The Jetty review: Jenna Coleman sleuths in clichéd but compelling feminist cold-case drama

In her Seventeenth-century portray Judith Slaying Holofernes, Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi depicted a well-known scene of biblical vengeance: Judith decapitating the Assyrian normal, Holofernes. Since its composition, the portray has been learn as a proxy for Gentileschi’s personal expertise – Gentileschi was raped by her mentor, Agostino Tassi – and, by extension, has turn out to be a logo of ladies taking management of their tales, after male-perpetrated violence. So when it seems earlier than the eyes of a sceptical detective in Cat Jones’s new BBC thriller, The Jetty, we all know we’re in for a narrative of contested and reclaimed narratives.

In a sleepy Lancashire city the place everybody is aware of everybody – and half of them are associated – a blaze on the boathouse units in movement a series of occasions that can lead DC Ember Manning (Jenna Coleman) again into her personal previous. Sifting by the ashes, alongside Ember, is a podcaster, Riz Samuel (Weruche Opia), who has proven as much as examine a chilly case. A lady, Amy (Bo Bragason), disappeared many years in the past, and her physique has by no means been discovered. What hyperlinks the inferno on the jetty and this lacking lady? And is that this historical historical past associated to a string of present-day intercourse offences?

It’s a acquainted mix. Police procedural intertwines with flashback, permitting viewers into the story of Amy and her good friend Caitlin (Laura Marcus), unfolding within the Nineteen Nineties, whereas Ember and Riz sleuth within the right here and now. Ember, whose deceased ex-husband (performed by Home of the Dragon’s Tom Glynn-Carney) is implicated in these long-ago occasions, is a gifted however impudent copper, far overqualified for her rank of detective constable. “I’m a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in cheap workplace put on,” she tells her gormless sidekick, Hitch (Archie Renaux). Elevating a teenage daughter, whereas engaged on the beat, hasn’t given Ember a lot time for introspection about her relationship, however the energy dynamics unveiled in Amy’s case drive her to confront questions on her personal life.

open picture in gallery

Coleman – most acquainted to viewers for her stint as a Physician Who assistant – is a wonderful anchor for proceedings, imbuing Ember with a plausible charisma. “I can detect my very own a***holes,” she publicizes, proudly. And this can be a world filled with them; a world the place male crimes towards girls floor like ripples on the lake. If The Jetty has a preoccupation, it’s with the endemic nature of abuse. Ember describes the seek for intercourse offenders within the city – males who’ve probably raped and impregnated a minor – as like looking “for a needle in a pile of needles”. On this setting of constant violation, how do you discover the one that goes that step additional and turns into a killer?

“I don’t consider that each man is able to hurting a girl,” Ember tells a bunch of schoolgirls, “however we live in an incubator for those which might be.” It’s a clear, feminist throughline – the type of didactic commentary that’s typically absent from crime (and true crime) depictions of violence towards girls. That outcomes, after all, in a component of cakeism, the place the present falls foul of the very issues it critiques. Whereas Ember is on a campaign to unveil the systemic misogyny of the group, the flashbacks depict these teenage ladies in an overtly sexualised means. The steadiness between the message and the tactic is fraught with issues.

All the identical, there may be much more great things in The Jetty than in your common “faulty detective” drama (and sure, Ember has all of the hallmarks of that trope: useless partner, disruptive daughter, difficulties with authority). In contrast to so many latest cop dramas, the thriller parts are clear; the forged of characters comparatively contained. If the denouement doesn’t break any new inventive floor, a minimum of it resists the temptation in the direction of the type of low-cost twists which might be so prevalent in blended timeline narratives. And if the writing generally clunks off the display screen (“This place is just like the A to Z of misogyny,” Riz declares, “and V is for victim-blaming”) then a minimum of Coleman is a reassuringly watchable presence.

The Jetty doesn’t reinvent the crime drama. In actual fact, it borrows extensively from the BBC’s huge again catalogue. However the restrained and self-contained nature of the narrative, and its likeable protagonist, offsets most of that triteness. The result’s a compulsive thriller that wears its politics confidently and opaquely. It won’t have the creative advantage to hold within the Uffizi, however, within the pantheon of cold-case dramas, it deserves its place on the wall.

‘The Jetty’ is on BBC One and iPlayer