Kudos to Netflix for another great Nordic noir production. In this eight-episode series, Netflix’s first Icelandic co-production, we have a crime thriller about a gruesome serial killer whose murders go back over thirty-five years. Valhalla Murdersis actually based upon a series of murders that took place in Reykjavik. There is some uneven pacing, but it is over shadowed by the unexpected twists and turns of this Nordic murder mystery.
In the
opening scene the main character, Detective Kata, is severely wounded and on the verge of death. Immediately Valhalla Murders
flashes back to twelve days earlier: to the first of a series of brutal murders
at a harbor in Reykjavik. Kata should be in charge, but her boss Magnus
purposefully overlooks her. Resentment festers. Magnus calls upon a Norwegian police officer,
Arnar, to come back from Oslo to his native Iceland to assist with the
investigation. Kata begrudgingly works
with Arnar on Iceland’s first-ever
serial murder case. The Norwegian police officer’s painful past
growing up in Iceland parallels Kata’s painful
relationships with her son, ex-husband, and Magnus.
However, the shocking events of the murders bring
the two deeply flawed characters closer together as the investigation unearths sordid secrets and
horrors from decades ago. The deeper they delve into the murders, the more Kata
and Arnar respect each other’s investigative skills and relentless commitment
to finding the murderer.
The past
connection with a state-run boys’ school, Valhalla, importantly leads to
controversy and coverup. As the name
Valhalla implies, it is the hall for the heroic dead, the residence of the Nordic god of war and
death, Odin. But was Valhalla’s home for boys, now closed,
ever a safe haven for young boys?
As the mystery deepens, we see how Kata and Arnar
resist the twists and turns thrown at them by those obstructing justice. On fearlessly delving into the horrifying past, which links the murders to
each other, the two detectives reveal the truth. They both persevere despite
the cost of unearthing unspeakable evil,
the monster in the dark.
Note: Netflix released Valhalla Murders
on March 13, 2020 with all eight episodes streaming together.
Based on the global best-selling novel “La Reina Del Sur,” by internationally-acclaimed author Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Queen of the South, a bilingual telenovela crime drama, has become one of the most popular series of all time for USA and its sister network, Telemundo. Queen of the South, now in its fifth season, is a winner. Thank you, USA, for continuing to add gritty, noir-ish series to your program roster!
A “Narcos”
or “El Chapo”-style
drama about the rise of drug lord Teresa Mendoza (played by the exceptional
Alice Braga, niece of the renowned actress Sonia Braga), we see a new first. Instead of a ruthless kingpin of a Mexican
drug cartel like Guzman (El Chapo), we see Teresa Mendoza. She navigates and
outsmarts a world dominated by men and machismo to become the queen (or
queenpin?) of Sinaloa.
At one point, forced to flee Mexico, Teresa finds herself in Dallas, Texas where her street-smarts move her rapidly into the highest ranks of the Vargas cartel,. The cartel is embroiled in a fierce rivalry between Epifanio Vargas and his estranged wife, Camila (the attention-stopping Veronica Falcon). A knuckle-biting set of episodes in each season highlights how Teresa is bound by a cat-and-mouse game in order to survive. She has to rely on her own strategic thinking and instincts to stay one step ahead of the feuding Vargas cartels and avoid capture and death.
Veronica Falcon as Camila Vargas
A violent, intense drama in the genre of “narcos” , Queen of the South is highly original in providing two great lead performances by the pair of queens fighting over who shall rule the cartels of Culiacan.
Note: The violence is disturbing, with rape and brutal “interrogation” techniques. The writing, however, is superb and almost never sags in pace, characterization, and plot.
The
Terror: Infamy is the second and
current season (ten episodes) of AMC’s historical drama/horror series. Infamy takes a dark and
infamous chapter in US history and attempts
to give this shameful period both a humanizing and ghostly touch.
The often overlooked or little-known story of Japanese
American internment is the historical centerpiece of Infamy and asks the question: What does it truly mean to identify as an
American? From 1942 to 1945, more than 145,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese
Canadians were forced from their homes by presidential executive order and into
internment camps by their respective governments, simply because of where they
or their ancestors were born. Mostly set in a fictional “war relocation center” in Oregon a
month after Pearl Harbor, Infamy
reveals a family drama of the many injuries and conflicts of Japanese American
incarceration.
