*CW: suicide*
*Premise spoilers*
Way back when I was going through Peter Capaldi’s filmography at the start of this blog—the proto-Other Doctor Lives—the miniseries The Crow Road was my introduction to author Iain Banks. I remember how much I loved that one, so it’s fitting that another Scottish Doctor had one of his earliest roles in a miniseries based on a different Banks novel.
It’s been two years since Stewart Gilmour left Stonemouth, chased out of town by his fiancee Ellie’s crime lord family after an epic mistake. He’s just returned to attend the funeral for Callum, one of his best friends and Ellie’s brother. Everyone thinks he’s just there to come sniffing around Ellie again, and Stewart would be lying if he said she hadn’t crossed his mind. But he’s also deeply affected by Callum’s death and isn’t sure he buys the official record that it was suicide.
It’s been a number of years since I watched The Crow Road, so there are plenty of particulars about the story that I can’t recall very well, but I know I definitely got familiar vibes from the first half of this miniseries. There’s the similar theme of a somewhat rudderless young man digging into the mystery surrounding someone important to him, someone who’s no longer there to provide the answers he’s looking for. Flashbacks are very important to both stories, slipping down easily between the past and the present. And both have this rather dueling sense of beauty and bleakness that seems to be part of the essential human condition in the small Scottish town where it takes place.
I knew the actor playing Stewart was familiar to me, but it wasn’t until I saw his name that I could place him. Christian Cooke: he played Ross, a UNIT soldier, in the Tenth Doctor story “The Sontaran Stratagem” / “The Poison Sky.” I recognize Charlotte Spencer, who plays Ellie, from Sanditon, where she was Lady Babington. Some good veteran Scottish actors here, including Gary Lewis and Peter Mullan, the latter of whom plays Ellie and Callum’s dad. And while I’m not really familiar with the actors, I really like Chris Fulton as Stewart’s other best friend Ferg—kudos for the close friendship between a queer guy and a straight guy!—and Samuel Robertson as Callum in flashbacks.
Ncuti Gatwa plays Dougie, one of Stewart’s old friends. Stewart is most interested in reconnecting because Dougie’s a police officer now, and he hopes to get the real scoop on Callum’s death. Dougie’s not sure he buys that there was any foul play, but he does give Stewart one piece of intel that looks like it could prove valuable.
As such, Dougie is a very functional character and doesn’t give Gatwa too much to do. He’s only in a couple scenes, and we just see hints of his personality in between dropping exposition—I like when he slyly insists on avoiding “casting aspersions on the professionalism of our trusty boozehound of a pathologist.”
Accent Watch
Scottish.
Recommend?
In General – I might. It started a little slow, but I was drawn into it more as the episode went on. It’s only two episodes, so we’ll see what I think after the conclusion.
Ncuti Gatwa – Interesting artifact because it’s such an early performance, but probably not a must. So far, it’s a small, undemanding role.
Warnings
Strong thematic elements (including suicide and references to incest,) violence, sexual content, language, and drinking/smoking/drug references.
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