The Fall

[hollyisalovelyname]

Watched it last night. Tis good, but disturbing. Gillian Anderson very good. Jamie Dornan scary. Anyone else see it?

It did seem tacked on, but also seemed like maybe a moment where her breezy paint over the cracks attitude, was gone and she was now going to say all the unsayable things that shed been sidestepping (like:you're a monosyllabic weirdo). But that didn't materialise, she then reverted quickly back to the pacifier keep everyone together role, and neatly forgot about the whole child abuse inconvenience.

This will only seem feasible if this plot is continued with furtrher repurcussions and reaction from the wife. If its all, that dealt with in a she's forgiven him, no one finds out lets move on, kind of way it will be very false.

I hope/presume it'll play a part in his unravelling downfall. A major miscalculation on his part.

I think her reaction is understandable. She has 2 children, is pregnant, he has planted the seed of doubt in her that she'll lose her job. He'll be on the Sex Offenders register, what will that mean for the kids, her family. Everyone will know. He's telling her it was a mistake, he loves her, he fucked up.

I know what I'd like to think I'd do in that situation, but I wouldn't be 100% sure.

I mean if she loses her job, how can she afford that big fancy dan house

Pfaffer - houses in Belfast were relatively cheap during the troubles etc but there were massive house price rises in Belfast during the property boom and as a result of the peace process/devolved govt etc (the "peace dividend").

For the most part, Belfast remains cheap compared to somewhere like London, but wages also tend to be lower so in terms of affordability that is a pretty big, fancy house on a nice street for a young family where one parent is a grief counsellor and the other a midwife.

They must have had quite a lot of help.

Or maybe Peter/Paul is not the care home boy he proclaims to be? I keep coming back to this - appreciate I am a bore. There is something about the bookshelves full of books on art etc that indicates someone who has really built a very different life for himself - but that must have been tough on a bereavement counsellor's wage. Alternatively, it indicates someone who actually comes from a background where the family had those interests and the money to fund them. Not that a child in a care home can't go on to be an artist or can't have an interest in art etc, but few care home boys become Bruce Oldfield, iykwim? The Stella McCartneys and Victoria Beckhams of this world are more common (appreciate I'm using fashion as opposed to art as an example but thought it might be easier!).

TBH, the house was one of points for me - but again I parked it.

The other thing that niggles is the timeline. The pathologist's friend said she was attacked 9 years ago, didn't she? So was Peter/Paul already with Sally Ann when he was cruising the bars and picking up women to try to strangle - given that the daughter is supposed to be 7/8? Maybe I'm wrong about that, or maybe it is part of the storyline?

Just to clarify - to have that house with all its contents and spare cash for all those hardback art books (rather than get them out of the library!) would have been tough on a bereavement counsellor's wage!
Gah. You know what I mean. I hope.
otherwiseiwillgetaslatinghere

The pathologists friend had a brief - (1 week or so) relationship with Peter when she was at university. She assumed he was also at Queens or Stranmillis but she met him out. Maybe she was his first "try" and he didn't pursue anything further until a few years later? Their daughter is 6. I remember because I have 1 the same age but equally as nosy.

Maybe they rent the house

On a tangent can't bloody wait until Luther

teejwood, I get it. I knew as soon as I'd posted that it was unlikely that house prices would be that good in Belfast otherwise we'd all be moving there

I suppose if one is very determined to amass a library of art books on a low income, there are ways of doing it, but I totally agree that the house and contents seem a bit out of reach for them.

The thing that annoyed me was the path knowing someone who was strangled in the past and that the perpetrator may be the very same Paul. .

aitch it does come across that she is a bit like super op. It will be her who makes the connection between the CCTV and the killer, I'm sure of it.

I did like that bit last week when she says something like I have so many Masters. It made me smile.

wiggles, the daughter is 8 I'm sure. When Stella is looking at her colleague's kid's picture and it turns out that they're about the same age, one of them says 8. And on the phone to the killer, she says 'I know you have at least one child, a girl, about 7 or 8.'

I think. I am totally open to being corrected.

Yes, but she's wrong I'm only joking, I thought when they were talking to her teacher about the drawings or when they were discussing her disturbed sleep they mentioned her age?

She's a young 8, mine would have been up the attic like a whippet

oh, i have always meant to ask this. when the female cop buddy went to her room and got rid of the condoms... wtf was she thinking?

I wondered exactly that (though not for long before the next gaping inconsistency arose ). She said it was to 'get rid of evidence of a man being there' but why would she do that?

