Suspect

Peter McGinn5/10

Aug 8, 2022

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It is safe to say that I watched this miniseries, and indeed stayed with it, because I really like James Nesbitt. In this story at first he sticks pretty close to the path of many TV police inspectors. He is obsessed by his job to the exclusion of family and friends, and he bends rules at the drop of a fedora. But in this case, the dead body he is sent to check on in the morgue turns out to be his estranged daughter. Ouch. Because he was the world’s worst father, the trauma of her apparent suicide and losing the opportunity of ever reconciling with her causes him to go off the rails completely. The sympathy I felt for him, as great as it started out, wilted under the continuous assault of his temper and high-handed actions. But maybe that is just me. He commits one excessive act after another, all the while seeing and listening to snippets of advice from his dead daughter. One could argue it is a weird form of PTSD. I suppose as a detective at least you could say he was persistent and observant in his quest to gather circumstantial evidence, but I felt like even if no evidence or clues fell his way he would have stuck with his gut instinct to the exclusion of apparent facts and acted accordingly. Part of me wanted to stop watching, but it is a short series, with an actor I like, and was a bit like watching a slow train wreck. You may not like what you are seeing, but it is difficult pulling your eyes away. At least there won’t be a sequel.