Stay Close, 1.1 [includes spoilers for 1.1]

These posts and any comments in them will contain spoilers. PLEASE do not read them if you wish to take a fresh look at each episode when it becomes available in your region, or you have time to watch it.

DISCLAIMERS: I’m not sure that I’m suited to this kind of blogging any more, but I thought I’d give it a try. I have not read this novel; I am on record as being “meh” to negative about Harlan Coben’s work; I have not followed the pre-broadcast publicity in more than an extremely tangential way; I have strictly avoided spoilers up till now; I am not familiar with Manchester or Blackpool; and I have not read any advance reviews of the show. So this is not going to be the level of detailed blogging I did for Berlin Station, where I recognized most of the exteriors and a lot of the interiors, and I don’t know if I have the attention span at present for the blow-by-blow snarky summary that was so popular back then, either. I also don’t know if I will blog all the way through it — but these posts are an attempt to revive my critical faculties. I will decide at the end of each episode whether there will be a next one.

With that in mind, here goes. Reminder: SPOILERS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

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First impression: Stay Close appears to follow a standard dramatic set-up for a thriller. What the Germans call “heile Welt” (ideal, unbroken world) is revealed as standing on shaky legs, and the outcome of the attempt to maintain the present idyll in the face of its challenge from the chaotic (in this case, criminal) past is the motor of the action in the piece. The explosive past threatens the more desirable present.

 

The show’s opener visualizes the threat to the unbroken world in very literal terms, with a number of items associated with idyllic family life exploding in rather dramatic fashion. Here, Richard Armitage’s name is paired with cracking (what looks like) Fiestaware. That’s sad. I like Fiestaware.

 

Its credibility for the observer, in turn, relies on a subset of one main question — how much do we care about either the secret, or the consequences of its unveiling? First, do we we believe the risks to the ideal world from the past are so severe that the main character is justified in trying to prevent or avoid its revelation? In this case, would it really ruin Megan / Cassie’s life just to tell the truth? How much does she have to lose? (There’s the subsidiary problem of how much maintaining her unbroken world could mean to other characters affected by the deception. Does keeping her secret mean causing concrete harm to others?) Second, do we believe that the antagonist really has an interest in stirring up the past, or perhaps, do we feel that if the past is stirred up, the antagonist will feel compelled to take decisive action?

I took the time to lay out this conflict scheme mostly because if you think this slow starts slowly (and I do), I think it’s because it’s not clear until much of the way through episode one what the secret is, and I don’t know if I buy into the “Megan’s entire world will be destroyed” half of the equation. It didn’t help me a lot that her potential losses were visualized primarily in heavily capitalist terms (nice house, bougie friends, standard suburban vehicles, upwardly mobile tennis-playing daughters, etc.), so that I felt somewhat alienated about the goal of the exercise for much of the episode. It didn’t help that we were give a mother-in-law with dementia, who to me looks frighteningly like she’s going to end up a hostage to fortune.

 

I will definitely say that if I were going to sympathize strongly with this protagonist’s problems, Cush Jumbo could make me do it. I love her smart, classy everywoman vibe.

In contrast, it does seem like the concrete threats of Megan / Cassie’s past (in the form of physical violence, potential homicide, etc., on the part of the aggressors) are more potent, but they are not fleshed out especially well and the identity of the aggressor seems somewhat diffuse. What’s confusing is that on the one side, “Stewart Green” seems to be the aggressor and on the other, he’s also a missing person who seemed to have an entirely respectable past. This is part of the puzzle we are meant to solve. I don’t know how much I care, though, particularly at the beginning of the episode.

 

Fanny and Bofur are the detectives sent to solve the problem. That alone is amusing — maybe funnier to me than the fact that they are supposed to be former marital partners. I can’t imagine that would work in a professional situation or even be allowed, but whatever.

Part of the issue there is that the structure of the episode makes it unclear what the problem is — this is not so much a case of burying the lede (we do see something concerning happening right away the beginning, at a club called Vipers — ooh, foreshadowing) but, instead, of muddying it. There’s a yelling young man; the cops follow up later; I didn’t even realize it was the same guy; it wasn’t clarified fully who he was until later on. Again, yes, I know this is part of the problem we are supposed to solve; but it’s presented in such a fragmented way that it doesn’t really reach the bar of being suspenseful. The young man’s problems are not presented in a very urgent way, even the cops don’t think his disappearance is all that serious, and it’s not entirely clear until very late what the connection to Megan / Cassie is supposed to be. Important detail: he never takes his necklace off.