At least it wasn't the cat, though.

I'm confused about the daughter's age too. I originally thought she was 6, don't know why but a character/scene must have cemented this in my mind. She certainly looks and behaves like a 6-yr old.

Then I picked up the drawing thing too, with both women sagely agreeing that a child of "about 8" had done it.

Confusing, or inconsistent?

Laughing about cat, christinarossetti !

Ok, not that I'm obsessed, of course, but I replayed the bit in ep 1 where he is with his daughter in the Botanic Gardens and she says to him "I'm glad I'm eight. It's the oldest I've been in my entire life." So she is 8 (but would agree with you wiggles, a very young 8).

And then I checked ep 4 - where the path says her friend was attacked 8 or 9 years ago. Can't believe I didn't spot that link earlier

So he was doing it (started doing it?) when Sally Ann was pg or just after Olivia had been born?

Cop/condom issue discussed up thread. Some seemed to think shes implying blackmail towards GA ie having knowledge about her.

I read it as female cop trying to show solidarity with GA ie that's your private business I don't judge. And that's why GAnpromoted female cop. This female solidarity, as I interpreted it, was one of the things I'd did like, as something not that often portrayed in drama.,natnleast not in a work context.

Obviously that scene is there for a reason, and open to interpretation as shown but not explained. I think that's a good thing. It's giving you insights but not telling you what to think, letting the view make their own interpretation.

Which leads to potential for quite a lot of debate. As we know.

Blimey I did not spot the age/first attack discrepancy!!!

So, either:

1. Sally was pregnant with DD when he was having affair, strangling other women and also a student?? Seems unlikely?
2. Peter is not him. Seems unlikely based on his reaction on the phone when she called him Peter.
3. DD is not his. Seems unlikely.
4. script writers screwed up on consistency and no one noticed. Seems likely?? If so a mighty big screw up!

Well...the female cop (who in my head is called Geraldine as she looks like my best friend aged 8) presented the condom thing to Stella with the air of 'I know stuff about you, and I am letting you know that I know.'

And then Stella made her her second-in-command. I thought the two were connected. But that would have been rather too joined-up for this programme so I did doubt it after a while.

The realisation is dawning that this might be a "poor ickle sex attacker, he wouldn't have done it if he had been enjoying sex with his wife" story.

If that is the case then they can fuck off for series 2. I won't be watching.

Attack on the path's friend coincides with pg/birth of Olivia - poss no sex with Sally Ann for a while.

Then there is an indication that their love life has been off the boil in recent months - cue three attacks in three months. And he'll stop now Sally Ann is having sex with him again. Urgh.

The female cop knows that a cleaner, cleaning that room, would have found the condoms and it would have got round that that new police boss is only in town and she is having sex with goodness knows whom; after all, she hasn't got her husband with her .
Anything goes wrong with the investigation and you can bet your bottom dollar that it will be in the local press that the failure was due to the woman in charge being a floozy, too busy having sex to solve the crime.
I thought informing GA about it was a warning that GA needed to be more circumspect and tidy away the evidence if it wasn't to come back and bite her at a later date. In other words, I thought she was being bloody efficient. And that was why GA promoted her.

Just realised how he will start again in series 2 - sex life will go off the boil again with a new baby around. Cue more attacks. If the police look, there will probably be other similar attacks around the time of the son's birth.
Double urgh.

Why would female cop bother to get rid of the condoms..... so, she slept with someone ...why was it a big deal?why did she have to go to GA 's hotel room? None of the female cops business what was in the bin. Surely the hotel chambermaid will clean the room?

Didnt JD and Sally have sex in the first episode? I thought they did when she got in from work? To show what a seemingly happily married man he was.

Could be wrong though.

Police officer having one nightstand with another police officer when meant to be focused on serial murder case, could be made to look ugly or at least unprofessional if media or someone wanted to.

Cop went to room to get stuff for GA as requested. Maybe looked in bin as suspected one night stand as observed GAs comeon invitation to male cop, and thought this did mnot need to be common knowledge?

Oh - yes it was suggested wasn't it, Euphemia? Mmmm. Theory slightly dumped for the time being...

TV release, showed him and dd in botanical gaden.
But, GA has not associated that THIS is HIM. Likewise she has not realised, that man who turned himself in, for questioning, and gave fingerprints/swad, and passed her in corridor, staring at her, is actually HIM.
Hopefully, it will dawn on her soon.