The ‘Trespasses’ Premiere Introduces Forbidden Love
"We must find the bravery to choose freedom over fear."
Many viewers tuning into the new PBS drama Trespasses may experience a sense of deja vu. After all, it’s a prestige historical drama set during the tumultuous, multi-decade period known as The Troubles and stars actress Lola Petticrew in a lead role. But while this story may share a setting with the (excellent) FX drama Say Nothing, that’s largely where the similarities end.
Trespasses is a story about the Troubles, to be sure. The show is remarkably forthright about how violence, tension, and unspoken cultural boundaries seep into every aspect of life in 1970s Belfast. Catholic schoolchildren are regularly reminded about the dangers of associating with “the enemy” (a.k.a. Protestants); checkpoints, surveillance, and nosy neighbors are everywhere; and the newscasts run nightly reports of attacks, arrests, and property damage.
But Trespasses is more love story than a historical reenactment, and it’s most compelling when it explores the human cost of trying to build a life in what is essentially a war zone.
The story follows Cushla (Petticrew), a young Catholic schoolteacher living at home with her widowed, alcoholic mother (Gillian Anderson). She occasionally helps out her brother Eamonn (Martin McCann) at the family pub, where she’s frequently harassed by drunk patrons and forced to scrub the Ash Wednesday cross off her forehead to avoid provoking them.
It’s there she meets Michael Agnew (Tom Cullen), a well-known Protestant barrister who steps in to protect her from a group of rowdy soldiers. He’s handsome and intelligent—their first conversation is about A Clockwork Orange!—and Cushla’s interest is both immediate and obvious. But there are some obvious red flags: He’s at least 15 years Cushla’s senior, he doesn’t share her religion, and he’s married.
Nowadays, these are all eminently solvable problems, and plenty of people date and marry across religious, age, and socio-economic lines. But in 1970s Belfast? Not so much.
One of Cushla’s favorite students hails from a “mixed” (a.k.a. interfaith) marriage, and he and his family are regularly ostracized and harassed by both Protestant loyalists and Catholic nationalists. (Including the religious leaders at young Davy’s school.) His father is so savagely beaten he can no longer care for himself and requires assistance with basic tasks like going to the bathroom or smoking a cigarette. It’s horrifying on many levels, but it’s not exactly uncommon.
Unsurprisingly, most of this first episode is about table setting. Cushla’s day-to-day life is not particularly exciting. We watch her navigate complicated questions from her students about bombings and the Irish National Liberation Army. Kids throw rocks at her car when she drops off young Davy at home, across from offensive graffiti that insists Catholics get out of the neighborhood.
Cushla and Tom unexpectedly run into each other again while she’s out at the theater with her sweet (and extremely friend-zoned) colleague Gerry (Oisín Thompson). Tom invites her to meet a group of his friends trying to learn Irish, since she’s studied it.
So much of Cushla’s life seems to be dedicated to service, from trying to keep the kids from hearing too much about the violence around them to taking care of her alcoholic mother, who is both publicly embarrassing, privately messy, and borderline abusive all around. Watching her try to drag her passed-out mother upstairs after another night at the bottom of the bottle is awful, particularly because Gina so rarely says thank you or seems even remotely appreciative of her.
It’s no wonder she’s so drawn to Michael, who seems genuinely interested in who Cushla is as a person and eager to hear what she thinks about the kind of larger problems facing the world around her. A legal crusader who’s managed to piss off both sides of the Catholic/Protestant divide, he regularly voices unpopular truths, insisting that law enforcement is only creating new IRA recruits through their violent methods of oppression. He’s so much more mature and worldly than the boyish types trying to court her. (Poor Gerry.)
There’s a less interesting version of this story where Michael is a creep who uses the power imbalance created by his professional success and personal charisma to his advantage. Instead, Cullen leans into his quiet sincerity, which makes Michael’s feelings for Cushla feel both desperate and genuine, even as we all know he has a wife at home and a reputation for cheating. They’re almost shockingly easy to root for, even though we know none of this ends well.
It certainly doesn’t hurt that Petticrew and Cullen have excellent chemistry and their yearning is top-notch. As Michael and Cushla sit in some picturesque, windswept grasslands and talk about his privilege and her fear, he insists they can’t let the bigots and boys with guns determine their future. Unfortunately, both groups will likely have more influence than either of them would like.
Trespasses will continue with new episodes on Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on most local stations and the PBS app. All episodes are available for members via PBS Passport from premiere day.
