'The Beast Must Die' Season 1, Episode 2

It took until episode two to finally bring Jared Harris into The Beast Must Die, but the entrance was worth it. Driving a flashy green sports car hell for leather to the point that his son in the passenger seat falls out of the vehicle car sick, he flies into Frances' life just as she planned. Because she did plan this, though her face says she wasn't quite ready to be hit with the reality of her son's murderer standing before her. Still, she plotted, planned, lied to, and manipulated poor Lena to get her back here to the Isle of Wight and face-to-face with George. Now she just has to decide what next.

Strangeways: How about today we pretend we're real cops?

It's a fascinating decision on the part of the series to turn Strangeways into the leading man because that makes him someone we're supposed to sympathize with. In the first episode, it seemed like the show had partway succeeded in that mission, inventing a detective from the original novel and giving him a quarter turn into a franchise detective. But the series also doesn't seem sure whether or not we're supposed to root for him to be a hard-nosed copper who insists on acting like actual law enforcement against a local hooligan like Nicky Tolland (Nico Mirallegro) even though that makes him a bastard. Or perhaps we should patiently wait for him to realize social worker with a badge is his line of work.