User Reviews

There is so much pain in this episode. First, it involves the death by burning of a little boy. His mother is in the hospital, comatose and recovering from her injuries. She has a husband who is despised by all the people near where he lives because of his harsh efforts to keep a farm that was in arrears. The wife is from this place and it is her ancestry as well. There are other young men who have formed a kind of clique. They are determined to destroy the efforts of the husband. But he has already become estranged from his wife, carrying on an affair. The thing that makes this poignant is that we finally are told what happened with Mathias, what is in his past. There are so many red herrings in this episode that we struggle to know the good and the bad and the in-between.

As the second series of this bilingual Welsh crime drama returns protagonist DCI Tom Mathias is called back to duty after an arson attack on a remote house. The fire has left a young child dead and a woman in hospital. Initial suspects include the husband who claims to have been somewhere alone at the time of the fire and a local farmer and his son who lost their farm after their stock was poisoned and blame the woman's husband as he bought the land for his logging business. DCI Mathias's return looks as though it could cause some bad feeling among the police as it leads to DI Mared Rhys losing her role as lead investigator on the case.

This episode made a welcome return to BBC4's Saturday night 'subtitled drama' slot… although only a small portion of the dialogue needed subtitles; this was a good thing as for some reason the BBC chose to use much smaller subtitles than they used for their European imports. To make matters worse they were sometimes white on a white background making them even harder to read. Ignoring this small matter the story was solid and no time was wasted reintroducing the characters… people who didn't watch the first should be able to figure out who is who pretty quickly as the main cast is fairly small. Richard Harrington does a decent job as protagonist DCI Mathias and Mali Harries is equally good as DI Mared Rhys, the guest cast is solid too. This certainly wasn't sponsored by the Welsh tourist board as the impressive scenery looks more ominous than inviting and the locals are shown as a taciturn bunch… of course the ones we see are either suspects or have experienced a loss. Overall I'd recommend this to anybody wanting an atmospheric self-contained drama; just don't expect a particularly happy ending.

Well season 2 and I'm still here propping my eyelids open with matchsticks, this episode moves at a glacial pace and is even more miserable than normal. Not one character in this show has any redeeming features, they are all as miserable as sin. The plot is very predictable although the final whodunit was slightly surprising and at the same time even more depressing than finding someone else for the murder.

Here's a tip DCI Mathias, if you're going to tail someone on a single track road where you're the only two cars for twenty miles at night switch you headlights off, the guy being tailed was clearly blind for not spotting the headlights.

Mared hurts her wrist after being knocked over and then shortly after is seen leaning with her full weight on the bannister, hmm, not convincing. Prosser spends more time staring out of windows and at tv screens watching Mared and everyone seems angry with everyone.

This area of Wales has to be the most depressing part of the UK, all the locals are miserable, none of them stop what they're doing to talk to the cops, they simply walk away as they are being spoken too.

Who writes this crap and why am I still watching? I think the main reason is I just keep hoping it will get better, that and I enjoy looking at Mali Harries, shame she doesn't smile, but then again nobody does.