The Fall

[hollyisalovelyname]

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

Yes, I got that it was some sort of female solidarity and that's why she got promoted, but for what?

A chamber maid wouldn't bat an eyelid at a couple of used condoms and no hotel is going to be releasing tit bits about its occupants if it wants any further business.

Yes, oblomov But surely she talks to her team? A witness coming forward identifying himself at the gardens is pretty significant. Oh by the way, that bloke with his kid in the footage came to see us. It all seems legit. Yada, yada. Haven't they had that conversation?

GA says that the two officers who were involved in the solicitor intruder case were re-assigned on purpose. I don't think the young police officer seems like the type to even hint at blackmail - I got the impression that she had good instincts and made connections (going back to the solicitor/condoms).

christina the tabloids would find out and would have a field day saying that she was shagging rather than solving the case. You might think the hotel staff would be discreet etc but one whispers to another and before you know it someone will have let the cat out of the bag to the wrong person.

Re the end - I took it that she had been dealing with the high level stuff, the parents and the media appeal, following upon the last attack, and had delegated to the team to find and release footage as appropriate. Her second in command may not have notified her about Peter/Paul as he had an alibi - or maybe mentioned it to say that someone had come in that fit the profile but he had an alibi.

following up on the last attack, waiting for the victim to come round...

I wonder if it's more of a Belfast thing? Would it be normal for a chambermaid to talk, there? It would very much not be notable or interesting to find two condoms in a bin in e.g. London, would it? But maybe in some places?

I would say that hotels have a lot invested in keeping their paying customers goings on private ie pretty much anyone ever booking in there again.

Did wonder about it being Belfast, but contraception is pretty widely used in Northern Ireland, isn't it?

Re hotels - gossip slips out about what celebs are up to in top London hotels, as gossip slips out everywhere. People talk.

Re the police - the team were being inundated with nutter calls as well, though, weren't they? So difficult to put pieces together when you are in the midst of a tsunami of information. Given how many killers seem to get away with it for so long maybe this is a pretty fair reflection of how it works in rl?

I took the condom incident to be about protecting GA against gossip (so yes rumours reaching tabloids) but also think the female cop would have known that the guy was married and therefore discretion was even more important.

Some of the other issues didnt annoy me as much; the burnt out car he'll blame on the local paramilitaries who threatened him; the big house would not be too unusual - some parts of the city still relatively cheap due to hangover of the troubles (reputational reasons I guess) - I know people with fabulous houses (some owned others rented) in not so fab locations on similar salaries; Paul's 'at home attitude' I took as being part of the problem, married but dont really share anything, no communication, dont know each other at all; the pathologist's friend knowing a guy from her past with similar tendencies...maybe not so unusual, it really is a small city .

I think that some things will happen in series 2 to plug the gaps, the Monroe/drug/escort story has to continue, Olivia's nightmares will come to the fore, the babysitter and the lock of hair from his supposed dead mother will come out, the DNA sample will arise again...I just think/hope it may be cleverer than we suspect.

What really got me was why the police would choose to highlight that particular moment of the dead girl's day, her brief walk through Botanic gardens to meet her sister. What about her journey home, any shops she visited, her job...was there no other trace of her before she was killed? Massively unlikely, surely, that her last cctv moment in the middle of a bustling city would also include evidence of her murderer..?

Put it this way, I'm sure I remember rumours coming out about Lenny Henry being in a hotel in the midlands or north of england - with someone other than Dawn French. This is before it came out they were splitting up. You often hear people who work in bars/hotels relating funny stories in radio phone-ins. It doesn't matter who you are or where you are. People talk.

I totally agree alpine surely they would have checked that out properly. Another one to add to my list!

Re the officer being promoted - I thought it was also to do with the fact she went to GA and said she was going to report herself for not investigating the intrusion at Sarah Kays house further. I thought that GA felt she had her trust and so gave her the position of right hand woman. And also wanted to give her the chance to make up for her mistake.

Also now I'm thinking about it, he wasn't a suspect when questioned and maybe they only probe deeper on the alibi if you're a suspect. Maybe.

Agree, Happy. Re the house, though - the children were at Stranmillis Primary iirc - and it looked like they lived on a wide leafy road rather than one of the roads around the Holylands, or the narrower streets towards the river, which surely is still comparatively ££?

I know what you mean, alpine, but for me the investigation being flawed makes it more realistic not less. It's that thing about different things irking different people!

Also agree with Delphi!

Yes teej I did notice stranmillis primary but believe or not I am a considerable distance from there and my neighbour's children attend that school....lets say that would involve the whole length of ormeau/ravenhill (less salubrious than stranmillis). Btw her folks must have a few quid, big farmhouse outside the city but close enough to grt to work/school in morning...!

i can't really believe that a chambermaid would give a damn either way, personally, they're generally over-worked and furrin so why they would know or care that some woman they don't ever see had shagged someone they've no clue about i don't know.

However, if we accept that this was the reason, that it was to protect Stella's reputation... i don't get why Stella didn't deliver the young cop her famous 'man/woman/fuck/potato/woteva' speech.
why is the young cop rewarded for either blackmailing or protecting Stella?
It's not like Stella was at all discreet about propositioning the married cop, or bothered about how unprofessional it might appear.
From what little (really, little) we know of her character she should surely be wholly unapologetic about shagging, after all she doles out the fucky speech after he's been shot right in front of his child...

agree, delphi, that she seemed to trust the young cop and want to give her a fair shot, and that was why she sent her to sort out her room. it's just that i don't get why the condom thing wasn't a major blot on her copybook.

People in films and tv dramas nearly always live in accommodation beyond their salaries, its a bug bear of Mark kermode film critic.
School teacher lives in manhatten loft apartment etc.

Producers must think we need a bit of property porn to go with our serial murders.

Although in this case their house wasnt THAT nice was it? Just normalish family home.

oh i thought it was a vairy nice home, deffo. all the knick-knacks and whatnot. seemed more tasteful and styled than she would have been able to pull off. [sexist]

Because the cop was saying 'I don't judge'.
GA didnt need to give man fuck women speech to cop as her actions implied they both understood this.

Thats why she promoted her. This anher earlier admission of error gave GA good instincts about her. She trusted her.

Than who could have pulled off?

I didn't like their kitchen tiles much.

Yes we've really descended to this level of analysis.