Broadchurch - S01E02.

Since the next episode is already out, let's just get right the fuck on with it!


The first episode worked as an exploration of deep grief but the second episode lingers in a weird void between moving the focus away from this grief and starting the investigation proper. Due to the fact that a transition is designed to move one plot point to another, focusing the entire episode on that transition means that there is very little room for anything to happen...so nothing much does happen in the end, it just sort of bumbles along dropping a red herring or two and that is about it.

If you want to primarily focus this show on the grief of a community when a small town is faced with the murder of a small child, then great, that sounds like a great premise and you clearly understand grief but if that is the case then why bother with the police angle at all? Ironically the case distracts from the most interesting parts of the show.

We learn more about Broadchurch itself but most should be obvious, the town is largely split into two groups. Those who have been here their whole lives and have barely stepped out of the place or those who come there from the big city for a supposedly better flavour of life. Why they needed to waste a whole scene on telling us this is anyone's guess, it has nothing to do with anything else in the episode.

Olly and Karen form an alliance, Olly wants to be a big reporter and Karen wants to do something other than polishing press-releases. Olly can give her all the information she needs to make a good story and she can possibly get him the promotion he needs.

One of the strangest parts of the second episode is the odd moments of humour dotted throughout, since these humorous scenes are so rare it generally distracts from the otherwise consistent bleak tone of the show and feels unnecessary. Those odd humorous sequences flagged up the biggest problem with the episode as a whole, it lacked focus.

The episode really came into its element during a sequence where Beth slipped into a full on nervous break, filmic techniques manipulated the sequence so we could physically feel her break while also watching it play out before us. This is a show that clearly understands grief on a deeply personal level which as said is why the first episode worked so well, the second episode tries to open the story up a lot more but outside of the grief exploration it doesn't feel nearly as tight or refined.

This lack of focus plagues the entire episode really, between the heartbreaking and very human moments of grief we're treated to bizarre sequences like missions from God, messages from the dead and a whole string of plot points bound to have you rolling your eyes and exclaiming, 'for fucks sake...', I know dramas are basically just classier soap operas anyway but this starts to slip dangerously close to soap opera mundanity in places. With better pacing this patchwork of tones could give the sense that anything could happen, instead the episode feels like it's stumbling all over the place and has no real, clear direction yet.

Of course you have to understand my words come with a fair amount of cynicism, set your standards low enough and you're never disappointed. Red herrings largely serve no purpose this early on, the audience is well versed enough in these kind of shows to know that the reveals will not count until the last couple of episodes so it's perfectly possible that every throwaway piece of plot introduced here and then quickly dropped or moved on from will serve a greater purpose, beyond being a seeming red herring, further down the line. I just feel safer in saying that the show has no idea what it is doing. Time however will either prove me right or wrong.

Another episode, another remarkable amount of nothing, then. Striving for social realism and instead simply being boring, leaving the audience with more questions by the end than answers and right now I am a lot less eager to find those answers than I was at the end of the last episode, there is just no excuse for the sheer number of red herrings and filler scenes throughout the episodes runtime.

There is still enough in place to make you want to come back for more and there is still room for the possibility that this is going to get a lot more interesting but no matter how well directed and shot your episode is, you can't hide the fact that nothing has really happened yet and we're quarter of the way through already.

Pros;

• This is a show that really understands grief which is really where the show comes into its own.
• The acting is still great. 
• There is still enough in place and enough possibility and potential to make you want to come back for more.
• Still wonderfully shot and directed.

Cons;

• Awful pacing.
• So much of this episode is seemingly unnecessary and although time may change that, as of right now very little of this episode had any wider importance.
• This episode is made up of a messy mismatched patchwork of tones.

Think About It!

-Locke

What would you rate, 'Episode 2'?