S02.E08: Episode 8

[Kiss my mutt]

I'm ready to take Ellie's orange jacket and hide it where she'll never find it again.

[stillshimpy]

^Love the screenname above me. 

 

 

 

Maybe Season 3 can be the Murder of Sharon's Assistant. Everyone who is supposed to investigate will be "yeah, I'll get right on that…just after this…um..thing that I gotta do…"

 

She was horrible and  there was no explanation for why she was such a piece of excrement as a human being.  I oddly appreciated that we weren't given any justifying motive for this moron to be so damned giddy about releasing a known child-killer and molester. Plus, the actor made a really interesting choice, and I genuinely appreciated it because it was one of the things that helped define her: she played every scene she was in as if she was a character actor in romantic comedy.  Very broad, emotionally clueless, overly-light.  I absolutely believe it was purposeful. 

 

When contrasted with Claire's chilling ability to manipulate and change emotional gears to do so, it was a particularly brilliant choice.  That heinous assistant just has no emotional depth, or inner-world.  She seemed to be the most emotionally tone deaf human being of all time, but it was an acting choice that really added to the role.  Instead of playing jaded, or cynical, she played it all like she really didn't comprehend human emotion or the terrible risk she was helping to expose some future child to by getting Joe off the hook. 

 

She didn't even have the grace to actually exhibit any understanding of that, even after Jocelyn's assistant pointed out to her that she was a horrible human being.  She looked mostly confused and hurt vs. shamed.  Prior to that moment she'd played the scene so flirtatiously, like she was anticipating him asking her out.  It was the icing on the cake of "Wow, what a horrible human being..." and then he told her she was a horrible human being.  

 

Anyway, that's the only fresh thing I had to add. 

 

Except that I watched the second season over the course of a couple of days and I enjoyed it.  It really is a series that rises and falls on the strength of some really good acting choices vs. the writing.  I let out an "Oh crap!" when Joe stumbled into that cottage and there was Beth.  

 

The actors really make this series. 

Edited December 8, 2015 by stillshimpy

[lulee]

Just finished watching Series 1 & 2 on Netflix in the past few days.

 

The mess of the trial mirrored the mess of the case against Joe which mirrored the mess of the people involved (which was still not as bad as the Sandbrooke neighbors).

 

Joe never had a psychotic break or anything of the sort. It was a matter of him changing and everyone around him not realizing it until afterward. He became a stay-at-home dad and was probably not doing well with all that time not around other adults. He probably spent too much time in his own head. The line from Ellie (and maybe some others during S1) about when was he going to finish painting the room hinted at him not keeping up and not handling things. Joe couldn't deal with his feelings for Danny and couldn't deal with Danny's rejection and then couldn't deal with what he'd done and then couldn't deal with the consequences. Ellie married a paramedic (whose assault on a man she didn't know of) who probably seemed like a really well functioning adult. He had probably had feelings for adolescent boys for a longtime but never acting on them until his son's peer group reached the age he was attracted to.

 

I thought the final scenes were fitting: Hardy moving on from these two cases, Ellie and the Latimers banishing Joe, and the moving on scene on the beach of the families making a fresh start together, bringing baby Lizzie to that spot and having hugs and crisps.

And of course Joe's banishment doesn't have legal standing, but it wasn't just Ellie, Beth, Mark, Nigel, and Paul involved. Maggie, Becca, Chloe, Tom, Olly, and Lucy - a maybe another one or two were there - and there would be a lot more than that in the town who would shun Joe. Would he find a place to rent? A job? People willing to talk to him? The town wasn't tiny, but small enough to make Joe's life miserable. I hope Joe is gone for good, alive somewhere far far away and not to be seen again in Series 3. So many of the subplots received closure or something close to it in the S2 finale. I really hope that S3 moves on to a new case, maybe some of the same characters and still linked to Broadchurch the town.

 

I have a suspicion that S3 could focus on Jonah's case, which I don't know if I could take. Sharon Bishop just about killed my love for Marianne Jean Baptiste who I've liked since I saw Secrets & Lies.

If Ben returns in S3, I hope he has laryngitis throughout because no line could top when he told Sharon's assistant Abby, "I think you're a horrible person." I wanted to reach through the screen and high-five him.

[lulee]

When Mark and Vince dragged Joe out of the church I assumed series three would revolve around Joe's suspicious death, but the group banishment actually worked.