The Terror: Infamy opens with a bizarre, perhaps most viscerally frightening, death scene that haunts
a Japanese American community shortly before Pearl Harbor. Chester Nakayama, a young American, who has
some bewildering relationship with a ghost (Yuko), is the connection between
the ghost world and the concentration (“internment”) camp throughout time-jumps
from 1910 to about 1950. At one point we see Chester and his friends and family
be evacuated from California, to the internment camp. The many indignities an
entire community of Japanese Americans suffered under forced relocation and
detention is depicted in detail and in horror. Real-world and supernatural horrors collide in Infamy
as a Japanese ghost (obake) story creeps under the viewer’s skin.
Infamy displays an intriguing composite of two plots, one supernatural
and ghostly, the other historical. But
they are not tightly woven nor is the mythological importance of the ghost
clarified for the viewer who is not familiar with Japanese folktales. Is the obake ghost (“Yuko”) a
demon, or someone reborn who behaved badly in a past life and is suffering her
karmic consequences? She seems to be a culturally specific “monster” who, in order to understand her, requires a basic familiarity with Japanese
folklore, not the typical ghost or zombie familiar to American audiences.
It is possible that the director and writers
also could not decide what genre to emphasize–horror Japanese-style or
American. But what develops is a
production, so frequently subtitled that
it seems like a foreign film at times.
But it isn’t. So what we need is a statement once in a while about
the motivation for the ghost’s targeted actions, a backstory for Yuko that
should appear before episode 6, and a brief description of obake (and yurei,
which is more equivalent to a European notion of a ghost). Addressing these needs would result in a more comprehensible and visceral connection with the plot.
I wanted to love this series for its originality: combining the “old world” system of beliefs and values with the American. The intergenerational misunderstandings between immigrant parents and their American children is one of the more moving themes. However, the effect is dampened, rather than amplified, by some of the show’s ghostly horror which is not tightened together enough to see that the two universes–supernatural and earthly–are inextricable. The promise of the ghost story (think of the Japanese horror movie Ringu) mirrors the pain and suffering of humans. But Infamy rarely stops to explain Japanese concepts or relevant historical details, and their tradition of ghost folktales is very complex with a pantheon of different types. And as the season moves on, it sometimes fails to sustain the intense and wordless fear in the first two episodes.
Nonetheless, I still recommend Infamy. The most intriguing question to be raised: What is more horrific—a ghost with supernatural powers, or some government authority, wielding a gun, who knocks on the door and smiles as he destroys your life and that of your family? The show attests powerfully to the fact that the U.S. has a long tradition of enacting policies and holding up institutions that target communities of color. The timing of Infamy may draw comparisons with the caging of children at the border, forcing us to wonder what will be unleashed by the current horrors in our country.
Perhaps the writers of Infamy intended to focus on another,
more subtle kind of danger: the danger of forgetting, of historical
amnesia.
Note: The first season of “The Terror” was based on the disappearance of a ship and its men in the Arctic in the middle of the 19th century as they tried to discover the Northwest Passage, also crafting a story of monsters (human and otherwise) on the ice. See my May 2018 review of “The Terror–A Chilling Northwest Passage. .
Chernobyl is an HBO historical drama miniseries depicting the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the unprecedented coverup that followed. The flawed reactor design operated by inadequately trained technicians is jaw-clenching and chilling. That lack of transparency and flagrant disregard for human life depicts greed, lack of moral integrity, and political corruption. Chernobyl is a cautionary tale for today’s political climate.
A tour de force of unprecedented tragedy, Chernobyl is a masterpiece showcasing Russian heroes who have been unknown or forgotten by history. In some ways, Chernobyl is a horror movie of the bio-disaster kind: the dramatization of that fateful morning when thousands of residents experienced the horror of intense radiation without any warning by the bureaucrats who knew or should have known what was at stake. More than three decades later, the disaster remains haunting The creeping dread of the suffering endured is portrayed starkly and brutally. A grim understatement of what can go terribly wrong at any moment, the viewer witnesses the heroes who bear testimony to the unspeakable errors of human operators ordered to cut corners, threatening public safety.
Chernobyl is difficult to watch.
Recreating this small city in 1980’s Ukraine, Chernobyl‘s producers carefully evoke the clothes, nuclear facility, hospitals, and residential life in grim grey light, foreshadowing probably the worst nuclear accident in history.
“We seal off the city,” Zharkov–the manager of
the nuclear reactor,– tells everyone in the plant. “No one leaves. And cut the
phone lines. Contain the spread of misinformation. That is how we keep the
people from undermining the fruits of their own labor.”
