Public Enemies - spoilers

Paula Radnor probably doesn’t win ‘Probation Officer of the Year’.  Having let one of her clients go AWOL, then given him a second chance and thereby allowed him to murder someone, she’s now given a second chance to newly-released, volatile Eddie, convicted of murdering his girlfriend ten years previously.  Quite why she was reinstated at all isn’t clear, unless “you can’t be with them 24/7” is any sort of an accepted justification.  Anna Friel does harried and emotional quite well (‘Without You’) but Daniel Mays steals the acting honours as Eddie, believably portraying the transition from euphoria at being freed to vulnerability and hurt as he comes to terms with the damage a lost decade has done to him and to those around him.  You could argue that Mr Mays is typecast – he must have played every nuance of Cockney/Essex/Thames Estuary Geezer by now – but he’s also very good at it.

The plot twist at the end of episode one takes us in a new and not entirely welcome direction: Eddie claims he’s innocent.  Does Paula believe him?  Do we?  There have been a couple of hints that it could be one of his former friends (would a GP have on his list the father of the victim as well as the murderer, who happens to be an old friend?).  It will keep us watching, but we would have done that anyway, and we would have rooted for Eddie in trying to make a go of his life in the shadow of the crime he committed and the punishment he received.  Too soon to say, but here’s hoping Tony Marchant hasn’t opted out of a tough choice in order to avoid controversy.

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We are sad to say that Episode Two has strayed far into TWNH territory.  It was fine not to focus on the murder if the drama was about what happens to an ex-prisoner.  Having turned it into a did-he-or-didn’t-he story, the holes become too big to ignore.  Marchant keeps the audience guessing about who the murderer is, pointing first at one friend and then another, but it’s unclear why the police investigation at the time didn’t uncover the girl’s promiscuity, or any DNA evidence pointing to anyone else.  All we’ve been told is that she was strangled, which is usually a pretty hands-on process?

It may seem churlish to fault a drama which is (a) original and (b) features fine performances but there were several forced, false moments in last night’s hour: would Paula really back Eddie into a corner by forcing him out of a job?  Don’t they run anger management courses in the early evenings, at lunchtimes or weekends?  (We assume some people with anger issues hold down jobs.  In fact – no offence to colleagues - we know they do.)  Why didn’t she just send him straight back to prison, in that case?  The scene which culminates in him losing control in the hostel was also contrived – she just happened to be there when he listed all the ways in which she made him angry?  And wouldn’t the inevitable outcome of his rage both at the hostel and against Doctor Somers (Joe Armstrong) result in his going back inside?  Paula’s attempts to uncover a sound basis for her instinctive belief in him, by talking to his trial solicitor, Trevor Brotherton (Nicholas Gleaves), and to the murderer she’d previously left free to murder again, were unconvincing.  Nothing in the solicitor’s words or demeanour led us to think that he believed Eddie innocent, and surely she knew better than to believe Eddie just because Philip Pointer (Glen Davies) looked nasty?

Eddie’s relationship with Jayd (Aisling Loftus) was better, and believable, even if the bumper car and seaside scenes were unoriginal.

We are hoping that the final episode won’t reveal some absurd denouement, but the central plot is now very much more about innocence or guilt than it is about what life is or can be like for someone who has served their sentence for a serious crime.  Anna Friel has resumed major aspects of her role in the recent ITV drama ‘Without You’, running around trying to prove someone’s innocence without succumbing to the doubts of everyone around her.  Same tears, same face shapes....  Wouldn’t this have been better as a story of the parallel struggles and diverging lives of two ex-cons assuming, as the producers seem to, that a relatively simple story isn’t enough?

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The classic cliche wasn't even avoided, a too-close relationship between probation officer and released prisoner.  Not a great advert for the probation service in general.  Get their expert view at http://probationmatters.blogspot.com/2012/01/public-enemies.html  Not only is it highly unlikely that Eddie would have been released to the same area but, we think, it's equally unlikely that his friends, sister and victim's family would have remained there for the last decade, with all their bad memories.

So after all the red herrings, it was the dad.  "Can't help you, son," he says to Eddie, "I have to believe it's you."  Obviously bonkers.  That just leaves Eddie with a serious anger management problem and a shifty bunch of friends.  Oh and his probation officer who's in love with him.  Nobody mention Jayd, whoever she was, or poor Will (Barnaby Kay), but hey, he didn't manage his anger either, did he?