Let’s hope they come up with a better climax when the show returns
THE past will come back to haunt you. That was my initial thoughts in response to Bloodlands’ opening episode and looking back, it was a pretty apt summation.
Nesbitt’s dour-looking DCI Tom Brannick is Goliath, and for him it was never about identifying the hitman who apparently picked off his victims — both republican and loyalist — on the basis they posed a threat to the fledgling 1998 peace process.
In the end it was actually all about Brannick keeping the past buried, literally.
In a tense one-to-one confession with Dr Tori Matthews, Brannick admitted to killing her father, priest Simon Quinlan and Joe Harkin.
According to Brannick he had carried out the murders under duress — loyalist David Corry had abducted his wife Emma, a ‘spook’, and ordered Brannick to take out both republican targets, who had been carrying out a gun-running operation.
When he lies in wait for Corry to collect the firearms, determined to ensure they don’t end up on Northern Ireland’s streets, he catches his wife “acting like a couple” with Corry and so he, the scorned husband, shoots him dead.
Emma, though, he let go, telling Tori that she just disappeared.
By the closing scenes Brannick has pinned the Goliath murders on Pat Keenan who has been fatally shot by the detective after the former IRA man turned businessman took out Dr Tori Matthews — the only person who can prove Brannick is Goliath.
On the killer cop’s direction, Keenan (targeting Tori because she abducted him) used the firearm belonging to Brannick, which the DCI had hidden in an outshed on the shores of Strangford after killing Adam Corry with it — the weapon he used for the past murders.
A short police interview later Brannick, after apparently convincing his superiors that he acted in self defence in shooting Keenan, is at home looking out across the lough, comforting his traumatised daughter, Izzy. Cue the end credits.
The problem is that it all lacks plausibility. Brannick’s odd behaviour has not gone unnoticed by his team mates, in particular Niamh Mcgovern who finally twigs that her boss may be Goliath when she realises that he has lied about taking a call from his daughter (when in fact he has to go leave abruptly to mollify an impatient Tori intent on Twomey going down for Goliath’s crimes).
Twomey has been released and it’s obvious that he has been set up and who was peachy keen to charge him? Well Brannick.
Niamh makes the connection when she works out that Emma was in fact the first Goliath victim to disappear — not the last, and Brannick goes off work sick the day after. It’s all so clear that Brannick’s Goliath as the police station empties and Mcgovern and Detective Chief Superintendent Jackie Twomey, accompanied by special units, charge off to track Brannick down.
And then a half-hearted police interview later he walks free.
The ending will likely infuriate and satisfy viewers in equal measure, although I suspect that’s being kind.
Nesbitt had called Bloodlands a “classic Jed Mercurio thriller”, and there were moments where the Line of Duty creator (who was executive producer of Bloodlands) clearly shaped the production.
There were also moments when I wanted AC-12’S Superintendent Ted Hastings, flanked by DI Kate Fleming and DS Steve Arnott to swoop in and take control of the whole investigation.
It’s obvious now that when Brannick shot Adam it was effectively writer Chris Brandon pointing his finger, excitedly, telling viewers: “He’s Goliath!”
The problem is that it was almost too obvious, and viewers were expecting another big twist.
And pinning it on Keenan may seem like a clever way to end things, but it does leave plot holes: why would Keenan take out Quinlan and Harkin, two on his ‘own side’ as such?
It’s never explained, at all. And other parts of the plot are clunky and the dialogue in places is exposition heavy. Bloodlands should have been a taut threeparter or a six episodes a la Line of Duty, which allows plotlines to breathe and unfold with consideration, bringing the viewers along with them.
Nesbitt is a very talented actor but here he appears to not know if he’s playing a good cop who has done very bad things in circumstances he had no control over, or a sociopath who actually gets a kick out of killing — maybe it’s deliberately not clear but that’s part of the problem.
Bloodlands has been a ratings hit, so the fact a second series has been commissioned is no surprise. The potential for a great thriller is here.
Let’s have our fingers crossed for round two.
‘The ending will likely infuriate and satisfy viewers in equal measure’