I wish Vince would have helped round up Joe. That would have been awesome! Get 'em, boy!

 

It was fitting that Mark and Nigel rounded Joe up, not only for their relationships to Danny and each other, but also the additional angle that they had both been suspected and then accused in court and Joe sat there and let Sharon Bishop insinuate their guilt. I felt so prescient after the Joe/ Nigel confusion in season 1 because in the premiere episode I had thought, "Those two look too much alike for it to be a coincidence," but my powers are limited -- I didn't completely suss out the scenario of Pippa and Lisa's deaths.

[MaryPatShelby]

I'm ready to take Ellie's orange jacket and hide it where she'll never find it again.

Yeah, but on the other hand, one of the things I love about Ellie, and the actress, is that she seems so "regular people".  Not beautiful, not sexy, not coiffed to within an inch of her life, just a pleasant person whom one can imagine living next door and being friends with.  I don't know about anyone else, but I don't have a ton of different coats for each season.  I like that Ellie wears the same coat every day.

[MisterGlass]

Just had a chance to finish watching Season 2 on Netflix.  I think the parts related to the trial were well thought out and convincingly showed how someone like Joe could escape justice.  There were a lot of procedural and judgmental errors in the investigation.  And the defense attorney had absolutely no qualms in slandering the family of the victim and the betrayed wife of her client.  She stitched together quite a web of bizarre theories, hoping one would stick.  I don't think the suggested affair and collusion between Ellie and Hardy landed (really, a two hour conversation between work partners after a difficult and tragic day? shocking), but the inferences about Mark had some weight given his status as a former suspect, and sadly she had evidence to imply broader police misconduct.  I'm surprised Hardy's medical condition wasn't brought up to rebuff the idea that he could have forcibly extracted a confession from Joe.  His heart nearly stopped when he tried to give chase to the suspect near the end of Season 1, which led to his medical discharge.  Joe seemed to have convinced himself that a trial was kind of trial by combat and that he would be justified by the verdict in everyone's eyes.  He was grasping at straws, and deluded.

 

Other commenters have pointed at the logical flaws in the behavior of Lee and Claire over the Sandbrook killings.  I agree it makes no sense for Lee to pester Hardy into investigating further unless he really was innocent.  I thought Lee was being set up as a patsy, or at worst an accomplice after the fact.  Nope.

 

That said, I was most interested in the stories of Hardy and Ellie, and on those points I was very satisfied.  David Tennant and Olivia Coleman both did so well with their material.  Hardy's surprise at being alive after the surgery and the breakdown after the resolution of Sandbrook were very good.  I'm not sure if they changed his make-up or lighting after the surgery but he did look less ill.  I liked the moments with his wife, as well.  I wasn't sure she would be a likable character from what little we knew in the first season, but she was, and I'm glad she wasn't cartoon-evil and helped him personally and professionally.  Ellie really shone in the casework and the raw anger toward Joe.  Since Hardy solved her case it was good to see her solve his.  I liked her enough-with-this speech to her son outside the court, insisting that they were family and going to act like it.  Hardy and Ellie had a lot of good small bits.  I loved her antagonizing him about going to the fair behind his rental house.  The goodbye was perfect.

 

Now I have to clear my head before the second season of Agent Carter so I can watch James D'Arcy play the prim and proper Jarvis again.

[staveDarsky]

I just finished a marathon watching of Season 2......excellent television.  The acting was first class, and Olivia Colman is a British treasure.  When the season began showing in Britain, I remember headlines in the entertainment news that viewers were angry with the series, but I never read why because I didn't want to be spoiled. Does anyone know the reason for their anger?

 

There was also some negative press coming from the Daily Mail which seems to have a hate-on for David Tennant. They raised the issue of complaints about not being able to understand what he was saying.

And there  were a lot of fans who expected series 2 to be another who-dun-it with clues to spot and solve. The Sandbrook case needed unravelling it was more a "WTF happened?" story and the constantly changing stories put forward by Claire, Ricky and Lee confused viewers until the end. They didn't like that.

 

Viewers also really disliked the court case exposing mistakes made by people in series 1 and felt Chris Chibnall had reinterpreted a solid story presented in series 1 --- what they called "retconning".

 

 

--------------------------------------

To finish, I LOVED series 2. And I loved that we were constantly sparked to go back and review parts of series 1 to see on rewatch if we'd missed details or misinterpreted things that happened in series 1. I thought it was a brilliant move to send the audience back to the first series for things being raised in series 2. And on rewatch I saw no "retconning".

