty stone gets kicked over, what is seen underneath scurrying in the dark cannot be pleasant.
With some police dramas this wouldn’t work, the movement away from the investigation would somehow detract the viewers from trying to spot any clue that might spill out in an unguarded conversation with the police. What Chris Chibnall’s script does though is make you care about those under suspicion, their stories and their lives are important to the overall arc. No matter how good some police stories are, with perhaps the exception of Foyle’s War and the latter episodes of Lewis, nobody gives this much thought to those small back stories that make up a life.
David Bradley’s character, shop owner Jack Marshall, certainly had a big secret to hide from those he had come to live amongst, a punishment that had followed incarceration for a mistake he had committed many years before and yet would still pay for over again as the people of the town started to point fingers anywhere they could, perhaps to deflect attention from their own horrors that lurk in the past. Whilst Jack Marshall’s secret was certainly repugnant, questions will be asked just how far it is permissible to hound somebody as they apparently take their life and whether that amounts to murder also.
The investigation may not have moved on much for Detectives Miller and Hardy but it was certainly an enlightening episode for the viewers of this superbly written series.
Ian D. Hall