Broadchurch

                  What can I say about this show without ruining anything?  That is going to be a really hard thing to do.  With one mystery lasting an entire season, then the trial carrying on in the second, it will be very difficult to have my descriptions stay general, but I will do my best.   

                I think the best way for me to talk about Broadchurch is to do it by season.  In season one, Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller (Olivia Colman) returns from vacation to find the promotion she was promised has been given to someone else.  Furious over the situation, Ellie is not exactly happy that she must directly work with the person who got her job, the new Detective Inspector, Alec Hardy (David Tennant).  With an already stressful situation between Ellie and Alec, matters are made worse when they are called in to investigate the death of Ellie’s son’s best friend.  Danny Latimer (Oskar McNamara) was found dead on the beach, strangled and alone.  This murder of an eleven year-old boy devastates the town, making it imperative that Ellie and Alec figure out how to get along.   

                Of course, this is much easier said than done.  While Alec is able to keep a more calculated and analytical frame of mind as he investigates, Ellie struggles to keep her personal feelings aside.  Everyone they question, especially the Latimer family, Ellie has known to some level for many years.  She has a hard time seeing any of them as suspects while Alec sees all of them as suspects.  This difference causes big problems between Ellie and Alec, which only increase as the truths behind the lies people have told begin to come out.  With each lie that surfaces, Ellie is forced to reconsider the people she thought she knew.  No longer is anyone who she truly thought they were.  In truth, everyone else probably feels the same way as they begin to look at all those around them as possible suspects.  No one can truly imagine who would do such a terrible crime, especially not someone they have known for so long, which is why when the truth comes out, everyone is shocked.

                Season two follows the trial of the culprit.  As there was a confession, everyone expects the accused to plead guilty.  That is not what happens.  To everyone’s surprise, the accused pleads not guilty, forcing a trial to take place.  The trial is ugly, to say the least, as the defense conjures up wild accusations for the witnesses and digs up secrets that people would much rather remain hidden.  These revelations, fictional and not, cause great problems for the prosecution.  Constantly they are being surprised by information the defense brings up.  This is especially frustrating since they told their witnesses they need to know everything about their lives and whereabouts at the time of the murder.  Nothing was to remain hidden and no small detail was to be left out.  Unfortunately, the witnesses did leave out information, turning the trial into a battle of truth versus crazy theories from absolutely nowhere.            

                While the trial goes on, Ellie and Alec work on an old investigation of his.  Unbeknownst to Ellie, the entire time Alec has been in town he has been hiding a witness from the case.  Afraid of her husband, the witness’s presence only becomes known when her husband turns up in town.  Now needing Ellie’s help to get things back in order, Alec fills Ellie in on what is going on.  Ellie, at first, is reluctant to get involved.  With the trial and many other things going on in her life, Ellie has her own problems to deal with.  She doesn’t need Alec’s too.  Then Ellie starts to look into the information Alec has.  She finds inconsistencies and lies that have been told throughout the investigation, as well as ones that are still being told today.  Suddenly driven to solve this case, now possibly even more so than Alec, Ellie finds this investigation may have just been the distraction that she needed.  

                As much as I enjoyed both seasons, I had a much harder time with the second season than the first.  That’s because everyone was so mean to Ellie in the second season.  Somehow everyone kept holding Ellie responsible for what happened to Danny despite the fact that she was probably the only truly innocent person amongst all of them.  The only person fully and continuously by her side offering support was Alec.  The situation and their odd friendship have created a bond between them that many would probably not understand as well as misconstrue.  That does not mean things are always good between them, though.  It is far from it.  When Alec’s scheme to find out information from a suspect goes wrong, he blames Ellie out of anger.  It was not her fault things did not work out, but Alec does not want to hear it.  He is angry and needs someone to blame.  That is when Ellie decides she has had enough.  Tired of everyone blaming her for everything, Ellie decides she is not going to take it anymore.  She lets Alec have it, and she let’s everyone else have it when she comes across them.  Finally, Ellie is standing up for herself, and I cheered her on all the way. 

                With a third season already created and airing, I am curious to see where the show is going to go next.  Both cases have been solved and the trial is over.  I have some ideas as to where the show could go, but I won’t say them so as to not ruin the first two seasons.  Hopefully I’ve been vague enough that I have not done that already.  As I said before, this show is really hard to talk about without revealing what has happened.  All I can say is, I hope you watch the show and find out for yourself.