 

I saw a lot of deeper levels to the stories -- both the trial and Sandbrook. My comments are scattered all over the discussion threads so I won't rehash them here.

I'm looking forward to series 3 bringing up things we thought we saw in both series 1 and series 2 but that we have to go and rewatch because we probably missed something. It's frustrating that now it looks like we're waiting at least another year for it.

[staveDarsky]

Joe never had a psychotic break or anything of the sort. It was a matter of him changing and everyone around him not realizing it until afterward. He became a stay-at-home dad and was probably not doing well with all that time not around other adults. He probably spent too much time in his own head. The line from Ellie (and maybe some others during S1) about when was he going to finish painting the room hinted at him not keeping up and not handling things. Joe couldn't deal with his feelings for Danny and couldn't deal with Danny's rejection and then couldn't deal with what he'd done and then couldn't deal with the consequences. Ellie married a paramedic (whose assault on a man she didn't know of) who probably seemed like a really well functioning adult. He had probably had feelings for adolescent boys for a longtime but never acting on them until his son's peer group reached the age he was attracted to.

...

I have a suspicion that S3 could focus on Jonah's case, which I don't know if I could take. Sharon Bishop just about killed my love for Marianne Jean Baptiste who I've liked since I saw Secrets & Lies.

 

Re Joe -- I felt the same thing. That Joe's problem is tied to his identity as a paramedic. So when he quit to take care of the baby, he was no longer a hero paramedic saving lives or giving comfort, but stuck in the doldrums of daily life. Then Danny shows up with a fat lip from Mark and in need of comfort and Joe became his hero for a while. At one point in series 1, he lamented Tom having his own interests to pursue and Ellie being busy at work. I honestly believe he has a hero complex which drove the relationship with Danny more than sex did. It also gives some credence to his convincing himself in series 2 that he could get his boys back and go back to living at home. But that's my theory.

Re Jonah -- I highly doubt that will be the case because whatever the case is has to have some interest for Hardy and Ellie to pursue. Only Sharon and Jocelyn had any connection to Jonah and Jocelyn's interest in helping Sharon get him acquitted pointed to a conclusion for his story. Charlotte Rampling has announced she won't be in series 3, so I think the lawyers' stories are done.

We do have the mystery of what happened to Hardy when he was a kid visiting Broadchurch with his parents. I wouldn't be surprised if series 3 delved into that back story. We've certainly seen him thinking about being a boy sitting on that beach A LOT!

[gus]

Just finished binge-watching both seasons on Netflix.  Here's another big problem I saw with Jocelyn's prosecution, which I haven't seen mentioned anywhere.  Sharon's theory about Mark as the killer was that Danny confronted Mark after he saw Mark and Becca from the window, and Mark killed Danny to keep him from running to Beth with the information.  But Mark had just testified that the "missing" hour of his time that night was spent writing a letter he planned to give to Beth, admitting that he'd met someone else and was going to leave Beth to be with her.  Jocelyn should have picked this up as being completely inconsistent with Sharon's ridiculous, slanderous theory - a theory that was nothing more than speculation by an attorney (which is NOT evidence), and that was contradicted by sworn testimony (which IS evidence).  

[secnarf]

Just finished binge-watching both seasons on Netflix.  Here's another big problem I saw with Jocelyn's prosecution, which I haven't seen mentioned anywhere.  Sharon's theory about Mark as the killer was that Danny confronted Mark after he saw Mark and Becca from the window, and Mark killed Danny to keep him from running to Beth with the information.  But Mark had just testified that the "missing" hour of his time that night was spent writing a letter he planned to give to Beth, admitting that he'd met someone else and was going to leave Beth to be with her.  Jocelyn should have picked this up as being completely inconsistent with Sharon's ridiculous, slanderous theory - a theory that was nothing more than speculation by an attorney (which is NOT evidence), and that was contradicted by sworn testimony (which IS evidence).  

Jocelyn butchered the prosecution in nearly every possible way.

I think that is my biggest gripe with season 2.

[Mama No Life]

 

Plus, the actor made a really interesting choice, and I genuinely appreciated it because it was one of the things that helped define her: she played every scene she was in as if she was a character actor in romantic comedy.  Very broad, emotionally clueless, overly-light.  I absolutely believe it was purposeful. 

