The darkly funny conspiracy thriller Down Cemetery Road propelled me towards a rare accomplishment: bingeing it all in one day.
Granted, at eight episodes, this is not exactly like my 24 half-a-season-in-12-hours marathons of days gone 'bye (waves wistfully to the sky at my late viewing mates).
Still, with many hopefuls in today's crowded streaming/broadcast/cable scene struggling to command a viewer's attention through just one episode, that's saying a bit.
Plus, it is based on a 2003 work by Mick Herron, whose Slough House novel series became the Apple TV sensation Slow Horses. So there. (Also, it's adapted for TV by Morwenna Banks, a Slow Horses veteran writer.)
What is it about this show, then, that made it so bingeable? Aside from commanding turns by its principal cast, it has an intriguing central mystery with arrogant, sinister villains fairly screaming for a comeuppance, and two doggedly determined lead characters whose somewhat unlikeable qualities are just what makes them so compelling.
Said mystery begins when an explosion rips through a quiet neighbourhood where somewhat naive art conservator Sarah Trafford (Ruth Wilson, Luther, His Dark Materials) is suffering through a difficult business dinner, while her banker (actually, he's more something else that rhymes with that) husband Mark (Tim Riley) tries to woo an important investor.
It turns out that a woman has been killed and her daughter, whom Sarah knows only in passing, has gone missing.
Determined to deliver a condolence message to the child, Sarah hires private investigator Joe Silverman (Adam Godley, The Copenhagen Test) to track her down. Events soon lead to Joe's sharp if mean-tongued and disagreeable wife Zoe Boehm (Emma Thompson) joining in the investigation, while shadowy figures lurk on the fringes.
Said shades include ex-soldier Michael (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Misfits), relentless killer Amos Crane (Fehinti Balogun), bumbling military intelligence operator Hamza Malik (Adeel Akhtar), and snarky black ops orchestrator "C" (Darren Boyd, whose dismissive barbs are consistently skewering, if not always apropos to the mood of the moment).
The title is derived from the 1962 Toads Revisited by celebrated British poet Philip Larkin, which (by some interpretations) weighs a life bound by duty and drudgery against the decrepitude and despair from inactivity (or the absence/lack of work).
It's in carrying out their respective duties that Wilson and Thompson sparkle as flawed and conflicted characters who find purpose – and a kind of fearless selflessness – in defying the odds and standing up to powerful opponents that have the tacit, if not overt, approval of an entire government's machinery.
The search for answers brings, as usual, more questions at first, as well as startling turns and a revelation that is all the more discomforting because it involves a lovable fringe character.
Down Cemetery Road keeps its narrative feel fluid, switching from laugh-out-loud funny to intensely suspenseful (a shared train ride with a killer will have you gripping your sofa armrests till your fingers go numb) to quietly introspective without skipping a beat.
Rather than disrupt the viewer's appreciation of the story with a dissonant timbre, this rapid gear-switching actually helps keep Sarah and Zoe's exploits fresh and unpredictable.
Resolutions arrive as much through blind luck as through intent, and although early developments add a bittersweet undertone through most of the show, it closes out on a satisfying enough note.
En route, various questionable judgment calls are made with key characters' fates, leaving any sense of victory on the protagonists' part ringing a little hollow.
Still, although the title hints at a literal dead end, there's a whole expanse of possibilities for future seasons ahead, in which the horses (slow or otherwise) of our expectations can run free.
Down Cemetery Road Season One is available on Apple TV.
Summary:
The plot quickens
