Countdown to Thirteen: Broadchurch: Series 3, Episode 6 (2017)

This was the first major “this suspect could be the one” episode, a significant look at one particular person rather than a lot of more general possibilities.  The fact that there are still two episodes to go make me assume this probably isn’t the guy, and to be sure, we still get evidence of other people acting shady as well.

A major suspect is brought into custody, and it triggers a big shake-up in the investigation.  Hardy and Ellie work hard to maintain the investigation’s integrity as they collect evidence on their man.  Beth and a colleague reach out to a possible third victim of the rapist, trying to convince her to help cooperate with the police.  Meanwhile, Mark has the confrontation with his grief that he’s been building towards, but it doesn’t bring him the relief he’d been looking for.

Like I said, it’s taken this long to have a suspect taken under really serious consideration, which lends further credence to the theme I’ve been noticing of “all these guys are so creepy, any one of them could have done it.”  Overall, I think the suspect is handled well here.  If it isn’t him, he may not be the rapist, but he’s skeevy no matter what.  Also, within the case, there’s some stuff going on that seems like it would resonate personally with what went down in Danny’s case and the resulting trial.  The characters’ reactions to it seem to suggest that parallel, but I hope we get a chance to see it explored a little more overtly.

Not a ton of Beth in this one.  She has just a few significant scenes, mostly centered around trying to get the other survivor to come forward, and I’m not all that impressed with how she handles that.  On some level, it’s very understandable – she wants the perpetrator caught and doesn’t get why this woman wouldn’t want to help make that happen – but she demonstrates way less sensitivity than I’m used to seeing in her work.  I feel about it much the same way I feel about some of the other characters’ missteps on this subject; it’s all right for her to have misconceptions and handle this badly, but I need to see that acknowledged at some point.