Cry Me a River: Part 2

The second episode was better than the first. DCI Janine Lewis and her team are in a race against time to find the killer of the deputy headmaster.

Janine has three suspects but has that nagging doubt that the dead man's widow had something to do with his death.

There was a darker turn in the second episode. Child rape and porn videos.

It struck me that Blue Murder is basically a lighter shade of Prime Suspect.

The protagonist is not hard as nails Jane Tennison. Janine Lewis has a hectic personal life with her errant husband and her oldest son playing up.

The format is overlong with two feature length episodes.

I've been watching a whole lotta European procedurals thanks to Covid, and enjoyed most of them. They've ranged from light fare (favorites - New Tricks and Sharif, from England and France, respectively) to many that were darker in tone - especially common among Scandinavian TV cop shows. There's always some mix of the crimes du jour with the cops' personal lives - romantic or otherwise. This one struck me as distractingly out of balance.

Detective Lewis is a solid protagonist. She's smart, and begins her new leadership rank gracefully. She's a boss most would like to have, even though the grouchy desk jockey over her is a bean-counting drudge who makes her job harder. The writers crafted an intriguingly complicated crime and set of suspects for this two-part intro. Multiple motives and possible perps ebb and flow to the end. Good on suspense; even better on later developments in the case.

But someone had too much time to fill and did it with a soap opera of overflowing family hassles. She finds hubby in the sack with another woman in the opening minutes. They have three kids, plus one in the oven. The older son runs afoul of the law; the younger is sickly; the daughter's just somewhat annoying. Co-parenting with the cheater adds another layer. Aaaand there's an iffy romantic prospect to mull over. Yadda, yadda.

When focused on the case, Lewis is a pleasure to watch. But if the home front remains this prominent as the series continues, the detective will be finishing the other four seasons without me.

Definitely has potential. Has a lot of intriguing qualities. Caroline Quentin as DCI Janine Lewis is excellent in the lead role. David Schofield as pain in the neck DCS Hacket provides tension with his nervous pushback. The two male detectives under Lewis added an aggressive aspect using any means in their digging for information..

The decent episode's ending was the best part. The ham star witness was comical with a touch of overacting but very good. Lewis' right hand man's bad toupee was mildly distracting.

Writing was at times repetitive with rehash suspect's interviews. I had a big problem how dragged out the too long story was overloaded with home life fillers. Future episodes thankfully I see are much shorter which motivates me to hang in there to check out at least one more story.