 

That may be the most perfect comment ever made on a message board. YES.  I couldn't put my finger on it but you nailed it!  Maybe Sandra Bullock can star next season....

Edited January 26, 2016 by Mama No Life

[BookWoman56]

I was satisfied with most of the resolution for this season. I wasn't surprised Joe was found not guilty, because of two things: first, his defense attorney was taking the spaghetti approach of throwing various theories of a different killer out there and seeing if one of them would stick with the jury enough to raise doubts; and second, entirely too many people failed to give Jocelyn the complete truth about their own actions. She missed some opportunities for follow-up questions that might have mitigated some of the damage done by various witnesses, but it seemed as if she had been able to counter most of the damaging testimony until Mark admitted that he had been so close to the murder scene. I think that was the tipping point for the jury; it wasn't necessarily that single event but the combination of all the oddities (Joe getting beaten up, Ellie seemingly bribing her sister to give a statement, etc.) that made them have second thoughts about Joe's guilt.

 

As noted elsewhere, Ellie should just have flatly stated that she periodically had to give her sister money, and so that particular instance wasn't necessarily a bribe but just life as usual.

 

The one thing I cannot fathom is why in the hell Beth is still with Mark. Sure, I wanted Beth to STFU when she was blaming Ellie for things that Ellie had no control over. But Mark was a piece of work. During the trial, it's come out that he had sex with another woman, planned to end the marriage by writing a letter to Beth (seriously, was he planning on just walking out the next morning and leaving the letter for her to read?), and had secret meetings with the son of the accused murderer. How could Beth ever trust him or his judgment again? And why would she want to? I understand, new baby and all that, but Mark did nothing but whinge about how tough this was for him, all the while withholding critical information from Jocelyn, which if she'd had prior to the day of his testimony, she could have developed a strategy to deal with it.

 

I was happy to see Hardy interact with his ex-wife in a productive way and be on good terms with his daughter. That resolution felt completely right, after he had endured so much.

 

For the record, though, Nige creeps me out. I kept waiting for some big reveal about him that never happened. I could easily see him as a serial killer who simply happened not to have killed this particular kid.

[Milburn Stone]

On February 25, 2015 at 0:20 PM, mledawn said:

It's not clear that Joe was indeed the killer. The audience was required to assume that Joe was a reliable narrator, yet we were given nothing else of his character to indicate we could rely on him to tell the truth.

The reason it was clear that Joe was the killer is that the flashback that showed us the crime was not Joe's flashback, it was the show's flashback. A suspect doesn't begin his flashback with the words "59 Days Earlier." (Can you imagine? "The transcript shows the subject began his confession with the words "59 days earlier...") A show might. The issue of Joe's reliability as a narrator is not relevant, since the flashback was not his depiction of what went down, it was the show's.

Edited August 2, 2016 by Milburn Stone

[secnarf]

10 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

The reason it was clear that Joe was the killer is that the flashback that showed us the crime was not Joe's flashback, it was the show's flashback. A suspect doesn't begin his flashback with the words "59 Days Earlier." (Can you imagine? "The transcript shows the subject began his confession with the words "59 days earlier...") A show might. The issue of Joe's reliability as a narrator is not relevant, since the flashback was not his depiction of what went down, it was the show's.

As stated on another thread, this is your opinion. Another opinion, also valid, is that it is Joe's flashback, or a depiction of what Joe was saying in his confession, with the caption there to orient the audience. Neither opinion is fact and neither is indisputable. I am of the opinion that what we saw is what actually happened, but I can still entertain the possibility that it wasn't, and see the merit in that. Again, see Gracepoint as an example.

[Milburn Stone]

3 hours ago, secnarf said:

As stated on another thread, this is your opinion. Another opinion, also valid, is that it is Joe's flashback, or a depiction of what Joe was saying in his confession, with the caption there to orient the audience. Neither opinion is fact and neither is indisputable. I am of the opinion that what we saw is what actually happened, but I can still entertain the possibility that it wasn't, and see the merit in that. Again, see Gracepoint as an example.

Just for my information, secnarf (since I haven't seen Gracepoint and don't intend to): Does the flashback in Gracepoint start with a superimposed title that says "59 Days Earlier" (or the equivalent), as the one in Broadchurch did? This title is the evidence that the flashback in Broadchurch is objective reality, not the tale told by one character. If Gracepoint started with that super, and the flashback turned out to be false, I'd say Gracepoint cheated in a manner that Broadchurch didn't.

