'The Responder' Season 2 Struggles Not to Fall Off the Wagon

In 2022, the BBC landed a trio of unexpected gritty hits about the realities of crime and law enforcement. Time, originally a stand-alone miniseries starring Sean Bean and Stephen Graham, brought in ratings so high that it was turned into an anthology series, the second season of which recently aired on BritBox here in the States. Vigil, which starred Suranne Jones and Rose Leslie, went nowhere on Peacock here in the U.S. but was a massive draw and landed a second season, which aired earlier in the spring of 2024 and moved the investigators from under the sea to the air. Now, The Responder, the third hit of the group starring Martin Freeman and Adelayo Adedayo, arrives with its second season trailer and a release date in the U.K.

Freeman and Adedayo play Chris Casron and Rachel Hargreaves, your standard odd couple buddy cops; he's a grizzled old veteran, and she's a wide-eyed newbie. However, the twist is that he's been recently demoted and is slowly sliding down the path towards winding up as crooked as they come, having spent his life traumatized, an issue exacerbated by his time in the force. The combination of being paired with Hargreaves, who is still idealistic and rule-abiding, and the case they are thrown into in the show's first season in trying to save a drug addict named Casey become the wake-up call he desperately needs.

Much like Time and Vigil, The Responder ended with an ending that didn't necessarily open the series up to more seasons. However, unlike those shows, which either outright made an anthology move or at least a completely new setting, The Responder picked back up a few months after the conclusion of Season 1, checking in on how Chris' choice to do the right thing is going. Let's just say the answer is "as well as can be expected." And by that, I mean "absolutely awful."