Acorn home media, DVD borrowed from library

Four-part adaptation of the debut novel written by Graham Norton, yes,
the comedian and talk-show host. Set in a very rural location in West
Cork in a tiny town and surround farms, the "small holdings" that are
barely sustainable. Also, everybody is holding back the truth.

Locations are Drimoleague and Castletownshend. West Cork is touristy but
the tourists aren't exactly scampering to this town. West Cork is known
for narrow peninsulas including Sheep's Head which you've heard of, and
the pleasant bays in between for ideal swimming conditions in the cold
Atlantic.

This is very weak because of the plodding pacing, particularly in the
first two episodes. Still, I stuck with it because I liked the way the
characters were developed and there were good performances. The first
and fourth episodes are by Dominic Treadwell-Collins, the middle two by
Karen Cogan. Directed by Kathy Burke who has been alternating between
acting and directing during the period 2009-2022.

It's about two families with small holdings, the Rosses (three sisters,
both parents dead) and the Harringtons (mother and daughter, daughter now
married with two children but still live on the holding). The youngest
Ross girl, Evelyn (Charlene McKenna) has sex with Tommy, the man hired
to work the farm by oldest sister Abigail (Helen Behan); Evelyn is 17
and gets knocked up. Meanwhile, Brid Harrington (Siobhan McSweeney)
becomes engaged to Tommy at her mother Kitty's (Olwen Fouere) urging,
bribing with the holding, and pressure.

It all comes to a head the night before the wedding.

Tommy vanishes.

Two decades later, in the present, excavation at the farm of Tommy's
family (all deceased) discovers human remains, presumed to be Tommy's.

Into the mix comes PJ Collins (Conleth Hill and the murderer in the
last thing I saw him in), a police sergeant in the Irish Garda. There's
little crime to fight, and what police work there is to do, he can barely
concentrate on it. He's single and depressed and is eating his way into
an early grave. He's ashamed of the weight he's put on. He deliberately
requested a transfer to the middle of nowhere and has been in town for
a little more than three years.

He's terribly afraid of water.

Needless to say, he's out of is depth here. He gets assigned a baby
faced detective Linus Dunne (Clinton Liberty) who is put in charge of
the investigation and really really doesn't want to be here. His boss
from Cork is quite contemptuous of the locals. Everything being
relative, Cork (population 220,000) is quite metropolitan.

Dunne is young and slender and not yet jaded by life; PJ is a bit jealous.

Brid was never really in love with Tommy but Evelyn was, infatuated as
only a teenage girl can be. Tommy's disappearance broke her spirit. For
her, it's still 20 years ago and she's even boinking a high school boy
Stephen (Sky Yang), who is an athlete and gets an offer to try out for a
professional team.

PJ starts to fall in love with Brid who, quite frankly, has become a
drunk like her mother and is ruining her marriage and barely looking
after her two children.

Conleth Hill and Siobhan McSweeney are quite good. Brenda Fricker as
Mrs. Meaney, the housekeeper for PJ, gets a major scene in episode 3 in
which she's outstanding.

And the because it's 21st century televison crap: No female nudity,
shirtless scenes of Sky Yang, learing shirtless scenes of Clinton
Liberty, Dunne is gay (but his lover is off screen), and the mother of
Stephen is having a lesbian affair with the middle Ross sister.

Was all this in Norton's novel? Perhaps it was added as a network
demand. Who knows.

This had the potential to be much better, with a decent script and
better direction.