The fallout from last week’s shooting is keenly felt by many in the second episode of Channel 4’s Indian Summers.
This is an episode about things lost: incriminating documents, love in an old relationship, chances in a new one, and at one point, a lost child in the forest.
Mostly however, it’s about trying to keep things secret. The shooting is variously referred to as an act of terrorism and a ‘bumpy start’ to the summer. Aafrin’s family desperately try to keep the news from his father who has a weak heart, but since so many people care about him, and particularly since there’s a reporter keen to make it national news, it is inevitable that the truth (or a version of the truth) will eventually out.
There’s a mild subplot in which the bored women (Real Housewives of Simla?) all protest grandly that they’re incapable of playing the piano, with one raising her hands and declaring that her digits are purely ornamental. In another scene, another woman says that she doesn’t play because she has ‘no use for it’.
This is the real challenge for the women; a life frustratingly, pulsatingly, devoid of purpose. So it’s barely a surprise when Sarah (Fiona Glascott) becomes even more obsessed with Jemima West’s Alice, or more specifically her deceased husband. Last time, she noted the lack of a wedding band on Alice’s finger, and this week she points out that there’s no photos of dead hubby.
Gossipy suspicions suitably raised, she sets about finding out if there is more to Alice’s history than she’s letting on. Which wouldn’t be difficult: Alice Whelan is an enigma wrapped up in a mystery encased in a gorgeously lit Timotei advert.
But Sarah isn’t as one-note borderline xenophobic as she may appear. In one aching scene, she quietly pleads with husband Dougie (Craig Parkinson) to spend more time with her. She’s entirely vulnerable, but it’s clear that Ralph has long ago put up the shutters. In public, they can’t stop sniping at one another. In private, they can barely speak.
Cynthia Coffin (Julie Walters) is busy engineering relationships. She has her eye on the long game, hoping that Ralph will be able to find himself a suitable wife on his way to becoming viceroy.
His charm and good looks ensure that he won’t need too much help, plus he’s willing to conduct conversations from a tin bath, which has always been a good instigator of steamy relationships from The English Patient onwards. But it remains to be seen if the homework on Madeline is as complete as it should be.
A discussion between a boy and his uncle shows their true colours. ‘Is this land yours?’ the kid asks. No, the uncle grudgingly allows. A local owns the land. The boy can’t comprehend. They can own their own land? The uncle can’t hide his contempt. ‘They can do as they please these days,’ he snarls.
The events of Indian Summers are fictional, but it feels that soon things will be so explosive as to bring down an empire. By the time summer ends, there will be one hell of a storm.
Aired at 9pm on Sunday 22 February 2015 on Channel 4.
> Order Indian Summers on DVD on Amazon.
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