It's an apt title. The opening credits rap out loudly over scenes of some unappealing-looking young men acting shiftily (not another self-consciously stylish gangster show: hate) but this quickly gives way to the plot, with the cataclysmic act happening within the first ten minutes (not signposted, almost understated: love), building characters within the context of this event (with some changes in viewers' understanding of the situation along the way: love) but failing to avoid certain family-gangster cliches (like the prodigal boy and the girl he left behind, who has moved on, but whom he still loves: hate) and ending with a strangely uneven anti-climax to a will-they-won't-they scenario (will-they-won't-they kill someone they've dragged into the woods, that is: indifference, ultimately).
Three parts left to go, and it's tantalising enough to tune in next week, or even set to record for the joy of watching performers like Aidan Gillan and Ruth Negga. Let's hope it evens out, avoids any further cliches (or resolves them in original ways) and relies on its writing and acting rather than slathered rap or stylish tricks.
Screened over five days and likened to 'The Killing' (but by whom, we don't know) this had us thinking it was 'Midsomer Murders' at first. Every drama featuring an English village tradition has this curse, thanks to ITV.... The May Queen goes missing on her way to the parade and secrets start popping up like weeds after rain. This takes care to set up suspects from the start: one character chain-smokes and keeps away from his wife; another - a cop - has blood on his clothes and gets tetchy when his wife finds him having a shower and yet a third hides something in a bag in a cupboard and locks it up. As usual, a dog makes a find in the woods, but it's a sort of Well Dressing in the woods rather than a body. And as usual all the men seem to know that the supposedly innocent 14-year-old Hattie Sutton is anything but.
It's a bit odd that the men of the village form a search party and head straight to the woods, rather than following her supposed route by bicycle through the village, and unaccompanied by any police. There are a number of characters, whose relationships aren't yet clear (who's the guy on the screen?) so the next-day screenings are a good idea.
So far this feels like an uneasy mix of 'Midsomer' and Jez Butterworth's play of mythic truths 'Jerusalem'. We hope it coalesces into something more gripping than a standard whodunnit.
