Countdown to Thirteen: Broadchurch: Series 2, Episode 7 (2015)

Another season, another penultimate episode.  That brings with it the requisite suspense and revelations, although, by and large, I’d say series 1 does it better.  What I will say in the episode’s decided favor is that I’m not sure which way the finale is going to go, both with the trial and with the Sandbrook case.

The trial wraps up with closing arguments, and the jury deliberates, naturally holding back any decision for the next episode and keeping the Latimers on grieving pins and needles.  As Hardy and Ellie keep putting the pieces together on Sandbrook, Hardy thinks he’s found the thread that will lead him to the proof he needs.

Watching the last scenes of the trial makes me realize that I think Jocelyn is a pretty lousy lawyer.  It was harder to spot early on because Sharon is so over-the-top ridiculous as an attorney, so she draws a lot of the focus, but for the talk about how awesome Jocelyn is, I’m not all that impressed with her.  She does mainly fine when she’s making arguments and questioning her own witnesses, but she’s continually, utterly blindsided by all the crazy stuff that Sharon pulls, which leaves her witnesses floundering when Sharon makes her outlandish accusations.  You’d think that, after the first few times at least, that she’d get something of a feel for the game Sharon is playing and prep her witnesses to be ready for it, but she’s just as flummoxed as everyone else – boo.  On a positive note, I turned out to be fairly on the money with some speculation I’d been making about Jocelyn and another character, so I feel vindicated there.

I’m not quite sure where we’re going with Sandbrook.  There are a lot of clues Ellie and Hardy are sifting through, and they have yet to coalesce into much solid sense for me, though I can tell Hardy sees something in them.  I still see several plausible suspects in the case – hopefully it’s one of them.  Also, I haven’t taken the time to say it before, but I really like James D’Arcy’s work here.  He’s an actor I’ve seen in a handful of things, but I of course know him best as the terrific Jarvis on Agent Carter.  It’s to his credit that, when I’m watching him in this role, I’m really not thinking of Jarvis at all, and that can be tough to achieve when actors make such a big impression as a particular character.

Not a whole lot of Beth, but Jodie Whittaker does get two pretty-good scenes.  I especially like the first, in which she and Mark discuss the future of their family and what they can do about it.  It’s maybe something of a reversal from where they both are at the end of the previous episode, but in a way that’s believable for me.