Twisted town
Paquin’s detective encounters shocking mystery in ‘Bellevue’
REVIEW “BELLEVUE” Series premiere tonight at 10 on WGN America. Grade: B-
‘Bellevue” the series has nothing to do with a mental hospital.
It just feels that way sometimes.
It’s actually a twisty mystery set in a small town and perhaps the last drama from WGN America, which recently announced it is dropping its original scripted programming, so savor this while you can.
Academy Award-winner Anna Paquin (perhaps best known from HBO’s “True Blood” and the big-screen “X-Men” series) stars as Detective Annie Ryder, a complicated woman with a complicated past whose life becomes even more complicated.
There’s a lot to unpack here.
Annie’s the kind of detective who gives her boss migraines. While undercover, she snorts coke with a suspect to gain his trust and bashes in a car window. She’s driven by grief over the loss of her detective father, who died trying to solve the murder of a teenager 20 years earlier.
Shortly after he died, young Annie started receiving mysterious messages in a box in the woods that she thought he was writing from the great beyond. Each one had its own weird riddle. (Example: “The more you take away, the larger it becomes.” Answer: A hole.)
Those messages profoundly traumatized Annie. She never found out who wrote them — and who was watching her.
Annie has an ex named Eddie (Allen Leech, in a terrific departure from his “Downton Abbey” role). The two play nicely off each other as exes who just don’t want to let go but can’t make it quite work.
They share one of those tween daughters, Daisy (Madison Ferguson), usually found on sitcoms. You know, the kid who comes off like a 40-yearold trapped in a 10-yearold body and is wiser than anyone else in the room. This cliche is upended when Annie’s stalker reemerges.
This comes after the disappearance of a high school hockey star named Jesse (Sadie O’Neil).
Jesse, as everyone likes to say, was exploring his gender identity. He was caught more than once in a dress. But as Annie investigates his disappearance, she comes up against the locals who hated him, harassed him and tried to create their own answer to conversion therapy, with an electrified fence.
“How can you know what is in a person isn’t pure evil?” Jesse’s mom wonders.
It’s mere coincidence that “Bellevue” is premiering a night after TNT’s “The Alienist.” Both series traffic in horrific violence against transgender characters. It’s a bit much of a pile-on. You can keep “The Alienist” at arm’s length because it is set more than 100 years in the past. No such luck with “Bellevue.” The brutality, shock and outrage ring all too true.
By all means, watch “Bellevue.” But book a “Will & Grace” binge to chase the nightmares away.