Discovered the British cop show called Luther

 

Luther is a British cop show Wiswell recommended to me on Twitter.

I’ve only watched the first episode, but I loved it. The actor’s accents are delicious. He’s got anger-management issues, he steps over the law sometimes, but they keep him on because he’s so good at his job.

There are hints he did something illegal to a criminal at the beginning, but he gets reinstated.

The detective’s marriage is ending, because he couldn’t separate his personal life and police life. The wife got tired of him thinking about work even when he’s with her; the new man in her life is with her when he’s with her.

I feel sorry for them both, but I have little sympathy for her. She knew he was a cop when she married him, she had to know how obsessive he could be about work. Deciding later she can’t live with that is just silly. But probably realistic. Also, dramatic. Very, door-destroying dramatic.

The villain is very villain-like, pretty, psychopathy and murderous. I am sure she was always pretty and a psychopath, but I think the murdering thing probably came later.

She killed her parents. At the end, they show her in a hospital, watching some guy in a hospital bed. You have to wonder if she put him in the hospital or is going to do something to him. She’s fascinating. Hypnotic, even. One episode is not enough to judge (a reason to watch more episodes!), but I suspect they will slowly add to her character arc.

I think maybe the show’s overall arc will come from this and the detective’s story.

He never arrests her; she doesn’t leave behind any evidence.

So  . . . unlike a lot of cop shows, where the cop wins because they’re smart and law-abiding, Luther stops her by a spot of breaking & entering. He throws the pot of her dog’s ashes into the river and is all: this is what I’ll do to you if you go after my wife again. (The ashes have the trophy psychopaths are always supposed to need of their murders.)

I will admit, that’s not the ending I was expecting. Even if they weren’t going to arrest her in the first episode, I still expected something else. Something less likely to have the trial thrown out on its ear. Makes me wonder if she’ll live to have a trial.