‘The future’s uncertain,’ Jim Morrison once sang, ‘and the end is always near.’ He was talking about the fragility of life, but it’s an apt summation of the situation Mia and her new family find themselves in. Death is never far away – and while that isn’t particularly surprising in a series about a contract killer, this latest instalment is the most cadaverous yet.
From the Papa Lazarou lookalikes dancing around a slaughtered cow at the outset to the endless digitised victims of Ryan’s Playstation massacre, the suffocation of a heroin dealer in a phone box and John’s endless threats towards Riley’s unborn baby that eventually lead to the contemptible clodhopper’s demise, the episode is as soaked in blood as a butcher’s apron. Yet it maintains the same even pace as its predecessors, the events unfolding gently rather than in a rush of endorphins – and it’s not just about death.
When Mia learns that Riley is pregnant and reluctantly considering abortion, she immediately vetoes such an idea. ‘We can both be mums together,’ she says, touching the teenager’s belly reverently. However, John, the child’s abhorrent father, has no such compunction.
‘Get rid of the baby,’ he snaps down the CB radio, ‘or I will.’ When his teenage lover defiantly retorts that she’s keeping it, the world’s worst farmer since Boggis, Bunce and Bean in Fantastic Mr Fox storms over, busts his way into the cottage, and tries to throttle the life of Riley (sorry) out of her.
He’s the second unwelcome male visitor in the house less than twenty four hours. The previous day, the ominously hairy and unshaven Frank Gallagher-ish fella who’s been hanging around the area for weeks breaks in again and then coerces little Leonie to visit his tumbledown woodland shack for a headphone disco. It’s a chilling moment for Mia and the others when they find the youngest member of the clan missing, but fortunately, she’s back at the house shortly afterwards – with the hirsute hobo in tow.
‘It’s Uncle Liam,’ she hurriedly explains as Levi and Ryan start kicking the crap out of her hirsute companion. ‘Mummy’s brother.’ Riley later elaborates: ‘We knew Mum who had a brother who was a nutter, but we never saw him.’ The tongue-tied traveller – he doesn’t say a word throughout – joins the extended brood but not even he is present when John arrives the following day with murder on his mind. Luckily for Riley, she ends up being strangled in Mia’s bedroom, meaning she can reach for the gun under the mattress and … Bang.
Mia gets home to find a bloodied but alive Riley on the bed and a podgy corpse on the floor. It’s a moment of celebration for the viewer (Most Welcome Fictional Death of the Year, anyone?) but it’s yet another problem for the assassin who just wants to be a mum.
The Yorkshire landscape continues to play a subtle but important role in the developing story, the tall grass fields, muddy tracks and dry stone walls depicting a pastoral paradise where Mia can dream of raising her adopted children, away from the violent streets and faceless council estates of the city. However, the procession of pylons looming between the moorland and the heavy rainclouds above represent the metropolis swarming out into the countryside, the murder madness of Mia’s working life intruding into the idyll and spoiling the rustic, domestic bliss she craves.
Eddie simply won’t allow his protégé to swap murder for motherhood; and with John out of the picture, it’s entirely likely the formerly friendly gangster will step into his wellies and become the show’s Top Git.
With two episodes left, Hit & Miss has already surpassed expectations and proved itself to be not only an engrossing thriller with a transgender twist, but a very human story of struggle, of families, of love. Amid all the death, it’s actually an affirmation of life – and (literally) bloody good.
Aired at 10pm on Tuesday 12th June 2012 on Sky Atlantic.
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