United Kingdom S01.E02: Stacey

[Cranberry]

Quote

With a shadowy colleague looking on, the team starts poking holes in the evolving story of a combative suspect accused of poisoning her brother-in-law.

[Cranberry]

I love Hayley Atwell and think she was great as always, but this episode was my least-favorite of the three UK ones, story-wise. I figured out the deal pretty early on (I've seen at least a couple procedurals do a story like this), so I spent the rest of the episode waiting for the characters to spell it out. I also thought the "I understand the deal here because I'm a woman" stuff was a little heavy-handed. 

[Chaos Theory]

This one was actually my favorite of the UK stories.  I know people will be talking mostly about Tennant but I found his story dull.   This one was intriguing from the start.   A woman having an affair with her sister's husband and possibly murdering him.  The way it ended was really well done and truly sad because the sister really was will to go to jail for her sister.

[mledawn]

I had only quickly seen footage of this in the preview and I thought the actress might have been Billie Piper. I'm embarrassed to say I have not watched Agent Carter or the last few thousand Marvel movies, so I was not familiar with Hayley Atwell. 
She was so so so good in this.
Random new guy was super random.

[kieyra]

Also a Hayley Atwell fan and still thought it was Billie Piper in the initial stills.

At first I thought she was ever so slightly overacting during the early manic phase, but she relaxed into the role and was probably the only reason I made it through the whole episode. Pretty riveting performance. Which is good, because yeah, the story was super predictable. 

The back office stuff is bizarre and also boring. I feel like they’re trying to just do something different, but not committing to the characters. But maybe it all comes together in the final episode?

Katherine Kelly’s wig (looks like a different wig this week) is still bugging me. If I find out the actress is in chemo I’m gonna feel like quite the jerk. 

[MisterGlass]

I'm glad I'm not the only person who thought it was Billie Piper at a glance.  Maybe it was my subconscious projecting because David Tennat was in the first episode.

I knew where it was heading but it was interesting.

[Milburn Stone]

On 9/22/2019 at 4:14 PM, Cranberry said:

I figured out the deal pretty early on (I've seen at least a couple procedurals do a story like this), so I spent the rest of the episode waiting for the characters to spell it out.

Coming late to the party because I'm finally watching this show as well as the French version. Of either version, this was my least favorite episode so far, not only because of the reason you say, but also because I just didn't buy it. Her motivation going in is to take a bullet for her sister. As we learn, she has plenty of reason for doing that. Then she decides, fuck the bitch, let her take the fall. It didn't feel real to me. Does she love her sister enough to take a bullet for her, or not? Pick one, writers.

Now, It's not like we haven't seen the trope a million times minimum of "person confessing to crime in order to protect a loved one who did it." But in all those cases, the truth finally emerges from the confessor because they're confronted with proof that they couldn't have done it, and must be protecting someone. In this case, the cops have no such proof. The accused just decides to fry her sister because, what, she's tired?

Edited December 7, 2024 by Milburn Stone