Slaughter, bigamy and intrigue . . . this thriller’s a real Chinese puzzle
Sobbing, distressed and leaving what sounded like a confessional final message on her husband’s voicemail, Megan Harris was instantly killed when she was hit by a speeding juggernaut on a winding mountain road.
As opening sequences go, the one in Strangers (iTV) was as high octane as they come.
Megan (Dervla Kirwan) died in Hong Kong, where she spent half of the year. Her husband Jonah Mulray believed she was there for work. As Jonah (John Simm) soon discovered, Megan’s reasons weren’t quite so innocent.
With the help of Sally Porter (Emilia Fox) from the british Consulate, Jonah formally identified the body then went to the police station to collect her things.
At the station Jonah noticed a Chinese man in an interview room holding a picture of Megan. believing this to be the lorry driver who killed her, Jonah followed him.
The man introduced himself as David Chen, Megan’s husband of 20 years and the father of her daughter Lau. While David (Anthony Wong) had known about Jonah’s existence for a year, the news that Jonah’s three-year marriage was bigamous hit him hard.
Later at his hotel his possessions, including his passport, were stolen by the same thief who had earlier stolen Megan’s credit card.
After two days in Hong Kong, Jonah was finally able to listen to his dead wife’s anguished last message on his phone. And thank goodness, because at several points it appeared he was more upset about leaving his phone charger at home then he was about his wife being hit by a truck.
Convinced there was more to Megan’s story than he was being told, Jonah decided to stay on in Hong Kong and attempt to uncover the truth, with the help of the nice lady from the Consulate (who is almost certainly going to become his lover before the series is out).
it was a cracking episode of what could be a great thriller. We can only hope the writers avoid the temptation to run with too many complicated sub plots . . . and that Jonah stops bleating on about his blasted phone charger.
There were complicated relationships of another kind in Black Earth
Rising (bbC2) where Kate Ashby (Michaela Coel) was a legal investigator struggling with her identity.
When we met her, she was recov- ering from a suicide attempt and having a consultation with a psychiatrist, a meeting her mother Eve was meant to attend, too, but didn’t get to in time.
Eve’s failure to be there for her vulnerable daughter was symbolic of their fractured relationship. Eve Ashby (Harriet Walter) was a prosecuting lawyer who adopted Kate after she was orphaned during the Rwandan genocide. During whispered conversations with her boss (played by John goodman), Eve hinted it was time Kate knew certain secrets about her past.
Just when the bond between mother and daughter looked about to heal, Kate learned Eve was off to the Hague to prosecute a mercenary accused of crimes against humanity. Yet the man, general nyamoya (Danny Sapani) was the same man who, 25 years earlier, gathered an army of Tutsis to bring about an end to the Rwandan genocide that claimed 800,000 lives, including Kate’s birth parents.
Having regarded nyamoya as a hero all her life, Kate saw her mother’s latest case as the ultimate betrayal.
The action was a little slowmoving at times and we must hope that John goodman is given more to do in the coming weeks as the truth about Kate’s early life starts to emerge.