While Acorn TV has an overabundance of light mystery series, they also have a few that are more thrillers than amiable murder-of-the-week series. A new series that takes place in a small town in West Wales is in the thriller category, with the case complicated by the fact that the detectives investigating it used to be engaged.
Opening Shot: Scenes of a seaside town, then the exterior of a hospital.
The Gist: Abbi Rayner (Bethan McLean), a student nurse who works at the hospital, is about to leave on a trip to Paris to meet her boyfriend, Darrell Williams (Rick Yale). Abbi’s co-worker, Helen Sheldon (Rhian Blythe). Right before she leaves, though, she gets a troubling text message. Instead of making her way to Paris, though, she sits on a bench to meet someone, running into a man who thinks he recognizes her. Another message sends her to a house, then into the woods. There is obviously someone following her.
The next morning, West Wales Police DS Rick Sheldon (Richard Harrington) sees Darrell talking to his wife Helen outside their home. It turns out that Abbi never made to Paris; Rick makes sure to take the lead on this case, and has to deliver the bad news to Helen when Abbi’s body is found that night.
Rick’s boss, DCI Alan Vaughn (Ioan Hefin) feels that the death has echoes of a case Rick pursued twelve years prior, where Paul Harvey (Ian Puleston-Davies) was put away for life after killing two nurses. He thinks that DI Ffion Lloyd (Elen Rhys) should be called in from Cardiff to be the senior investigating officer on the case. Rick objects, for a number of reasons. Yes, they investigated the Harvey murders together, so she has experience. But, she left town after the case was closed. Oh, and the two of them used to be engaged. What we find out eventually is that Rick left Ffion for Helen right around the time Harvey was caught.
Ffion is also coming back to her hometown, where her sister Lisa (Hannah Daniel) and mother Delyth (Sharon Morgan) care for her father, whose dementia has gotten worse. In fact, Ffion’s father Griff (William Thomas) still thinks that she’s still together with Rick.
Suspicion falls at first on both Darrell and an ex of Abbi’s, who seems to have drawings of her around his house. Then, Harvey’s wife Anna (Eiry Thomas), who’s dying of cancer, comes by the station with news about the second murder her husband was accused of, which blows the current case wide open.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The One That Got Away, written by Catherine Tregenna, is more on the noirish, thriller side of Acorn TV’s mystery roster, along the lines of Inspector Ellis or Mystery Road.
Our Take: Everything about The One That Got Away points to a limited series that has a solid mystery at its core, with the more intriguing portion involving Ffion and Rick’s past together and how it flows in and out of the case they’re trying to solve.
The mystery is essentially about whether Rick and Ffion had actually gotten the right guy in Harvey over a decade ago; there’s an indication that Harvey may have done the first murder but not the second, which means that the second killer is still at large. Rick and Ffion are going to have to contend with that at the same time they’re reconciling what ended their relationship. Let’s just say that there is more than one reason why the show’s title is what it is.
Regarding that relationship, Tregenna cleverly leads the audience on a little bit without dragging things out. By the end of the episode, what we think we know about the relationship is subverted. Ffion kids Rick about being a cheater, but it’s not because Rick cheated on Helen with her, but the other way around, as he left Ffion for Helen. When we see Ffion with her family, there are indications that Ffion wasn’t going to give Rick what he was looking for, which was the family that he and Helen now have. But we’d imagine that those circumstances will be revealed at some point.
Helen seems to be immediately suspicious, but she has other things to worry about, given that nurses are the killer’s victims. We’re not sure how that will play out, but we’re enjoying the performances from Rhys, Harrington and Blythe enough to have some patience.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Helen goes outside her house after she hears a noise. It’s apparent she’s being watched.
Sleeper Star: There’s a reason why Ioan Hefin’s character, DCI Alan Vaughn, immediately jumped on the serial killer copycat theory and why he wanted to bring in Ffion. Hopefully, we’ll find out more.
Most Pilot-y Line: As Ffion drives back to town, she’s playing Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun.” Is that a shortcut to say that she’s dark?
Our Call: STREAM IT. While the mystery of the series The One That Got Away is intriguing, the personal dynamics between the show’s main characters are what we are more interested in.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
