Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Gillian Anderson, Jamie Dornan, John Lynch, Bronagh Waugh, Niamh McGrady, Sarah Beattie, Aisling Franciosi, Emmett J Scanlan, Archie Panjabi, Stuart Graham, Gerard Jordan, Bronagh Taggart, Valene Kane, Richard Clements, Jonjo O’Neill, Kelly Gough, Orla Mullan, Colin Morgan, Ruairí Tohill.
The Fall of humanity is a precarious downward path and it can start with a single dominant voice whispering in the dark, it soft murmuring causing a fuse to blow somewhere and in which starts the domino like destruction wrought on society is one that should be investigated more and evidence found in which to support the afflicted in the future. What happens before then though can be seen a terrorizing game between two people and in The Fall that game is played out with the severest of consequences.
The clever mirroring of Jamie Dornan’s Paul Spector and Gillian Anderson’s Stella Gibson is one that may have gone unnoticed in the terrifying psychological drama over the course of two seasons but is one that binds the overall story-line of The Fall together. Like some sort of perverted Widdershin’s Jig, both parties, the career detective and the dangerous psychopath, can be seen as two sides of the same coin, meeting on its metal encased edges and blurring into one another. The sexual magnetism that both exude, the sense of power they feel when in charge of the situation and the mind games they both perform in the course of their actions is a worrying and destructive trait. The question that the viewer may find themselves unconsciously asking is that just who should society be afraid of more?
No doubt Paul Spector is very dangerous and unbalanced man but Stella Gibson with her absolute faith in her actions, her almost ready discarding approach to those she has used and the sheer weight of arrogance she has allows to come hurtling out when needed is one in which would make fellow officer’s question her fibre of being. The psychopath and the Sociopath arm in arm make for very disquieting viewing.
Both main leads have been outstanding. There will be those that liken Gillian Anderson’s portrayal of the outsider bought into the maelstrom of Irish politics and religious fervour to Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect but this is a deeper look into a mind that could be arguably seen as just as dangerous, just as dedicated to her cause as the criminal she is pursuing. Jamie Dornan gives a chilling, brutal and almost despotic display as the man who is behind the dreadful crimes and in Aisling Franciosi, the young school girl Katie Benedetto, caught in a world that has altered her perception on the difference between right and wrong, this is an actor who captures devout adulation in the darkness very well; Ms. Franciosi is a flowering talent who should be nurtured if her career is to flourish.
With the addition of Colin Morgan making an overdue return to television since the finale of Merlin and Valene Kane as Rose Stagg, the woman trapped in the nightmare world of abduction and torture, the cast of The Fall is strong and lives up completely to the premise on offer in this compelling, if unruly and violent drama.
With an ambiguous ending employed, there may be scope for a further series of The Fall but it has to be said that sometimes just because you can add more to the series, doesn’t mean you should.
Ian D. Hall