[staveDarsky]

The only people truly unspoiled for the rest of a series are those watching the debut broadcast. To illustrate, I invite you to go and look at comments I made in the episode threads dated in January-February 2015 versus those I made later, after I'd seen the full series. The ones later on are subtly missing speculation because once I'd seen the whole thing I could no longer speculate on things that were eventually confirmed or denied.

And  just after the finale aired, Chris Chibnall took to social media to confirm definitively that Joe was guilty and that what happened in the "59 days earlier" sequence had really happened as shown. Once he declared that in real time virtually all speculation about him disappeared from the episode forums.

So of course now, a subsequent viewer like you has no doubt that sequence happened as shown. You have no reason to question it, because no one else is questioning it in the forums any more. But in those days when the series hadn't finished airing for the first time, all this speculation was legitimate. Much of the point of series 2 was to get the viewers questioning what was real and what wasn't. We were confused and skeptical, so everything was being thrown into doubt.

[Milburn Stone]

10 hours ago, staveDarsky said:

So of course now, a subsequent viewer like you has no doubt that sequence happened as shown. You have no reason to question it, because no one else is questioning it in the forums any more. But in those days when the series hadn't finished airing for the first time, all this speculation was legitimate. Much of the point of series 2 was to get the viewers questioning what was real and what wasn't. We were confused and skeptical, so everything was being thrown into doubt.

Good theory, but incorrect. I wasn't reading this forum when I saw the episode with the "59 Days Earlier" flashback, nor did I know anything about Chris Chibnall talking to social media, and I never had the slightest doubt from the moment I saw it that the flashback was objective reality. The reason I never had the slightest doubt was the superimposed title that began it. A suspect doesn't think about the exact number of days it's been since the crime, when there are that many days. He might say it had been a couple of months; he'd never say it had been 59 days, nor is it very likely he'd have been counting the exact number of days. And since both suspect and detective know when the crime took place as to date and approximate time span, the furnishing of any time information by the suspect to the detective would be completely superfluous. The existence and exactitude of the figure made it a certainty that it was the show giving the audience information about the time span, not the suspect giving it to the detective. And since this information was embedded in the flashback in the form of a super, that meant the flashback itself was coming from the show to the audience, not from the suspect to the detective. And that meant the show was telling us, "Believe this--it happened." 

Edited August 3, 2016 by Milburn Stone

[frenchtoast]

We've reached the saturation point where the conversation has become circular. Also, please remember that folks are allowed to see/understand points from a shows differently and that is not wrong. Nor are people required to provide endless reasons or justifications in order to persuade the other "side". Because that is how circular arguments are continued. Agree to disagree and move on.

[Guest]

Late to the party, but I have to voice my gripes with this story.  I love the setting, acting, cast and cinematography but the writing was weak, I thought.

Claire wasn't just pretending to be terrified of Lee at the beginning.  She had a scene alone where she acted terrified of him returning.  That made no sense.

Lee fleeing the country made no sense.  He was acquitted.  

So you have a death scene with bloody floors and two dead girls.  Would you really take them to three places to hide them?  Why not just take them all to the crematorium?

Lee was so afraid of being suspected of killing a girl, that he kills a girl?  That would've been his word against the other guy's.  Having sex with a 19 year old isn't even illegal.  The uncle watching for 15 minutes, then admitting he did so, was the creepier act.  

Why did Lee take in the girls for the night after chasing off the harmless teen 'stalker'?  

Why did Pippa's dad leave the wedding and go home?

Where were Lisa's parents in all this?  Wasn't she Pippa's cousin?

Why did it have to be Hardy who found Pippa?  The detective just happens to be strolling in those remote woods?  

I get so tired of the egghead syndrome on tv.  Someone is pushed over and miraculously dies instantaneously.  It's an overused plot device.  And no one ever just realizes that is truly an accidental death and calls the authorities.  They always act like it's murder and hide the body.  

Beth couldn't bear the sight of Ellie all season, she practically acted like Ellie killed Danny, until the end when they were inexplicably best buds.

Tom lied on the stand to help free his dad, then he acted afraid of him when he did get acquitted and even joined the pitchfork mob.

