Given the host of superlative reviews of this series on this site yet another one is somewhat redundant BUT.
Like many I was completely gripped by the series and I only started watching on a whim. The leads, Armitage & Finneran give good performances and some solid support is offered by, Dudman, Kaye, Kirwan & Rea. The drama is well paced and gripping and because this is done so well you tend to overlook the glaring plot holes and departures from logic hence so many 9 and 10 reviews. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed the excitement but the final episode is absolute nonsense and because it is so ridiculous all the other inconsistencies, which you've wilfully ignored, get a far more critical appraisal.
For instance (this is the spoiler bit), the alpaca thing is never properly resolved and the guilty party is never charged despite it being common knowledge by the end. The school kids drug rave goes nowhere when in actual fact the evidence available, particularly in such a posh school, would have had the police doing drug tests. Why is the mum poisoning her own child, how did she get hold of some of the stuff (anti biotics we're told), how does she know how to mix and administer, why does the hospital not refer on after such baffling symptoms? There was no need for this macguffin to give Katz motivation, a clear case of an american plot line not translating well to a UK setting. The villain's motivation is absurd, posh middle class types raiding the soccer club funds for ten grand for an unknown debt? These people are swimming in money and to think they are then going to take a hammer to someone who's going to blow the whistle is rubbish, how many of us could really kill? But to compound the stupidity he keeps the victim's phone? Err, evidence? Even if you buy into the false flag text message idea why then keep the phone? How does it keep charge over 6 days? And why the whole tracking the phone chase when he doesn't know it's being tracked but leads Armitage and his sons on a merry dance to then dump the phone. The motivation for The Stranger although given are never really believable and the revelation of being Stephen Rea's son but actually Armitage's sister via his dad's affair with Rea's wife is equally unbelievable and implies a sex change somewhere?? All this really serves as is gaining sympathy for an unsympathetic character who waltzes off unscathed. The biggest problem however is the end. Would a police officer of what looks like 30 years service conspire to cover up the killing of the bad guy by the hero who, no matter how sympathetic, they have only known for around 6 days and hasn't exactly been forthcoming a lot of the time? Would they cover it up in such an half assed way? Would not the scene of the crime guys have sussed out there was something wrong with the crime scene? And how did Katz, who is under arrest, get out to some woods with a gun he doesn't have to kill a bloke he has absolutely no connection with?
Which all very neatly contradicts the whole point of the story that secrets never stay secret, yet at the end our two main characters have a huge secret which in reality would never have been a secret.
Watch by all means and enjoy the ride but be prepared for a serious disappointment with the final episode.
Review of The Stranger
