Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Eve Myles, Babou Ceesay, Hermoine Corfield, Vicki Pepperdine, Colin Morgan, Angus Imrie, Tamzin Outhwaite, Babirye Bukilwa, Sharlene Whyte, Dipo Ola, Freya Durkan, Steffan Rhodri, Ayomidun Odunaiya, Anaya Beckford-Cole, Nico Mirallegro, Kate Dobson, Sylvie Erskine, Ray Fearon, John McCrea, Michelle Bonnard, Chris Nayak, Anthony Shuster.
The destruction of the female mind to the point where they start to ape their male counterparts in the world of holding psychopathic tendencies and murderous intent is a shame to humanity.
We never expect women to be drawn to such madness, to see them revel in the kill; even in revenge for mistreatment we hope there is a large part of their heart and their mind which feels the truth of remorse of their actions and will be more repentant than those displayed by the greater arrogance of man.
Few television dramas truly get to grips with the idea of the remorseless effect of a woman being drawn to death, and in the first series of We Hunt Together that premise was given the airing it fully deserved, the impact and combination of two damaged minds working in tandem, one pushing the other further in their goal for retribution was in criminology terms, enlightening. The duality displayed by the actors involved was undeniably tense and forthcoming; and whilst the splendid Dipo Ola’s character is effectively no longer with the audience, the tenseness of the continuing story of Freddy Lane, played with subtle elegance and sheer force of nature by the talented Hermoine Corfield in the second series if the acclaimed drama is enough to keep the interest high.
It is perhaps though to the flourishing relationship between what might have been thought of as the shows secondary characters, D.S Lola Franks, played with unnerving concentration by the ever-cool Eve Myles, and the generosity of performance by Babou Ceesay as D.I. Jackson Mendy, which strikes the largest chord for the viewer, as the dawning of a new reign of terror struck in Freddy’s name starts to unravel the natural way of life.
The series understands that to show a serial killer’s obsession is not good form, it can lead to dangerous social reprisals; however, the people behind We Hunt Together balance the destruction, the fall out, and the connections formed and abused with such great skill that what comes across on screen is more akin to television surgery, clean, responsive, undaunted by the sickness and the stench of evil that pervades effortlessly.
With terrific performances from Vicki Pepperdine, Angus Imrie, Tamzin Outhwaite, and Nico Mirallegro, as well as the three aforementioned actors, We Hunt Together catches the pulse of the genre with expertise and unflinching brilliance. A terrifically produced series, one worthy of further investigation.
Ian D. Hall