Guess who’s back, its the Belfast Strangler. The beautiful DSI Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson) has her work cut out again after series one’s dramatic ending to get Paul Spector’s (Jamie Dornan) survivng victim to remember her attacker. She also has to fight the phallocentric world of the police and the tabloids to keep her work and her investigation’s budget on track.
Whilst Gibson powers through the not-so-friendly threats by locals as well as bureaucratic nightmares, Spector is at it again. Searching for his victims and trying to regain his young family and his reputation as a bereavement councillor.
What is difficult and also extremely interesting about The Fall is its use of an extremely handsome serial killer to mess with your mind. Jamie Dornan is not only an actor but a model and was cast as the infamous Christian Grey in the upcoming Fifty Shades of Grey film (a career choice I’m not to happy with). He is so handsome, and so normal in his family life that it is hard to make yourself want him to be caught. But then at the same time you have to remind yourself that he is really creepy and a murderer as well ridiculously good-looking.
The creator, Allan Cubitt, has added this brilliant layer of confusion and reality to such an overdone idea. Shows like Criminal Minds have predictably villainous looking villains who for some reason live in caves and forests. This freak-show of baddies only reinforces ancient, societal stereotypes of evil people looking evil on the outside as well, whereas making the killer good-looking and charming adds a layer of menace that a predictable villain would not be able to achieve.
As well as this, intersting gender roles are explored through Anderson’s character, through the relationship between her beauty and power. Series two seems to be up to the same excellent level of creepiness and confusion as the first, I’m ready for round two.
