The Split - General Discussion

[kieyra]

Quote

The Defoes, a family of female divorce lawyers, are forced to face their past following the return of their estranged father after a 30 year absence.

Stars:

Nicola Walker, Stephen Mangan, Annabel Scholey

This currently has two seasons available on Hulu (US), and a third has been confirmed.

I just recently got into this. I’m almost through season one. Nicola Walker is fabulous as ever, in a role that’s slightly different from her usual types. I’ve mostly only seen Stephen Mangan in comedies, but he’s doing fantastic drama work here. And Anthony Stewart Head plays the estranged father in question.

I expected this to be a bit more lightweight, a la the Good Wife or something else you’d see on US broadcast TV (dueling law firms and all that), but the family/infidelity themes hit hard, in my opinion. And the writing is way better than I expected. 

[michelec]

Yay, a thread.

I saw both seasons on Sundance. I really enjoyed it. In addition to the family/law firm politics drama, both of the "case of the season" were well played too.

Without getting into too much detail about season 2, I will say that the general theme seemed to be about coming to a crossroad and dealing with it accordingly.

Glad to hear there's a season 3 to look forward to. 

[kieyra]

Hot take on finishing season 1: I wanted Hannah to end up with Christie, merely because she seemed absolutely uninterested in being with Nathan any longer. And if she didn’t want to sleep with him before finding out about his dalliances, how were they ever going to have sex again after that? So when it looked like she was going to turn down Christie I was kind of bummed, because I thought there was some underlying message of “just stay together even if you’re miserable, because ... marriage”. 

Of course, it’s only season 1, that could still end up being the message in the end. And I don’t expect things will be smooth sailing with Christie for more than like, one episode anyway. 

[kieyra]

Hah, yeah, that didn’t last long. Christie went stage-five clinger right out of the gate. 

[catherinejane]

i have really enjoyed this show, have watched both seasons (as in the UK) and looking forward to the third. I enjoy the sisterly arguments.

And the clothes! nice to see Nicola looking so glam, she is very dowdy dressed in Unforgotten (season 4 on now in UK)

[MurphysMom]

I had really hoped to see more people discussing this show. I definitely needed a bit of a refresher prior to watching Season 2 as it had been a while. It seemed rather odd to me that their father’s widow was missing when the family met to spread ashes. I didn’t recall a final scene with her in S1 but I may have just forgotten. It appears that baby sister Rose is supposed to be the comic relief in the story line but I find her to be incredibly irritating and way too self involved. 
 

 

[kieyra]

On 4/1/2021 at 5:24 AM, MurphysMom said:

I had really hoped to see more people discussing this show.

I don't even know how I managed to stumble on it on Hulu--unfortunately I bet a lot of US viewers don't know it exists unless they're already Nicola Walker fans. Seems like it might have been a better fit for Netflix. 

I'm a little more than halfway through season 2, but got distracted by other things/shows. I think something about Christie turning into such a predictable kind of antagonist lost me a bit. I will end up watching the rest, though, especially since a third season is coming. 

On 3/27/2021 at 8:13 AM, catherinejane said:

nice to see Nicola looking so glam, she is very dowdy dressed in Unforgotten (season 4 on now in UK)

To say nothing of Last Tango in Halifax, where she's literally a sheep farmer. 🙂

[tony s]

I am a latecomer to this conversation. I think it is brilliantly acted and written and can't wait for season 3. In a nutshell, it's about a self centred woman who ruins a good marriage (in the end, we see she loves Nathan) and by connection stufffs up her own family (kids don't like upsets like this!). It is empowering from a male perspective. She thinks can choose either man, and she can until she goes and sleeps with Ritchie in his flat. Thats when she lost it. She can now choose Christie (he wants her) but it would mean leaving the family home, marriage and family. So she chooses Nathan in the end, so all the power switches to him. It's no longer her decision, it's Nathan's. She made him a cuckold (look it up) and no man likes that. Which is why he will be giving her the flick in series 3. Serves her right! Tony

[tony3641]

Supposedly a series showing the power of a female (Hannah) and how she can make a choice between her husband and her lover.  However, in finality, it's very empowering for a male. A story of a self centred woman who ruins a good marriage (and by connection, hasn't done the kids any favour!). She thinks it's her choice who she wants,  and it is until the moment she goes to do it with Christie in his flat. She was always going to get found out. Then she decides she really wants husband Nathan. BUT she has made him a cuckold. So he is now the one with the power, and as would most men, Nathan drops her, he is the one with the say in the end.  Tony S