The Soviet system of propaganda and corruption
existed not so much for the purpose of spreading a particular message as for
the purpose of making learning impossible, replacing facts with lies, and
handing the faceless state a monopoly on defining an ever-shifting reality.
But, unlike Japan’s Fukushima nuclear crisis, Chernobyl is not only about nuclear-plant safety. Chernobyl
is about a coverup of the worst kind: the most egregious arrogance and
indifference to suffering by a bureaucratic
brotherhood pledged to secrecy.
Consequently, information was shared only among a narrow elite obsessed with
their own interests and survival.
Note: The former Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant area
won’t be safe for human habitation for at least 20,000 years. Ukrainians are being reminded of the consequences of Chernobyl by
a government that has slashed health benefits for the men who heroically fought
to contain the Chernobyl disaster, instead reserving funds to develop Chernobyl
as a tourist attraction. For deeper
research into the Chernobyl disaster, listen to the podcast, “Uncovering
the Story of Chernobyl” on NPR: https://www.npr.org/2019/07/02/738019227/uncovering-the-story-of-chernobyl
In the earlier five seasons of House of Cards, Frank Underwood (played by Kevin Spacey) represented the Machiavellian Chief Whip then Vice President, and then President. As he manipulated his fellow party colleagues, foreign prime ministers (principally Russia), we witnessed the dark truths of American politics by a despotic megalomaniac.
Now, in Season 6, Frank Underwood is dead, but we don’t know how. His widow, Claire Underwood (the phenomenal Robin Wright) is President and has inherited her dead husband’s enemies.
Dealing with the aftermath of her husband’s death, and declaring that “the reign of the middle-aged white man is over”, Claire clashes with corporate moguls, the Russian prime minister, and her own vice president.
Trying to forge her own path as President, Claire takes no prisoners and feels no regret. But Claire’s late husband still casts a long shadow. “Frank’s legacy” is the cornerstone of the series finale.
The powerful ending of this season of House of Cards is dramatically sharpened and has an even darker theme: gender issues and patriarchy infused with a stench of misogyny. Claire’s dark secrets venomously boil over, ratcheting towards an ignominious confrontation with Doug Stamper, Frank Underwood’s obsessively devoted acolyte who cannot forgive Claire for what he imagines she is doing to Frank’s legacy.
Overlaid with the backlash of the first female President, we see Claire have to disassociate from her husband’s despicable acts. Nevertheless, her political enemies delight in accusing her of being guilty of Frank’s sins.
Frank’s reach is beyond the grave. As Claire’s enemies come close to impeaching her, Claire does what she and Frank did the last time they got close to defeat: she manufactures a crisis. Claiming that terrorists are attempting to acquire a nuclear bomb, she creates a military standoff between U.S. and Russian troops in Syria.
It’s the thunderous theme of House of Cards: Power is fragile– and we watch as the powerful can be brought tumbling down by the smallest misstep. Claire’s own reign is ultimately doomed to fail, playing a near-impossible game, but as we watch we don’t know how or when.
House of Cards in its final season ends on a dramatically different, more ambiguous and amoral note, than any of its previous seasons or its BBC predecessor. What Frank and Claire did may not really be out of the ordinary. House of Cards is more about the undetected, malignant form of insatiable power: more difficult to expose and defeat.
Totally unexpected, this season of House of Cards is a different and more frightening look at unhinged power. Robin Wright is a marvel to behold!
Marty Byrde (played by Jason Bateman), his wife Wendy (Laura Linney), teenage daughter Charlotte and son Jacob continue as criminal minds laundering money for a Mexican drug cartel with roots in Chicago. The introduction of Helen Pierce ( the stunning Janet McTeer) as the attorney for the drug cartel ratchets up the ruthless and cunning subplots that made Season 1 of “Ozark” (see September 20, 2017 review) so addictive to watch.
The Byrdes are finally settling in to the Ozarks, compartmentalizing their illegal activities which they excel at with their determination to instill family values in their children which they fail at.
Dangers are everywhere–within their family, obviously from the cartel, but also from an Ozark family “cursed” to a life of crime–the Langmores– and from another Ozark family–the Snells– who are heavily involved with both local politics and maintaining their own hold on distributing illegal drugs from their “poppy” farm.
Ironically, Ruth Langmore (talented newcomer Julia Garner), yearns for a way out of the “curse” blocking her attempts to find the family and values she wants.
All three deformed families conjure up writhing snakes in a pit in which survival is ugly, bloody, and momentary advantage is the key stratagem.
The Byrdes find that every transaction involves betrayal, violence, and passive witnessing of atrocity. In the process, each member of the family gives up a piece of themselves until there is not much remaining of themselves to give up.
