Sunday 15 February 2015

Broadchurch 2 - Reflections [SPOILERS]

Before I start, a massive tip of the hat to 24 Frames of Dreaming who has been writing detailed posts on Broadchurch. We've chatted online and her ideas and mine have bounced off each other in all sorts of interesting ways.

BEWARE SPOILERS!
Written after the 6th episode of the second series. If you haven't viewed this far yet, STOP READING NOW.

Looking back, I loved the first series of Broadchurch because of its sense of place. The series examined the relationships and secrets in a small town through the lens of the investigation into the killing of young Danny Latimer. The lead detective, DI Alec Hardy, was sitting on a big secret of his own, the circumstances around the loss of vital evidence in his disastrous "Sandbrook" case. Eventually Broadchurch's killer confessed and that was that.  Chris Chibnall, the author, had created a town with characters that were interesting enough to keep me asking questions long after the show ended. Would relationships heal and survive? Would Sandbrook ever be solved? Would the killer's legal team try to reduce the verdict to manslaughter?

At the start of series 2 Hardy looks at the rubble from a cliff fall and says "Everything falls apart".  And everything does. Doubt is cast on the confession of Danny's killer and the Sandbrook suspect, Ashworth, is back in town.  This time I was fascinated by recurrent themes and what they foreshadow or how they're misleading me.

Water

In the first series, Hardy's dreams were full of ominous seas. In this one, he is surrounded by the stuff, sometimes dreaming that he is drowning in a river. About half way through series 2, he dreams for the first time about emerging from the water. This is immediately followed by a understated little scene, where he says that he is putting things right. In a subsequent dream, the water starts flowing away from him. Maybe the 'tide' has turned.

Reflections

 
In this series reflections are everywhere. I started really noticing this just over half way through. Is this telling us that the two main cases reflect each other? That subplots concerning other offenders tell us something about where those cases are going? Or is it just misleading eye-candy?

Isolated, staring men

Unkind comment has been made about the number of times you see men, particularly Hardy and Ashworth, alone and staring into the distance. The Broadchurch accused stares across the courtroom from his lonely place in the dock.  I think I can see a common thread about them being controlled and isolated from others by the women in their lives:
  • The Broadchurch accused - For obvious and entirely understandable reasons
  • Ashworth - His wife, Claire, bears witness against him and demands protection
  • Hardy - Ejected from the family home in the fallout from Sandbrook. Also, from the start of series one, isolated within the local police by his city ways and the way in which his popular police partner, Ellie, makes it clear that he "stole her job" and endlessly puts him "right" about who he should suspect and how he should behave in the investigation.
Women controlling men

All of those women seem to be more than capable of playing damsel in distress to get something they want. Clare only needs to look at a man with big scared eyes for him to jump to attention. Her violence when she doesn't get her own way is dramatic. A snivelling Ellie demanded that Hardy give her access to someone she shouldn't have been near. She tells Claire to have some self control but her own uncontrolled anger has had catastrophic effects. Hardy's ex-wife is more subtle but she has certainly been prepared to let him twist in the wind rather than admit that she might have done something wrong. 

I feel that where the first story was about the male suspects, this one is about controlling women.  I don't think it is any coincidence that the court proceedings are controlled by three strong female characters.

That orange jacket

There's a lot of orange in both series, orange cliffs, ginger tints in Hardy's hair, children's windmills and Ellie's orange coat. She seems to wear it everywhere, even in the heat of the summer. I can't help recalling that, in the first series, a witness saw the murdered boy arguing with the 'postman'.  As I walk around my own small town, I notice that postmen wear orange high viz jackets, the same colour as Ellie's.  Could the witness have made a mistake? Did she argue with Danny?

Cate's books

The camera zooms into a photo of a murdered child on a bookshelf. Being a bookworm, my attention is taken by the books including:
The most interesting is "Sorry" by Zoran Drvenkar.  The narration shifts between different people, one of whom is "You". Yes, You, the reader and You are complicit in the crimes. According to The New Yorker review.

"As the novel progresses, we learn that you possess a fully fleshed history and reasons for your actions that, even if they provide some justification, grow more hazy and ambiguous as the narrative flies along. What I mean to say is, while you have your reasons, you’re not let off the hook. Which is as it should be, for at the core of “Sorry” is the question of guilt and absolution."

Maybe You will find yourself buying into some awful sequence of events because You sympathise with how the guilty party got there.

Or maybe they are just books.

Words echoing and repeating

In the first series, Ellie's words "How could you not know" bit back. I wonder if Hardy's "Don't Trust" will do the same. He trusts very few people - maybe one of those few will have done something dreadful.

Whatever the answers are, I am fascinated by Broadchurch because the author has left so many little clues and trails that I know that he is playing games with me. I want to beat him by figuring out the mystery before he tells me the answer, but I suspect I won't.

 

2 comments:

  1. Hi Wendy! So many great observations here! I'd forgotten about Hardy's "don't trust" motto until you mentioned it here. Last season that was a moral for Ellie; maybe this season, like you pointed out, it will be a lesson for Alec.
    Your observations about guilt sound ominous...I remember around episode 4 or 5 wondering that perhaps no one in Sandbrook will be guilty by law. It would be hugely unsatisfying but that's the way Broadchurch likes to play us, I think. It's pretty clear that the Gillespies and Ashworths are a pretty selfish, dysfunctional lot, and perhaps the girls' demise won't turn out to be a result of criminal intent, just a tragic result of the failings of the adults.
    Anyway, brilliant analysis, and I look forward to reading more from you!
    -Amy from 24 Frames

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    1. Thank you for these kind comments. I do love a story whether in a book or on screen that gives me space to think and imagine. In Sandbrook, someone must be guilty of something, even if the whole thing started with an accidental death. Looking forward to tonight's episode.

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