Written by Ben Richards (Spooks) and directed by French filmmaker Dominik Moll, the ten-part series follows the investigation into the death of a French politician, whose body is found on the border between England and France.
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Meticulous oddball Elise Wassermann from the French police and laid-back British detective Karl Roebuck are thrown together in an uneasy alliance as they attempt to track down a killer intent on highlighting the moral bankruptcy of society through increasingly elaborate and violent means.
Clémence Poésy and Stephen Dillane (Game of Thrones) lead the cast, alongside Keeley Hawes (Ashes to Ashes), Liz Smith (The Royle Family), Joseph Mawle (Game of Thrones) and Angel Coulby (Merlin).
Episode 1
Wednesday 16 October 2013, 9pm
As the investigation gets under way, they soon discover that the top half of the body is that of a controversial right-wing French MP known for her anti-immigration views, while the bottom half is from a Welsh prostitute, whose disappearance was never fully investigated. However, tensions immediately begin to flare between Karl and Elise whose policing styles are set at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Meanwhile, in fear of his life, banker Alain Joubert is in hiding in a hotel in Calais. His devoted wife Charlotte isn’t sure if his paranoia is justified but, taking no chances, arranges for him to flee the country.
Back in Folkestone, enigmatic Stephen Beaumont runs a hostel for immigrants. Failed asylum seeker Veronica seeks his help and a place to stay. But are his motives as altruistic as they seem? Elise and Karl finally get a breakthrough when their investigation points them to egotistical tabloid journalist Danny Hillier. But, as they rush to interview him, they find him trapped in the middle of the killer’s latest deadly game.
Episode 2
Wednesday 23 October 2013, 9pm
Karl and Elise realise they are dealing with a criminal mastermind when they find out the killer is using police servers to announce his first and threatening ‘truth’ online. As the pair hunt for the man behind the deaths of Welsh prostitute Gemma Kirwan and French politician Marie Villeneuve, Karl finds himself in Folkestone’s seedy underbelly. There, he meets the enigmatic Stephen Beaumont who, having decided to ‘rescue’ asylum seeker Veronica from local pimps, has shut her up in a country cottage and confiscated her phone.
Elise heads to Boulogne to investigate threats made to Marie Villeneuve before her shrewd deductions lead her to a grisly discovery in a deserted slaughterhouse in the French countryside. There, her investigation is interrupted and her life thrown into jeopardy when a crazed fascist appears brandishing a shotgun. Could this be the murderer she is looking for?
Back in England, Danny Hillier, still shaken from his earlier ordeal, is shocked to receive another phonecall from the killer who has chosen him to spread news of his new ‘truth’. Meanwhile, Suze Beaumont, Stephen’s sister and the on-off lover of local pimp and drug dealer Anthony, is about to become an unwitting and unintended victim of the Truth Terrorist. She’s been stealing painkillers from elderly care home resident Harriet.
And, as she vomits up a cocktail of prescription drugs and booze, it becomes clear that the care home is the latest target in the killer’s deadly game. The Truth Terrorist’s second ‘truth’ has begun and Karl and Elise’s need to crack the case becomes greater than ever.
Episode 3
Wednesday 30 October 2013, 9pm
The killer steps up his cross-Channel campaign, targeting an impoverished pensioner in the latest phase of his murderous ‘moral crusade’. Bound and gagged in a dark industrial room, the former soldier’s suffering is posted online as the Truth Terrorist’s second truth continues.
With Suze still lying in a coma in the hospital, Chuks hits a wall in his investigation into the poisoned drugs that killed the elderly residents of a Kent care home, while evidence from the site where pensioner Jean-Claude Delplanque was kidnapped leads Karl and Elise to a former French cop and yet another dead end.
Meanwhile, abandoned and terrified in Stephen’s cottage with her son, Veronica desperately calls pimp Anthony who agrees to help her – for a price. And Charlotte Joubert, confused and devastated by her husband’s death, searches for clues to his fate, finding nothing but a mysterious bunch of keys to an apartment in Lille.
Back in the UK, teenager Sophie runs away from home after fighting with her mother. Standing in the dark, rain-soaked streets, seemingly-gentle man Benji takes pity on her and invites her in for tea, double locking the door behind her.