Marty’s mantra is that we all make our own choices and are responsible for how our lives turn out. But “Ozark” demonstrates–like “Breaking Bad” and “Dexter”–that circumstances can limit our options, until we become so flawed that we feel cornered and trapped with no options.
In Ozark season 2 we wonder how it will end: Will the Byrdes – and their children – ever be able to feel safe, secure, and content?
This season is even better than the first in tackling the corrupting power of wealth and greed, human nature, and the ties that bind a family and define it.
This new undertaking (by Amazon Prime) of Tom Clancy’s blockbuster Jack Ryan series pays off big-time. John Krasinski as a boyish Jack Ryan adds unexpected dimension to this eight-episode series focused on a terrorist plot in Syria. If this is your genre, you will inevitably make a comparison with Clancy’s books and the older cinematic depictions of Jack Ryan. However, standing on its own, the new Jack Ryan series is riveting, albeit with some graphic violence and cultural stereotyping.
Reluctantly drafted into being a CIA operative instead of a number-crunching budget analyst by demoted CIA director James Greer (the wonderful Wendell Pierce of “The Wire”), Ryan soon learns that the CIA bureaucracy is no different from any other. His analytical skills are mostly ignored, although always proved right later on. Greer is his reluctant mentor. Add a romantic subplot with Dr. Cathy Mueller (Abbie Cornish from “Three Billboards outside Ebbings, Missouri”) and you have a complex thirty-something bureaucrat trying to fit into the CIA at the same time he wants a balanced life. In addition, the terrorist master-mind has a family and provides additional complexity to the plot.
This Jack Ryan Amazon series passed my test for binge-worthy: easy entertainment, mostly fast-paced, yet intelligent in character development. There is a great character arc with some memorable dialog and beautiful cinematography. [Filmed on location in Morocco, as a stand-in for Syria.)
Note: Confession–I’ve only seen Jack Ryan in film, and have not read any of the books, but my husband has and loved the dramatization with Krasinski. Highly skewed reviews online from one-star to five-star (influenced by the political divide currently perhaps?) Judge for yourself! I can’t wait for season 2 next year.
Mr. Mercedes, an Audience (DirecTV) mystery-thriller original series, is based on the Stephen King trilogy “Mr. Mercedes”, “Finders Keepers” and “End of Watch”. The macabre master again conjures alarming boundary-breaking drama, this time in economically depressed Bridgton, Ohio.
The opening scene is horrific: a Mercedes sedan mows down a crowd of job-seekers waiting late at night for the next morning’s job fair to open. A few of those waiting in line have babies. A massacre occurs, but the viewer does not know who the driver is or what motivates him or her.
Soon we meet Brady, the toxic male sociopath rivaling Norman Bates of “Bates Motel”, (played by an astonishing Harry Treadaway), pressured by a seething rage, the source of which is a seriously sick relationship with his mother. Brady is part Mr. Robot, dwelling in the basement, plotting cyber revenge on the world. And the main character and investigator who, for the second time, has to solve the crime is a disheveled drunk but nevertheless rather appealing Bill Hodges (Brendan Gleeson), who retired after unsuccessfully investigating the “Mercedes Massacre” years ago.
Slowly Brady boldly begins to reveal himself, through cyber messages to Hodges, promising another attack. For the retired detective, Brady provides the opportunity to redeem himself by proving once and for all that the Mercedes massacre can be solved. And as for Brady, he craves validation and recognition, wanting to assert his own dominance over others. The two–Brady and Hodges– play off each other’s unhealed wounds.
As the episodes in the first season progress, viewers learn just how obsessive both Hodges and Brady are. In the second season, now being broadcast (but not completed), we see Brady suffering locked-in syndrome, a condition in which the mind is aware but cannot move or communicate verbally due to complete paralysis. What is happening inside Brady’s mind? Will he maintain his sick mental state or morph into a new one?
Visceral and emotional turmoil seem to be sustained in season two, with science fiction strongly inserted as only Stephen King can. I naturally wonder if Mr. Mercedes can maintain the horror and suspense. Highly recommend season one and will withhold my assessment of the current season until the finale!
Note: Only available as Audience streaming to DirecTV subscribers at the time of this writing.
The Tunnel Seasons 2 and 3 continue the tension from the first season, with a British and French detective partnership (Karl Roebuck and Elise Wasserman respectively) again working to solve a heinous series of crimes. (See my August 7, 2016 review of season 1: “The Tunnel–Turf War or Building Bridges”.) Both season 2 and 3 seamlessly continue the tension, though by different writers and directors.
