Clueless cult’s killer plot
EARLY days, I know, but have you had any thoughts yet as to who the killer might be in ITV’s new seaside murder mystery THE LONG CALL (9pm)? Obviously if you missed last night’s opening episode you won’t have a clue. But if you watched it, well, hey, wow, I don’t suppose you’ll have a clue either.
I don’t think it’s meant to be that kind of show, where the answer is staring us in the face.
At least, I hope it isn’t. That would be a worry.
Nor would it be saying a lot for our detective duo, DI Matthew Venn (Ben Aldridge) and DC Jen Rafferty (Pearl Mackie).
It would suggest they’re a tiny bit thick.
No, I’m sure it’s meant to be yet another of those guessing-game mysteries, where we’re supposed to suspect pretty much every cast member at some point or other, based on whose turn it is to act the shiftiest or to pull their “I Could Be The Killer” face.
Cult leader Dennis, played by Martin Shaw with some accent or other, was certainly doing that last night, growling at his poor wife, Anita Dobson. Beneath that avuncular exterior there appears to lurk some kind of monster. Can you blame her for trying to sneak out? She never has much luck, does Anita, with the Dennises…
And it tends to suggest that the “evangelical church” her latest Dennis heads up – the one that copper Matthew rejected in his teens, to the total disgust of his devout mother Dorothy (Juliet Stevenson) – is rather more sinister than it looks.And it already looks sinister enough.
Also, of course, this show has Neil Morrissey in it. For now, I genuinely don’t know much more about the relevance of his character than you do, but Morrissey rarely turns up in a drama nowadays where he isn’t up to something jolly iffy: Line Of Duty, The Syndicate, you name it (yes, do please suggest at least one other programme that backs up this slightly flimsy theory of mine, or else I’ll have to settle for Bob The Builder).
We have oodles of other characters I personally wouldn’t yet rule out. There’s that miserable social worker – Morrissey’s character’s daughter – and her miserable artist flatmate (the pair with whom the dead guy was lodging before he became quite so dead). There’s that bloke who looks like Noddy Holder. There’s his daughter. There’s that barman Jen inexplicably slept with. There’s Matthew’s husband (well, you never know).
What I can reveal about this evening’s episode is that a couple of people turn out to have a closer link to the dead guy than they’ve let on.
Is this significant?
Of course it is! Of course it isn’t! Definitely one of those two.