[LisaM]

I am a huge Nicola Walker fan so I finally found a way to watch The Split. Enjoyed the other members of the Defoe family just as much as Hannah. Liked Season 1 a bit more than Season 2. I would like to see Hannah and Nathan back together. Both have been at fault during their marriage; if they can get past the hurt and anger, they still seem to want to be together. Christie annoys the heck out of me...and what is up with Tyler, who just married Zander, kissing Nina??

[bichonblitz]

Aside from loving this show I have to say British actors are so different and it's refreshing. They don't have perfect teeth, stretched faces full of fillers and botox, normal looking lips, normal size boobs and don't wear fake hair extensions. They look like real people! Unlike American actors that are so obsessed with looking perfect to the point of all looking the same. Blinding white veneers, fake hair, boobs, not a line on their faces no matter how old they are, ballon inflated lips, well, you get the idea.  

[LadyMustang65]

We just found this show. We loved Nicola Walker in River and then watched Unforgotten and loved her in that. So went looking for more. I have to say we are enjoying the show - so far only seen up to the first episode of Season 2 - but at the moment we are fed up and disgusted with Hannah.  What a bloody hypocrite!  She knows how she felt when she found out that Nathan had had casual sex with another woman 4 times, so she thinks it's perfectly okay to start an affair, complete with emotions involved, with another man?  And still looking at his e-mails and laptop trying to make sure he's not cheating on her again?  What the actual eff, lady!  

Despite that, we are still definitely on Team Nathan.  I don't care what she tells herself, Hannah has a basically good marriage with Nathan.  He's a good man, a good father, and he makes her laugh.  You can't watch some of those family scenes and not feel the real love and affection there.  She's obsessed like some dumb teenager with "the one who got away."  And we hate Christie.  With a passion.  He's a complete asshole.  He tells her when she's considering coming to his firm that there won't be an issue, and then he's constantly hitting on her.  Then once she starts sleeping with him, he has absolutely ZERO sense of decorum.  Make out in the office?  Text her 20 times a night while she's at home with her husband?  He's a smarmy, selfish, prick, and I want him to get hit by a bus.  And I want her to have a near-death experience that wakes her the eff up to how good she has it.  She's acting like a lovesick teenager mooning over the football captain.  

We love the underlying stories of the different clients.  They're very well done and well told.  Nobody's really a caricature; they're so far mostly fleshed out real people.  I don't know what's going to happen in the rest of the second season, but if Nathan doesn't find out she's having an affair, it will only be because he is the least curious person in the entire world.  Christie is not trying to hide it; personally I think he wants Nathan to find out.  I think he's been jealous of Nathan for getting the woman he wanted.  And if it goes the other direction and Hannah ends up with Christie, my bet is that he gets tired of her after a bit and cheats on her, too.  I'm not at all convinced he loves her as much as he loves the idea of stealing her away from Nathan.

Glad to see that other people are enjoying the show as well.  I'm hoping that Season 3 will be available on Hulu soon.

[christie]

Season three, episode one: I found the episode to be a bit boring (I didn't get into it as much as previous episodes) plus which I had forgotten that Nathan and Hannah had three children (I only remembered two). I'm gonna put the rest in spoiler tags just to be on the safe side.

Spoiler

Called Nathan's girlfriend being pregnant. Is she the same woman that he cheated on Hannah with?

Called James being hit by a car.

Zander is so going to have his heart broken (this was obvious from last season). Could pretty boy and Hannah's sister be more obvious at the firm that something's going on between them?

 

[christie]

So, having watched all of season three, I found this season a bit boring and predictable. The last episode, however, was a nice wrapup but

Spoiler

why were Zander, his sister, brother in law and Rose's vicar all sitting at the family table at Ruth and Ronnie's wedding? Why weren't Ronnie's kids there? I realise that they probably wanted the cast all together one last time but it made absolutely no sense that Lennie, Felix and the vicar would even be invited let alone sitting at the family table. 

I liked that they didn't show us Christie's answer to Hannah; I'm betting that he said "no," he always wanted the fantasy but was never, actually, a part of her life.