Joe should've been thrilled with the ticket out of town, I think.  He was faced with imprisonment (and probably getting killed in prison), or living a life of being detested and most likely thrown off that cliff in Broadchurch, or leaving.  I think he would've been on the first bus out of there, from the courtroom.  

Claire loved Lee so much she had him kill Pippa and stole the necklace to save his neck.  But hated him enough to abort the baby and hide for months.  But loved him again for a spell in Broadchurch.  Then hated him enough to tell on him for killing Pippa, even though she easily could've let them think the rohypnol killed her.  

The trial had too many issues to bother listing.

If viewers didn't misinterpret things like Joe's guilt, the writers wouldn't have to go on social media and clarify their stories.  I'd rather they do that then spell things out in even more anvilicious ways on screen.  They already usually write like we're stupid.

[theatremouse]

13 hours ago, Winston9-DT3 said:

I get so tired of the egghead syndrome on tv.  Someone is pushed over and miraculously dies instantaneously. 

Do you mean Lisa here? Because I thought the issue was all Lee's flooring tools were still in the room and when she was pushed over she was in a different spot than where they'd been having sex (much closer to the equipment), and her head was spiked on something sharp that was on the floor. It happened fast but there was a distinct sound of what I thought was something puncturing her skull/brain, hence the blood. It didn't read to me like they were implying just hitting the floor was a sufficient blow to her head to kill her instantly.

[smorbie]

On 2/23/2015 at 9:32 PM, secnarf said:

I still don't like either of the barristers and I really hope they don't show up in the future.

Achh.  Me, either.  I hope they're gone.

[smorbie]

On 3/2/2015 at 2:53 AM, Pippin said:

Like believing that Kaylee Anthony's grandfather, who by all accounts loved the child with all his heart, would dispose of her body in a garbage ba

That is exactly the case I was thinking about when I processing the farce of a trial. And, BTW, just because I hated her, I'm glad the hastily-put-together sharon's son is in prison.

[smorbie]

On 4/23/2015 at 11:15 AM, jeansheridan said:

I like that Paul who started the season sneaking off to help Joe, decided to involve the important parties in the end and STILL helped Joe (because a priest should do that in my opinion).

As an American and a Christian, I have been impressed by the way the show handled Paul's role.  In America he would have been the murderer of ALL the children as well as a pedophile, a still-practicing alcoholic, a potential terrorist, a drug dealer, and a bad house guest.  Because in America film/tv, religious=evil.  It's become such a trope that I tend to just not watch if there's a religious character introduced.  

It's nice to see that's not the case everywhere.

On 4/23/2015 at 4:59 PM, izabella said:

 

Continuing on my theme of believing Claire lied about Lee being the one to kill PIppa with a pillow instead of her, maybe Lee really is innocent of actual murder and was just guilty of the cover-up. 

 

And maybe he thought if the police knew Gillespie killed Lisa, then they'd expect Gillespie to have killed PIppa, too.  Gillespie can't actually dispute that he didn't kill Pippa, since Claire told him Pippa had a reaction to the stuff in the flask Gillespie gave her to give to PIppa.

 

I dunno.  Maybe Lee couldn't live with the guilt?

Maybe CLAIRE killed Pippa with the pillow and told Lee Ricky's stuff had killed him.

[smorbie]

On 4/24/2015 at 10:16 AM, Jodithgrace said:

The only issue I have with a third series is the name of the show. Unless the call it BROADCHURCH-like Show That Takes Place Someplace Entirely Different, they are pretty much stuck with that location. Not that I don't love the location..it's absolutely gorgeous. But how many more murders can a small community like that support? Danny's case seemed like a one-off. And even though Hardy managed to drag the Sandbrook case into Broadchurch this season, if season three deals with Sandbrook (and really it's done IMO) how can they justify sticking in Broadchurch? Too bad they didn't name the series after Hardy and/or Miller.

I don't believe for one minute Joe is going to stay out of Broadchurch.

[jeansheridan]

On 7/7/2017 at 10:15 AM, smorbie said:

Because in America film/tv, religious=evil.  

Brooklyn features a lovely priest.  Grantchester too but that's British too.  Oh!  Daredevil has a great priest/mentor.  He wasn't on much in season 2 but he was a good guy.

[frenchtoast]

Discussing portrayals of groups in the media is fine as long as it's not made personal and some effort is made to keep it relevant to the actual topic. Let's move back to the episode topic at hand.