On the web feed, Jean-Claude starts to shiver and his breath becomes visible. He’s trapped in a cold store and, if Karl and Elise don’t find him soon, he will freeze to death. As they step up efforts to locate him, the terrorist sends a new message to tabloid columnist Danny. It contains photographs of four wealthy people and the words: they can save him’.
Episode 4
Wednesday 6 November 2013, 9pm
Karl and Elise scramble to locate and save Jean-Claude as his body temperature begins to plummet. Having trapped his victim in an unknown, isolated warehouse, the Truth Terrorist reveals the only way to save his life: four wealthy business leaders, including Charlotte Joubert, must jointly make a significant donation to charity.
In the meantime, Elise makes a major breakthrough when she notices a slight twitch and vibration on the live feed. The tiny movement allows her to create a sound wave that in turn narrows Jean-Claude’s location down to two cold stores in northern France.
With the help of Danny, the Truth Terrorist sways public opinion that pressurises the millionaires to pay up. But the Truth Terrorist once again reveals himself as a master manipulator when Elise and Karl discover dark secrets about Jean-Claude’s past. With Charlotte yet to show, the three financiers are thrown into a moral dilemma and refuse to cough up their money.
Finally, Charlotte arrives on the scene. Having been wrapped up in her investigation into her husband’s double life, she has only just learned of the Truth Terrorist’s demands and agrees to rid all trace of her husband from her life by handing over the full amount.
As the police rush to make news of the donation public, Elise and Karl have a tiny window in which to catch the Truth Terrorist in the act of releasing Jean-Claude. The team divides in order to search the two possible locations but it is Karl and Elise who come face to face with the killer. Shots are fired in a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase through the warehouse. Can they reach Jean Claude before he freezes to death?
Episode 5
Wednesday 13 November 2013, 9pm
The Truth Terrorist’s third truth begins dramatically when Benji beheads a psychiatrist in an overstretched mental health clinic. Armed with his samurai, he kills several others before failing to take his own life and being brought into custody.
Elise and Karl believe they have made a breakthrough but they fail to crack schizophrenic Benji, who agrees only to tell the truth about his leader if he can see Sophie. As the Truth Terrorist contacts Danny to reveal how his third truth focuses on treatment of the mentally ill, Karl and Elise realise that Sophie is in danger and that the killer used Benji’s illness to manipulate him into murder. Having received an urgent call from Charlotte Joubert, Karl heads to the wealthy widow’s home. He thinks he’s there to just pick up a memory stick but it turns out she has another agenda.
Meanwhile, the police are growing increasingly suspicious of Stephen Beaumont and Chuks confiscates his laptop hoping it will reveal information about Veronica’s whereabouts. In his sister’s flat, Stephen confronts local pimp Anthony before flying into a vicious and uncontrollable rage.
Karl and Elise eventually track Sophie to an internet café where Elise hatches a risky plan. Knowing that he’s out to eliminate Sophie, she plans to use the 15-year-old to lure the Truth Terrorist to the harbour and bring him in. As the operation draws the killer tantalisingly close, Elise is forced to make a life-or death decision that causes her to revisit a traumatic incident in her past.
Episode 6
Wednesday 20 November 2013, 9pm
As the Truth Terrorist’s dramatic fourth truth begins, a young man, a recently-released London rioter, bursts into flames in a shopping centre in Kent. Suspecting Stephen Beaumont, Karl makes it his priority to find and arrest him.
Meanwhile, Anthony’s dead body is discovered and reports of the disturbance at Suze’s flat lead Karl and Elise to the scene of the murder, where they find enough evidence to issue a warrant for Stephen’s arrest. After Stephen says an emotional goodbye to Suze, Karl and Elise chase him across a ferry, eventually cornering him and questioning him about Anthony’s death, the other killings and the picture of victim Gemma they found on his computer.
At home, things aren’t going well for Karl who is forced to confess his infidelity to Laura and is kicked out. Later, he is in for a surprise when he learns his son Adam stayed with Elise overnight. Over in Calais, Yacine receives an anonymous note and the keys to an abandoned barbers shop across the road. Heading in, he finds cop Laurent Delgado tied up with a can of petrol next to him. He has the chance to extract a confession from the policeman and avenge his brother’s death. But will he?
