Gracepoint - S1E1 - Episode One
I love me a good murder mystery; not necessarily one involving dead children. Who am I kidding? I love a murder mystery, regardless of age.
12-year-old Danny Solano has been missing all day, and nobody really notices he’s missing until his body is found at Gracepoint beach. His mom hears a body has been found, knows instinctively that it is him, and then runs in slow motion all the way across the beach to his body with nobody stopping her, even though she’s running really slowly.
Detective Ellie Miller (Anna Gunn) is more upset that expert Detective Emmett Carver (David Tennant) was hired in place of a promotion she was promised than she is about the fact that her son’s best friend is lying dead at her feet. Wow, Ellie. Just, wow. Her animosity towards him continues throughout the episode, even after it’s concluded that Danny did not jump or fall and that his death was no accident. Nice priorities, lady. I don’t like her.
Gracepoint is a remake of BBC’s Broadchurch, also starring David Tennant in the same role, with a different accent. Now, I love David Tennant. I mean, who doesn’t? But there’s a lack of chemistry between he and his co-detective. I can’t even stand her. Her son’s best friend is dead. Her friend’s son is dead. A child that she knows in this small town she lives in is dead. Murdered, in fact. And this bitch walks around snapping at her partner for every little thing. “Don’t call me by my last name! Call me by my first name!”
Who’s the murderer? I suspect the dad or Ellie’s son, whose name I missed because I was too busy hating her face. But, then again, maybe they wanted us to think it was her son by having him act suspiciously.
I like the idea of this series better than I like the series itself. I’ll watch the rest of it, because I committed to recapping, and I’ll give it more time, but I’m not sure the execution is working for me. There’s nothing gripping about the story, thus far, and I really don’t care what happens. Also, the sadness of a family losing a child is sort of lost somehow. Like, I don’t feel the emptiness. I don’t feel their pain. I don’t feel sad. I don’t feel like they feel sad, either. You know what I mean? Maybe they’re bad actors, maybe the writing is just bad, maybe one of them is the killer and that’s why. I don’t know. But I just don’t feel it. You know what I mean? Overall, I’m disappointed. But I’m open to see what next week brings. The trailer looks good. Some things need time to pick up.
