Countdown to Thirteen: Accused: Series 1, Episode 4 – “Liam’s Story” (2010)

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.