As more young people go up in flames, TT announces his fourth frightening truth, focusing on the plight of the voiceless ‘Youth of Today’. He calls Danny, demanding he places certain information and images on the front page of his newspaper. Danny dares to refuse his demands and, in return, gets a horrific shock when the girl he spent the night with bursts into flames in front of him.
Episode 7
Wednesday 27 November 2013, 9pm
The Truth Terrorist strikes again, kidnapping a minibus of school children and their driver and holding them hostage in a barn. As he posts his fifth and final truth online, he asks the public to save their young lives by attacking companies who exploit children, resulting in widespread panic, fires and public damage.
Having found the Truth Terrorist’s getaway car, Karl and Elise realise they are on the trail of a police officer. As cross-Channel police put together lists of officers, past and present who fit the killer’s profile, Karl and Elise visit Laurent Delgado’s widow. She offers them an all-important lead when she tells them about the regular training weekends Laurent spent with the mysterious L’Ouvreur, a man she believes terrified her husband.
After witnessing one of the Truth Terrorist’s horrific burnings, Danny is in shock and decides to resign from his job at the paper and his role as TT ‘s mouthpiece. However, when TT calls him and offers him one last exclusive, Danny can’t resist and arranges to meet him face to face.
Episode 8
Wednesday 4 December 2013, 9pm
A taut chase ends with French secret services pulling in prime suspect Fabien Vincent. Disaster strikes, however, when he escapes and Elise mysteriously disappears. Following the last interaction between journalist Danny and the Truth Terrorist, Karl searches Danny’s apartment for personal links to TT.
Finding
evidence that Danny changed his name on becoming a journalist, Karl also discovers that he was harbouring a secret connecting him with the mysterious death of the family of an undercover policeman whom Karl used to work with. Karl’s suspicions are aroused, especially when he begins to investigate the strange suicide of his former colleague.
Meanwhile, Vincent has kidnapped Elise, drugged her and driven her to a remote cottage. When she wakes up, she quickly decides that, although Vincent is clearly hiding something, he isn’t their Truth Terrorist. Before she gets the chance to interrogate him and discover his connection to Peloton, the mysterious organisation that appeared in Alain Joubert’s files, Vincent’s nemesis tracks them down and, in a tense cat-and-mouse chase, pursues them with a gun.
Elsewhere, Laura and John Sumner’s friendship grows as they meet for coffee, but when Laura is rushed into hospital, she and Karl are forced to re-evaluate their family and their lives. There are happier times in store for Karl’s son Adam when he receives some good news from his ex-girlfriend Becky. She’s returning to the UK and he hopes that they can get back together. But is his online friend who she says she is?
Episode 9
Wednesday 11 December 2013, 9pm
Karl discovers he and his family are the Truth Terrorist’s next targets. With all evidence pointing to one of his excolleagues, Karl begins to realise he is more embroiled in TT ’s plans than he thought and that his past misdemeanours have placed him and his family in grave danger.
Using bank accounts to trace TT ’s identity, Karl and Elise find themselves in the killer’s lair, where they discover the careful plans for his murderous scheme. Printed emails reveal the TT was privy to a huge secret Karl harboured from his ex-colleague and he quickly realises that his wife Laura is the Truth Terrorist’s next target. Out of his mind with worry, Karl tries to call his wife, but there is no answer.
Meanwhile, Elise realises Adam is in danger, too, and she races to Karl’s house only to find that he has vanished. Can she find him before it’s too late?
Episode 10
Wednesday 18 December 2013, 9pm
Karl returns home to discover that Adam is missing. As police storm the home of their prime suspect, removing all his files and careful planning, Karl and Elise receive GPS coordinates from the Truth Terrorist. Praying they will lead them to Adam, all they find is a dumped car and the only trace of Adam is his abandoned wristband.
The Truth Terrorist’s change of direction has become too much for Karl to bear and, back at the office, he resigns from the case at the same time as revealing to the team the reasons why TT is targeting his family.
However, despite his colleagues’ warnings, Karl refuses to give up on his son and continues his own dangerous search for Adam and his captor.
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> Buy Season 1 of The Bridge on DVD on Amazon.
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