Marcella, ITV’s new crime drama, is created and written by Hans Rosenfeldt, the man responsible for Scandinavian hit The Bridge.
With such an impressive pedigree, it would be rash to be too critical of its slightly lacklustre opening instalment.
The episode is bookended by scenes of a shaken and bloodied Marcella (Anna Friel) waking up in a bathtub. We don’t know where or why, and the rest of the episode takes place, we’re told, 12 days earlier – beginning with Friel’s character on her way home from having been dumped by her husband. A bit of spontaneous GBH on his 4×4 later, and Marcella is less angry but still none the wiser.
Husband Jason (Nicholas Pinnock) is oddly reluctant to give any reason for the sudden split, although in the last few minutes we see Marcella trail him to a house where he is joined by the attractive, young, blonde CFO of the company he works for which would seem to explain it. On the other hand, it’s early days and maybe that’s just too obvious…?
So much for the personal life. Marcella is, or was, a police officer – certainly she’s not working when we meet her, but by the time the first ad break arrives she has been prompted to rejoin the force by the reappearance of a serial killer whose case she worked on 11 years ago. Two minutes of adverts later, and she’s back on the job – which seems improbably easy, although again perhaps the covering spiel that “[Marcella’s] been on a career break for several years raising a family” is not the whole truth…?
No matter. Like all obsessive, driven, maverick detectives Marcella has a prime suspect. She is unshakably certain of Peter Cullen’s guilt, despite his having had an alibi in 2005, and being in prison in 2016. Predictably her senior officer warns her off following what he considers a dead end, and equally predictably she takes no notice of him.
Anna Friel is exceptional as the rejected spouse, always giving us the feeling that she could ‘go postal’ at any moment – there’s a sequence where she relentlessly batters Jason out of their house, which we soon learn she cannot remember (her blanking out at moments of stress will no doubt be more significant as the eight-part series progresses).
As yet, though, I can’t quite believe in her as the detective, but she’s clearly cast from the same mould as The Bridge’s Saga Noren or The Killing’s Sarah Lund – single-minded, hard to like, lacking in social niceties. It may be set in London, but there’s a definite sense of the Danish drama here.
Quite how it all fits together – what the powerplay at Jason’s company has to do with things, how the young woman Cara (a combination of internet prostitute and artful dodger) is involved, how Friel ends up in the bathtub – we will have to wait and see.
So, definitely one to keep an eye on – but not yet something to rearrange your Monday nights for.
Aired at 9pm on Monday 4 April 2016 on ITV.
> Buy Marcella on DVD on Amazon.
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