This is
the third Jodie Whittaker project I’ve seen, and it’s the third to involve a
creep of a guy doing terrible things to a woman under the guise of “loving” her
so much. I mean, I know there’s plenty
of that sort of thing in fiction, as well as plenty of it happening in real
life, but three in a row is kind of hard to take (and at minimum, I know that
at least the first season of Broadchurch,
and likely the later ones as well, feature a very different type of
creep.) I really hope the next one I find doesn’t make my skin crawl (premise
spoilers.)
Like Black Mirror, Accused is an anthology series, so the episode is its own
self-contained story, cutting back and forth between an accused man ready to
hear his verdict and flashbacks to the circumstances that led him there. Liam is a private-hire cab driver with a
gambling problem and a strained relationship with his ailing wife (she has
MS.) One day, feeling at his wit’s end,
he breaks into the home of a customer after driving her to the airport, knowing
the home will be empty and in search of something to steal. That’s sketchy enough, but Liam goes down an
even worse rabbit hole when, after poring over the woman’s photos displayed
around the house, he steals her flashdrive as well. Soon, he spends his nights at home staring at
her pictures, reading her saved love letters, and, since he gave her his card
after giving her that initial ride, using the information he’s stolen from her
to ingratiate himself with her every time she calls him up for another lift.
So yeah,
he’s a stalker who just gets creepier and more manipulative as he goes on, and
it’s super-gross. Despite a reasonably
well-crafted story from a technical perspective and some good performances
(Liam is played by Andy Serkis, who definitely nails the
creepy-pathetic-deluded hat trick, and the episode also features Tom Ellis, who
I still remember best from the series 3 finale of Who,) it perhaps does its job too well, because I mainly come away
feeling like I need a shower.
Whittaker
plays Emma Croft, the unfortune object of Liam’s obsessions. At first, I thought her role would be
relatively hands-off, that she would mainly serve as his
customer-turned-robbery-victim, but it’s so much worse than that. The role itself is fairly undemanding,
basically an appealing everywoman for a creep to project his fantasies onto,
although she does get a few stronger scenes in the second half of the episodes.
Mostly, I
just feel bad for Emma. Liam is careful
enough with what he does that I can buy her not catching on, but that doesn’t
stop me from yelling at the screen, “Get away from him! He’s gross!
Don’t listen to a word he says!” :shudder:
Accent Watch
Northern
again.
Recommend?
In
General
– I can’t; it’s just too creepy.
Jodie
Whittaker
– Not necessarily. I don’t think there’s
really enough for Whittaker to do, because her character is much more about
Liam’s idea of her than who she actually is.
Warnings
Sexual
references, drinking/smoking, brief violence, and strong thematic elements.
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