In Season 2 (“Sabotage”) the main plot is trying to figure out why a commercial airliner was hacked to override the autopilot, crashing in the ocean, killing everyone on board. The crash might be connected to other strange incidents including the abduction of the parents of a five-year-old girl while in the Chunnel.
There are many plot twists and subplots: connecting all the dots and understanding the motivation of each character, including the detective team. The narrative becomes quite convoluted. The sexual lives of Karl Roebuck (the excellent Stephen Dillane from “Game of Thrones) and Elise Wasserman (Fleur Delacour in “Harry Potter”) are revealed to be more complicated than in season 1. A sinister and mysterious mastermind, as well as a chemist who could rival the Nazi Mingele in his experiments, will keep the viewer on edge. No spoiler alerts here, but be prepared for nail-biting terror. Twisted ideologies, revenge, spies, terrorism, “marriage for sale”, sex trafficking, the vulnerability of love and loss, and the insidious nature of high-tech equipment in the hands of malevolent actors all make this second season of “The Tunnel” just as spellbinding as the previous season.
Season 3 (“Vengeance”) stands on its own from the previous seasons with again, a new director and writer. In the anti-refugee hysteria of our times, we see the desperation of a mother looking for the child she gave up decades ago during the war in Croatia. An escalating refugee crisis and the exiled souls who experienced unspeakable tragedy seek relief from a society which mostly has turned its back.
Playing on the “Pied Piper” who purportedly promised a better life for the children who followed, we see the two intrepid investigators try to make sense of grisly sexualized murders, cyberstalking, a plague of rats echoing the Pied Piper, and a macabre medieval enactment of murder. There is a subplot of a past cold case that still haunts Elise, also involving a child: missing children, children found, abandoned, troubled, and redeemed overlay the subplots and involve deceit, corruption, and trauma.
All of the disparate strands of this drama come to a tightly woven, shocking climax in the final episode ending this phenomenal three-season thriller. Few hints of what is to come in the finale prepare the viewer for the resolution, part satisfactory and part disconnected.
Highly recommended! And worthy of a repeat viewing, because the plots are so difficult to follow at times.
Note: Available on Amazon Prime (first two seasons) and Netflix (all three).
Adapted from the best-selling detective novels by the German author Volker Kutscher, the highly praised Babylon Berlinbegins less than ten years after the Treaty of Versailles. Germany is in turmoil. (Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party would come to power in 1933.) Set in the golden ’20s (1926-1929), Berlin is not so golden for everyone. The Nazi takeover is still a couple of years in the future, but the general turmoil is already evident.
Babylon Berlin is part period drama, part police procedural, and part mystery thriller, but there is always an undercurrent of intense foreboding, drawing on our 100 percent hindsight of what’s to come. Hitler’s name is heard only once and Brown Shirts first appear in one of the last scenes. The era’s troubled Zeitgeist is well-known to viewers but not to the players in this underworld of politics.
Suffering from “shell shock” and addicted to morphine, police detective Gereon Roth (Volker Bruch), arrives in Berlin and connects with Lotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries), a police department typist, nightclub entertainer and part-time prostitute. She aspires to being the first female homicide detective, eager to escape the hardships of poverty and her brutal family life. Lotte manages to become a heroine despite the sexism and corruption of the police force.
Gereon and Lotte soon discover conspiracies and intrigue: hijacked freight trains, smuggled munitions, sex trafficking, police partnering with organized crime, Soviet collusion, Communist (Trotsky) revolutionaries, drug deals, and élite corporate magnates invested in maintaining their grip on the economy. Throughout, we see Berlin as a swamp of contrasts: elegant Berliners fill a debaucherous cabaret as rampant poverty persists in nearby neighborhoods; outright bigotry and violence occur daily and secretly; and ordinary Berliners cling either to a tenuous status quo or to dreams of revolution.
From economy to culture, everything is in the grip of radical change. Speculation and inflation are already tearing away at the foundations of the still young Weimar Republic. Growing poverty and unemployment stand in stark contrast to the excesses and indulgence of the city’s night life for the privileged and well-connected.
Weimar Democracy was under attack both from the Communist Left, as well as by traditional Conservatives, in a kind of unholy alliance. The Nazis did not just arise from nowhere. They were citizens who reacted to Germany’s economic conditions and wanted radical change. Both the government and the wealthy in Germany and Russia use this populism to serve their own dreams of domination.
