Unfortunately it’s a bit late for all that in Episode 2 of The Tunnel, as the so-called ‘Truth Terrorist’ strikes at the old folks’ home with some poison pills, all to prove a point that we don’t care about anyone old enough to be in the Perms n’ Poligrip platoon. Which is a perverse way of going about raising awareness, and even more terrible than that ‘Hearing Aid’ idea earlier.
It’s just another module in the Truth Terrorist’s ‘Failings of the Eurozone’ online learning course, available for anyone to view, but seemingly specifically aimed at teaching the police lessons. Tying murders to socio-political injustices in the Eurozone certainly gives The Tunnel a prescience, but at this stage it’s too early to tell how neatly it slides into the overall structure of the show without feeling overtly polemical.
His electronically-disguised voice may make him sound like a robot trying to do an impression of Herve Villechaize, but the Truth Terrorist has fingers in all sorts of tartes. He can break into the Channel Tunnel, spy on the police, hack their servers, sneak into a private abattoir, and he’s clearly racking up the travel points commuting to and fro between Blighty and France. Of course if you’ve seen the The Bridge then things won’t quite be so mysterious. In which case you can sit back, keep quiet, and enjoy the way everything is executed (pun not intended).
There’s an added bleakness to the picture this week, as the south coast of England comes across as the edge of existence – where things go to end, encircled by reeling seagulls. Suze (the always welcome Keeley Hawes, who must have the hardest working agent in all the land), reads to the elderly in a festering retirement home before returning to her bedsit and popping pills, while her brother, ‘too creepy to be the murderer, surely’ Steve doles out help and unsettling expressions to those with nowhere else to go. You get the sensation that this is a place without hope. A sensation only compounded by a grisly queue of octogenarian corpses.
Dramatic though it might be, The Tunnel doesn’t need expired pensioners to hold your attention. Right now Dillane and Poésy’s performances are enough to keep us watching, and the initial audacity of the crime has enough momentum to keep us hooked for a few more episodes. For many fans of The Bridge, The Tunnel will be judged by how it manages the source material, but so far you can’t accuse it of disrespecting its Scandinavian-Danish elder.
Aired at 9pm on Wednesday 23 October 2013 on Sky Atlantic.
> Buy Season 1 of The Bridge on DVD on Amazon.
Watch the trailer…
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