[ElleMo]

On 4/23/2015 at 8:45 AM, Constantinople said:

Ordinarily I would agree, but this is the same show that excluded a confession based on events that took place after the confession. Nothing is too unrealistic for this show.

I just finished binge watching the show.  I don't think this is too unrealistic.  The suggestion was that both Hardy and Ellie beat up Joe. There was not way to tell exactly when Joe got the bruising.  Hardy could have beaten Joe into confessing and Ellie could have given him an extra few kicks for good measure. 

[jeansheridan]

20 minutes ago, ElleMo said:

The suggestion was that both Hardy and Ellie beat up Joe. There was not way to tell exactly when Joe got the bruising

I liked that there were consequences for Ellie going all "Bruce Lee" on him. In another show it wouldn't have mattered. The emotional payoff would be enough. But Hardy broke protocol and allowed a person in custody to get hurt. 

[Roseanna]

On ‎25‎.‎2‎.‎2015 at 8:20 PM, mledawn said:

It's not clear that Joe was indeed the killer. The audience was required to assume that Joe was a reliable narrator, yet we were given nothing else of his character to indicate we could rely on him to tell the truth. The fact he pled not guilty casts doubt on his character.

From episode 1 of series 2, Paul speaks with Joe after Joe enters his plea. The conversation is:

Paul: You confessed. The evidence against you is clear.
Joe: Not just me. Everyone.
Paul: Joe, you are the only one on trial here. You killed a child. Just you. No-one else.
Joe: Nobody's innocent, Paul. Everyone's hiding things.

That's ambiguous - what was the point of that conversation, then?

*Script excerpt taken from Springfield! Springfield!

 

I think that S1 made clear that Joe is the killer. He made his confession voluntarily after calling Hardy with Danny's smartphone. His confession expalained all the details. And although the defence lawyer presented alternative theories that was believed by the jury, no shadow of doubt was cast on nobody else in the context of show.   

The conversation with the vicar wasn't ambiguous  about guilt, but showed Joe's dishonesty. "Nobody is innocent" is true in the religious sense (all men are sinners in the eyes of God to whom hating is as bad as killing) but it's untrue in legal sense.  

Also, in the conversation with his defence lawyers, Jim denied everything: he had never met Danny alone, he hadn't sent him emails nor given him a smartphone, 500 pounds - he was so bad a liar that they didn't dare to put him in the wittness box and the younger one said "he did it".  

 

On ‎13‎.‎1‎.‎2016 at 10:24 PM, gus said:

Just finished binge-watching both seasons on Netflix.  Here's another big problem I saw with Jocelyn's prosecution, which I haven't seen mentioned anywhere.  Sharon's theory about Mark as the killer was that Danny confronted Mark after he saw Mark and Becca from the window, and Mark killed Danny to keep him from running to Beth with the information.  But Mark had just testified that the "missing" hour of his time that night was spent writing a letter he planned to give to Beth, admitting that he'd met someone else and was going to leave Beth to be with her.  Jocelyn should have picked this up as being completely inconsistent with Sharon's ridiculous, slanderous theory - a theory that was nothing more than speculation by an attorney (which is NOT evidence), and that was contradicted by sworn testimony (which IS evidence).  

I thought that also.

But the defence councellors doesn't need to have a consistent theory but only to raise enough doubts that there could be another explanation. 

Edited November 22, 2017 by Roseanna
correcting grammar

[Roseanna]

On ‎24‎.‎2‎.‎2015 at 2:59 AM, rozen said:

Jocelyn's sanctimonious speech, if anything, puts Sharon in an excellent light. She provided a vigorous defense, which is what a fair justice system is built on. 

But Sharon's motive wasn't justice but revenge on Jocelyn who hadn't helped her son.   

It was OK to present the errrors the police made but it was indecent to blame and shame the murder offer's family. Their privacy should have respected. Imagine how she would shame a rape victim. 

[Roseanna]

The verdict of "not guilty" was OK based on how the trial went. It was a good reminder that it's not enough that the police finds out the killer, it's another matter whether he will get the sentence.

However, the verdict of "not guilty" wasn't only due to the real errors of police works but the weak performace of the prosecutor. As several have presented here, Jocelyn should have had no difficulty to prove that most of Sharon's claims were false but she never even tried to do so, except in case of Tom's testimony. 

I wonder how it was possible that all who knew Joe (except Tom) were sure that he was quilty but it was possible to collect a jury whose majority came to different opinion.