What’s Worth Watching: Everyone Gets a Courtside Seat on Broadchurch
Broadchurch, “Episode 2” (Wednesday, March 11, 10/9c, BBC America)
Last week’s Broadchurch premiere revealed that Season 2 would cover nearly the same ground as Season 1: The murder of 11-year-old Danny Latimer (Oskar McNamara). Rather than plead guilty as expected, Danny’s alleged killer, Joe Miller (Matthew Gravelle), did just the opposite. Starting tonight, the entire town of Broadchurch—especially Danny’s family and Joe’s wife, Ellie (Olivia Colman), a detective on the original case—will be subject to the entire investigation again, backwards, as Joe’s defense team tries to prove his innocence. The best detective show of 2013 is now this year’s best courtroom drama!
In their first big move, Joe’s lawyers endeavor to have his confession declared inadmissible by alleging that when Ellie hit him upon finding out he murdered their son’s friend, she was committing an act of police brutality permitted by her partner, Alec Hardy (David Tennant). Prosecuting attorney Jocelyn (Charlotte Rampling) did say that the other side would play dirty.
Meanwhile, the season’s “bonus” mystery: The resurfacing of the Sandbrook murder case that nearly put the kibosh on Hardy’s career before he relocated to Broadchurch gets much more interesting as Ellie grows closer to the accused killer’s wife, Claire (Eve Myles). Sure, they have a lot in common, but does anyone else find Claire a little creepy? Like, Joe creepy? Just a little something to consider while you watch…