Politically and economically, the nation was struggling with the terms and reparations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles (1919) that ended World War I. Punishing levels of inflation ensued.
The parallels with today are particularly disturbing. Could this backstory of what happened in Germany in the 1930s and the years immediately preceding the rise and stranglehold of Nazism foreshadow America today? And of course, we naturally speculate how easy it is for an anxious public to succumb to a demagogue.
Note: This Netflix Original series is in German and subtitled.
Promoted as a Scandinavian noir detective series on the streets of Britain, Marcella is written and directed and produced by Swedish screenwriter Hans Rosenfeldt, creator of The Bridge. Two seasons on Netflix, Marcella delves into the psychology of a deeply troubled London detective.
In Season One Marcella Backland (Anna Friel) investigates a cold case involving a serial killer who appears to have become active again. At the same time Marcella also has to deal with her disintegrating personal life, where her husband, Jason (Nicholas Pinnock), has made the decision to leave her and take their two children into his custody. In addition, her soon-to-be ex-husband is suspected of being involved with the murder of his former girlfriend, Grace. Due to traumatic blackouts Marcella cannot recall her own confrontation with Grace.
In Season Two Marcella investigates a pedophile, who has victimized and murdered her young son’s best friend and other young boys and girls. The suspects include an arrogant millionaire, a 1970s rock star with dementia, and his talent agent. Her estranged feckless husband has become engaged to a nurse, putting their children in the middle of an ugly custody battle. Marcella’s blackouts continue, and she seeks counseling to help her remember –under hypnosis–what happens.
Both seasons of Marcella delve into the psychology of a deeply troubled and flawed character, whom some viewers will find difficult to empathize with. Tortured and battling her own demons while trying to solve some of the most gruesome crimes on the streets of London, Marcella is challenged by doubt and “impostor syndrome”, not believing in her own capabilities to discover the murderers.
In the final episode of Season Two we see Marcella end her denial, admit she is not well, and descend into an abyss. We are waiting to see how she claws her way out in the projected Season Three.
In 2017, Friel was awarded the International Emmy Award for Best Actress. The structure of the narratives in Marcella are so complex that a second viewing is recommended. Could the narratives have been clearer? Yes, but still not so convoluted as to pass on this one. Not as riveting as The Bridge in several of its versions, but nonetheless highly original and psychologically riveting.
This British crime drama (PBS Masterpiece Mystery), comprised of three episodes in two seasons, focuses on one stone-cold case per season. Each involves a murder at least three decades old. The detective team– Cassie Stuart (the wonderful Nicola Walker of “Last Tango in Halifax” and Sunny Khan (the perfectly cast Sanjeev Bhaskar of “Indian Summers”)–solve each cold case in a delicate balancing of tension with hints of romance.
In Season 1 of Unforgotten the detectives discover the 1976 remains of a teenage boy found in the sub-basement of an apartment complex. No one but the two detectives seems to care or expect closure to the case, presuming any persons of interest would be untraceable or dead.
Unforgotten, like all good mysteries, creates encrusted layers of complex clues, red herrings, and surprises. There is no last-minute perpetrator inserted to fool the viewer. Nor is the culprit easy to guess in the first few minutes of watching. Characters are inserted in such a way that the viewer wonders where the interrelated scenes are going– a priest who helps the homeless, an older man losing patience with his wife’s descent into dementia, a woman tutoring students for their exams, and a man who obsesses over political power. There’s no indication that any of them know each other — or, really, could possibly know each other.
Season 2 of Unforgotten takes the drama up a notch. The detective team investigates another cold case– of a middle-aged man stuffed into a suitcase. His past is sordid. As the two detectives investigate the texts of possible suspects left on the pager of the deceased, secrets and lies are revealed for each of the persons of interest. But, all of them have rock-solid alibis. Questions of what constitutes justice are provocative. The two detectives eventually solve the mystery.
What distinguishes a mystery about a cold case is the stories of older people who have tremendous arcs revealing a complex series of rebirths: their pasts so complicated that who they are in the present is virtually unrecognizable. All middle-aged and old people were once young, with challenges and sex lives they may wish to forget but are not forgotten. In Unforgotten the history of each character– of their secrets and regrets– is the core narrative. Like all good stories, the characters’ arcs reveal who we were, who we have become, and who we could be. Unforgotten is a stunning melodrama!
Note: The two-season series has now ended, but can be seen on PBS.com. Season 3 of Unforgotten is now in production.
The Tunnel Seasons 2 and 3
