THE RESPONDER, SERIES 2, REVIEW: NO LET-UP FOR TV’S MOST STRESSED-OUT COP IN THIS SUPERB DRAMA
If Chris Carson was a man on the edge in series one of The Responder (BBC One), in series two he’s hanging off it by his fingertips.
Carson is a police response officer working the night shift in Liverpool, and the job has ruined him. He has two modes: anger and barely suppressed anger. The latter is on display in the opening scenes of episode one, where he’s attending a men’s mental health support group. He can’t put his feelings into words. When he’s working, though, the words come out, mainly in yelled expletives.
Everything goes wrong for Carson all of the time, though he’s partly to blame. This is a drama in which every character makes bad choices, occasionally for good reasons. Carson makes the first of these when his estranged wife, Kate (MyAnna Buring), tells him that she’s moving to London with their daughter (Romi Hyland-Rylands), on the grounds that he works nights so never sees the child anyway. He immediately lies and says he’s been given a day job. See: good reason, bad choice. His efforts to secure that job draw him even further into a murky world of drugs, guns and gangsters.
The first series of The Responder was so impressive that maintaining the quality seemed a tall order. But series two is also superb, thanks to a combination of Martin Freeman in the best role of his career, and the writing of Tony Schumacher, whose previous life as a Liverpool response officer delivers a crucial sense of authenticity.
The supporting cast is also uniformly excellent, with a special mention for Josh Finan as Marco, the not-very-bright scally who in this series is a new and hopeless father. The late, great Bernard Hill guest stars as Carson’s monstrous father. Someone has trawled the old Brookside cast lists too, because, following Michael Starke’s appearance in series one, here is Louis Emerick as a nightclub boss, plus Sue Johnston and Sue Jenkins as a mother and daughter in Grey Gardens mode.
And remember Rachel (Adelayo Adedayo), the probationer who joined Carson in series one and was shocked by his methods? She’s now following his example, while battling her own demons. In the last series (and you really need to watch that before you watch this, otherwise you won’t have much of a clue what’s going on) she was in an abusive relationship, and is still haunted by it.
Schumacher offers us a window into the realities of policing at this level. It’s dealing with antisocial behaviour, threats of violence, mentally ill people. It’s endless, and mostly fruitless. There are tricks of the trade, too. “Can you smell gas?” he asks Rachel. The answer is no, and neither can he, but smelling gas is apparently reason enough for police to force entry to a property.
There are moments where Carson’s predicament feels a bit much. There is no let-up – he exists at a level of manic, furious, foul-mouthed despair. But Schumacher adds in just enough black humour. “This isn’t kicking off, mate, but hang about because kicking off is f---ing coming,” he says in episode two, and that’s just to a neighbour making a reasonable complaint about his parking.
2024-05-05T18:04:27Z dg43tfdfdgfd