In a conspicuously unobtrusive scene, Ray (Richard Armitage) finally appears as a paparazzo who is stalking a colorfully dressed bar mitzvah boy — in cahoots with a bouncer named Fester (the best thing I can say about this is that it might be a very lame joke).

You’ve still got it, baby.

Leaving aside whether it’s as tasteless as Coben and Armitage apparently think to do this kind of work, I’m not at this point entirely buying Armitage in the role. He’s got the look, and the accent sounds convincing to me, but in general I find him just a little bit too crisp to be completely credible in this allegedly “low life” persona.

 

Also, I feel like maybe he’s had some maintenance done recently.

 

But he’s still really good looking.

Watching this episode also made me think that the cinematographer has a real gift for shooting the individual against an interesting background. In many ways, this is visually better TV than I anticipated. Some examples:

 

 

This precise observation extends to the scene where we see Ray’s interior — pushing at the war photographer past Armitage mentioned in an interview — very interesting to see.

 

It’s also hard to watch this without wondering whether Armitage is living out a life-long fantasy about tattoos (remember the talk about Lucas North) that he can’t ever fulfill in real life for some reason?

 

This connection — Ray’s stolen camera uploaded a picture to the web of the young man (Carlton Flynn) from the first scene — seemed really implausible to me. I don’t see how Fester could have connected that blurry image to that young man.

At about a half-way into this episode, we finally get a clue to Megan / Cassie’s past — a woman from that context passive aggressively confronts her at her daughter’s tennis match and now they meet up. The woman — Lorraine — warns her about “Stewart Green.” Again, flashes back to an apparently sordid and threatening past. Then-Cassie ran away suddenly from her previous lodging, even leaving a plastic ring behind that the woman thinks was meaningful to Cassie.

The cops are able to locate the missing Flynn boy to the club from the first scene — which we have now also seen in Megan / Cassie’s flashbacks. They visit it and are assured there are no tapes from the point of Carlton Flynn’s disappearance. Then we’re back to Cassie’s perspective.

 

Not very subtle — the Shaw Family Rules point out to Megan / Cassie that she’s in trouble.

 

She gets a scene with her elder daughter where her daughter is skeptical that her mother could have been so rebellious, and where she looks for information about Stewart Green.

Then we see Ray outside of the “Dream” sculpture (near Liverpool), where the picture Fester found was taken.

 

Gratuitous Richard Armitage thumbshot. Do you like the rings, or not?

 

He photographs some suspicious blood on a rock.

And then, in a move, I find really improbable, Megan / Cassie shows up at Green’s (widow’s?) house and actually talks to her. Really? If you’re trying to run from your past, probably not the best choice to run straight at it. Mrs. Green makes her and she drives away.

 

Had I been the cinematographer, I wouldn’t have been able to resist this, either. (Although the first glance I had made me think it was “Schlock’s fun palace.” According to Trip Advisor, it’s not only a real place, but a “whole kingdom of family fun.”)

 

Of course, she also drives out to the sculpture, in order to experience another flashback, as Mrs. Green tells Bofur (okay, his actual name is Broome) about the visit. Megan / Cassie then tries to track down a figure from her past (Harry Sutton, played by Eddie Izzard) who is now a tapped-out junkie. While visiting him, his roommates attempt to rob her, but she knocks them out (again: how realistic? but very resourceful and admirable) and escapes. This is the point where I start to like her enough that I am starting to be less bothered about how weird I find her behavior.

She returns to her ideal world, but meanwhile, Ray is looking through old photo albums. (Wow. Photo albums.)

 

Further gratuitous Richard Armitage thumbshot.

 

He and Megan / Cassie were clearly a thing, and it’s a good memory. We even see her getting the ring. These glimpses are interspersed with segments of her trying on her wedding dress at home.

But the ending is ominous. These pleasant scenes are cut through with scenes at Vipers, where we find Lorraine (duh dun). Megan / Cassie finds an old blond wig in her closet. Lorraine is looking at “archive” footage of the club where Megan / Cassie is there, wearing that wig.

And then another series of interspersed cuts. Megan / Cassie’s daughter is at home, wearing and playing with Carlton’s necklace. A shot shows Carlton and her daughter at Vipers. His father is looking at a picture of him with the necklace, and she’s playing with it. Megan / Cassie was right to be suspicious.

***

OK, at this point I’m (a) not gonna lie — this is not compelling enough that I would have watched another episode without the Armitage incentive. However (b) I am going to watch more of it for that reason and (c)I promise to blog about it when I do.

Continues here.

~ by Servetus on January 1, 2022.