Broadchurch thread 2- the one where everyone in MNPD requests a transfer to the traffic division

[EauRouge]

Thread number one.

So are we all still watching, despite the mumbling, bad writing and inaccuracies?

I'm not sure what ClaireGwen is up to, but they've written her to like kinky sex which in telly land means she's a bad un.

Last night's highlight for me was DH's genuine confusion over whether subtitles were for the hearing impaired or vision impaired (he may have had a couple of beers). Also sweaty Lee hammering in fence posts.

Has that junior solicitor fella been in something on CBBC?

When does The Missing season 2 start?

Lucetta (Lucy) and Susan (PQ's character) from MofC...

Tess is Hardy's wife and her full name came up on his phone I think, so we were supposed to see the Henchard reference.

Also the newsagent was reading Jude the Obscure the night of Danny's death.

I think the kiss was sweet and well done....But in case anyone was wondering how that courtroom could be any more politically correct...The blind older woman is also gay!

There is no way that Joe can be found guilty, given that there seems to be literally no evidence against him!

Bathsheba = Beth, Hmm ??

I think that kiss was the one thing I've believed in this whole series!

Didn't get any of the Hardy references but then I've only ever read Tess in my teens. Can any parallels be drawn re. the guilty/not guilty verdict? Otherwise it just seems a bit lazy on the part of the writer - couldn't be bothered to think up any of his own names.

I was reading the wiki page on Broadchurch last night and it mentioned the Hardy references. I think his cottage is near Dorchester so not too far from where Broadchurch is filmed.

The wiki article also mentioned that Broadchurch was always intended as a trilogy, although series one had a standalone ending in case it wasn't picked up for S2 and S3. So maybe things will pick up in S3. I like the 'who killed Joe' theories for the S3 mystery; if he does get away with it then there will be plenty of people keen to off him.

Oh yeah, Beth could be Bathsheba (d'oh); I was thinking her name was already covered with Elizabeth in Hardy.

Apart from Wessex, I missed the Hardy references - very remiss!

The Radio Times says that almost all of the final episode is devoted to Sandbrook. That makes me think maybe they will find Joe guilty - if he was found not guilty then there'd be all the fall-out from that about what was going to happen to him, would he kill himself, would Ellie go and beat him up again etc. If they find him guilty they don't have to do anything more with that bit of the plot though it does make the whole trial then seem like an irrelevance.

What is the plot of Tess Of The D'Urbervilles ? Does it have any similarities to BC at all?

Well Tess has a horrible tragic life, mainly becasue she is a woman. She gets blamed for things which weren't her fault(like being raped).

Someone much more eloquent and literate will come along ina minute with a better explanation.

Not really - impoverished young girl hoping to make good with richer branch of (supposed) family goes to work for them, is raped by young male of said family, thus 'spoiling' her for her 'true' love who can't forgive her. It all gets a bit messy and she ends up killing rich rapist and hanging for it. Could have vague relevance to Sandbrook - lots of messy sexual encounters and lies about them?

There are more parallels with Jude the Obscure, in that it contains child murder - committed by the children's older half sibling...is this a clue? Is Chloe really the killer?! * disclaimer - I think Joe did it (but I think he's going to get off).

Mayor of Casterbridge - proud, newly poor bloke sells his wife and daughter when drunk to anothet bloke. Later comes good again (financially), spends most of his life regretting it and railing against the times, then dies. Could be the basis for BC3?

Thomas Hardy was very sympathetic to women, and to poor, rural women. Young, poor mothers get a raw deal in the stories, but are shown sympathetically in his painting of their characters (men much less so, they're mostly rapists, drunks or weak moralisers). I guess this is a parallel to some extent with Broadchurch.

Thanks for the plot summaries. I wonder what the purpose is of using the characters' names is, if there isnt really any parallel to the book itself - as a PP said, it just seems like laziness rather than clever

I think that Joe's verdict will be hanging over the whole of the final episode, and there will be a lot of flashbacks, and I fills, and the Sandbrook stuff.

Isn't there supposed to be a massive cliffhanger? That'll be the Not Guilty verdict.

Didn't they do similar with S1? Get so close to tying everything up in the penultimate episode, then spent (what seemed like) most of the last one on seemingly irrelevant stuff, before getting it tied up? Can't remember.

Perhaps the writer is using names from Thomas Hardy to give the series a 'local' setting. I hadn't spotted Henchard as being Tess's surname.

I agree with Pandas they'll leave the verdict to the end of the ep, clearing up Sandbrook in the meantime, and it'll be Not Guilty. S3 will be all about the fallout.

And we'll all be here, outraged at how rubbish it all is but watching and posting every week regardless.

The back stories of the two barristers are boring - nobody really cares. Am I the only one who found the fond smiles over the manky hairbrush a bit unlikely!

Yeah, the back story is so tedious. It doesnt matter that they have past rivalry, or that one son is in jail, or that one is gay. NONE OF IT MATTERS. And if any of it turns out to be highly relevant, then it's just another farcical development

What a very bizarre series.

I hope you're wrong panda but you could be right! I will go mad if they don't deal with BC verdict at the start. They could, as you say do a whole set of flashbacks to pad it out whilst solving SB and coming to a creepy conclusion in France.

Is Joe pleading not guilty to murder?

So he's either guilty or not?

They couldn't find him guilty of manslaughter?

The trying to infer that Ellie & Hardy were having an affair pisses me off!

Can't remember if they have alibis for when Danny was killed, but the only one who was seen putting a body on the beach was either Joe or Nige!

Yes, either guilty or not.

I'm pissed off with the affair thing too and think it's pretty shonky as a defence strategy. Surely the jury will see through it?

The defence's story is that Mark killed Danny and then his loyal friend and workmate Nige put the body on the beach and someone mistook him for Joe. Even though Nige is about a foot taller and built like a brick shithouse and Joe is slight.

Maybe the vicar will come up trumps and reveal that joe confessed to him. He does seem to "know".