I was following BBC drama The Fall with something akin to hero worship in regards to its creators. It started out well and improved with each episode, drawing its audience in with great characters and a familiar plot, but a brand new way of telling it.
One of the things I noticed with this series was that reviewers tended to praise the acting, plot, etc. but they missed one of the most important reasons for why the first series was so good. The Fall is incredible because you know who the killer is within a few minutes of the first episode. The tension in this programme doesn’t come from wondering who the murderer could be and trying to get there before the detective. It comes from knowing, and agonising over the fact that you’re the only person who does.
The producers struck gold with Jamie Dornan. His performance as the handsome, married-with-kids bereavement councillor who protected a woman from her brute of a husband is exquisitely sinister against his other persona: the inscrutable, methodical and ruthless killer. The moments where these two performances interweave – when he gives his daughter a victim’s necklace, or takes her to the park during which time he stalks his next victim, or has sex with his wife the night after his latest kill – these moments highlight that most terrifying of ideas: “It could be someone you know.”
Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson, portrayed by Gillian Anderson, is the ice queen trying to solve the case. Except she’s not. Those subtle moments where she manages to escape the observations of her colleagues and show the briefest glimpse of emotion to the audience (such as when she sees the photo of her deceased colleague) work better than if she went home and cried every night. A few reviews highlighted the fact that she is powerful because the other women in the series are weak, and that the plot is weakened by the traditional victimisation of women, but this isn’t the case. They miss the point that the most brutal, violent murder is of a man – the brother of his last victim in the series. They miss the fact that Gibson clocks almost right away that their man is a misogynist, and the women are powerful and successful in their respective fields. And they miss the fact that she takes great pleasure in pointing out to her confused and slightly scandalised male colleagues that there’s a clear double standard in a single woman having a one-night stand with a married man and a man cheating on his wife with a single woman.
The first series concluded (although that word doesn’t really work in this scenario) with the killer heading off to Scotland with his family, and Gibson promising him that this isn’t the end for either of them. I’m hoping that they’ll get back to Belfast, since the setting and the social-political tensions running through it are perfect as wider reflections of the main events.
Roisin's Writing 