Countdown to Thirteen: Broadchurch: Series 1, Episode 4 (2013)

The web’s getting more tangled, both in the investigation and in the lives of Danny’s family, the detectives, and the villagers.  You wouldn’t have thought every single person in a sleepy seaside town would be hiding a dark secret of some kind, but that’s sort of what’s going on.

A new piece of important evidence is discovered, and the police begin taking a stronger interest in several subjects.  Meanwhile, Ellie tries to connect more with Hardy.  Danny’s family, concerned that the lackluster media attention on the case is preventing the word getting out and potential witnesses coming forward, debate over whether or not to open the media floodgates themselves.

Just generally, I’d like to say this:  when you live in a small village where a boy has been murdered, don’t act super shifty if you weren’t the person who murdered him!  This show has kind of the opposite problem as The Assets.  Whereas, on that show, the mole is twitchy as hell from the get-go, this one features basically everybody hiding something and lying to the police about stuff that doesn’t ultimately connect to the investigation.  There’s a point where it stops being suspenseful TV and starts being, “Just tell the police what’s up so they can stop wasting their time on you!”  It’s not really a spoiler to bring that up here, since a) like I said, everyone’s acting shady, and b) clearly, they didn’t all kill Danny.

Hardy’s backstory has been coming out in drips and drabs, and we get a little more forward momentum here.  While the full circumstances behind his dour outlook and the failed case that brought him to Broadchurch under something of a cloud still haven’t been revealed (naturally,) we’re getting a bit closer to understanding him.

And as for Beth?  She doesn’t have a ton going on in this episode, at least not much that’s seen onscreen.  In the discussion over media attention, decisions are made that change things for the family quite a bit going forward, but at this point, we don’t see a lot of that happening.  As such, there isn’t too much for Jodie Whittaker to do.

But on the subject of Beth, I do want to mention one scene she isn’t in that still involves her, where an out-of-town reporter is pitching the story to her boss, who asks, “How photogenic is the mother?”  So gross, but I’m sure it’s sadly true to life.