How bonkers do you like your midweek British thriller? If the answer is “lots”, pull up a stool because series two of Suspect (Channel 4, Wednesday, 9pm) is so unhinged you can almost see its eyes rolling in its sockets as you watch.
Season one of this adaptation of a hit Danish drama featured James Nesbitt as a detective investigating the murder of his own daughter. There was a twist at the end when Nesbitt’s character, Danny, stabbed the pathologist he suspected of murdering his child – and was then carted off to prison.
Danny is behind bars as the story resumes. This time the focus is his psychotherapist ex-wife, Susannah (Anne-Marie Duff). She is trying to put her life back together following her daughter’s killing when she receives a call from a suave nicotine addict, Jon (Dominic Cooper), who is desperate to quit smoking.
She tells him she isn’t seeing patients – but he is persuasive (and bribes her with doughnuts). However, when she hypnotises him, he reveals he is a serial killer who works to order and has been commanded to bump off his latest victim (another young woman) that night.
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Jon claims to remember nothing of his outburst and goes off on his merry way. In a panic, Susannah pays a call to Detective Richard Groves (Ben Miller), a stodgy copper with whom she’s had a fling. This is where it gets a bit confusing because it turns out he knows all about the murders to which Jon referred – but doesn’t seem too bothered about doing anything about Susannah’s claims.
At this point, Susannah and Richard are interrupted by Groves’s legal eagle wife, Natasha (Tamsin Greig). She knows all about the affair and is fine with it because she understands that Richard will always come crawling back – and no, she isn’t troubled about the potential activities of a nicotine-addicted serial killer either.
Nordic noir was a phenomenon for a reason – it took the staid police procedural formula and gave it an agreeable new coating of Scandinavian gloom. Suspect is far weirder and doesn’t hit any of the satisfying beats you want from a murder mystery.
Instead, everyone dashes about, jaws agape, eyes-swivelling – as if the cast can’t quite work what they’re doing and are starting to panic. It makes for anxious viewing and is the opposite of the Agatha Christie-esque cosy crime currently all the rage. Amid the over-acting, the script chucks in red herrings with aplomb – but the thing Suspect is truly guilty of is not making any sense.
