The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
MAISIE KILLS IT AS KIM
Two Weeks To Live - Sky One
Young Maisie Williams proved her worth as a martial arts exponent as the feisty Arya Stark in Game Of Thrones (GoT). She uses those skills to full advantage in her latest role.
In Two Weeks To Live she plays Kim, the daughter of Tina, an end-of-the-world survivalist who has raised her wee girl in some remote corner of the Highlands and taught her everything from Kung Fu to gralloching a deer, with a little gunplay thrown in. Tina has convinced Kim that Armageddon is just around the corner, so Kim runs off to complete as much of her bucket list as she can before the end of days.
We first meet her when she stops off at a greasy spoon cafe in her magnificent off-roader somewhere in England. The proprietor’s eyes are out on stalks when he sees Kim’s wad. He charges her £10 for heating her food and another tenner for parking her vehicle. The naive lass pays up happily, until the proprietor’s wife points out that she has been ripped off. Cut to said proprietor lying in what remains of his establishment as Kim hits the road.
Her next stop is a public house, where she meets brothers Nicky (Mawaan Rizwan) and Jay (Taheen Modak), the finest double act since Laurel and Hardy. Jay hopes that Kim can fill the void in his younger, more studious sibling’s life after his girlfriend dumped him. But, when he rigs up a fake news bulletin on his laptop forecasting the end of the world in two weeks’ time, Kim believes it and makes a start on that bucket list.
The first item is the revenge killing of the gangster who murdered her father in front of her when she was six years old. In the fight that led to the demise of the said gangster, Maisie reprised the moment when she dropped her weapon from one hand to the other in GoT to finish off the Night King.
I almost didn’t watch the series after I read a preview saying it was a dark comedy with shades of Killing Eve. Well, it’s not dark. It’s as gloriously bright as a stellar cast can make it. Every actor makes the most of a tight script that delivers more laughs in one episode than Killing Eve has done in its entire, increasingly dreary existence.
By the end of the sixth and final episode most of the characters were still breathing, including Jason Flemyng, Dr Finlay’s old sparring partner, who crops up as a bent copper, which suggests the producers are hoping that a second series might be commissioned. I do hope so. I haven’t enjoyed a new series as much in years.
As for Maisie Williams, a total unknown until GoT came along, the future looks pretty rosy. She has a depth and warmth to her performance that puts her in an entirely different league from the smirking assassin in Killing Eve.