So I don't normally do this, but this is such an obscure mini series among my friend group that I have nobody to vent to otherwise. And I feel like I NEED to vent about this one. This will be full of spoilers, you've been warned.

Let me just say that I don't think every aspect of the show is bad. Performances, I think, are good. Dialog is acceptable. The core concept (at least, one side of it) is interesting. It's just that the plot is downright painful. It's like the writers just wrote in random contrivances to progress the plot, and did this multiple times every episode. I didn't even make it to the end, but by the time I stopped watching, I'd just roll my eyes whenever some new development happened instead of being shocked.

It starts with an interesting premise. Stanley Tucci is a former crim. professor and currently convicted murderer on death row somewhere in the American southwest. He solves crimes that the police otherwise don't touch or are unable to. Sure, cool. David Tennant is a vicar (priest I guess?) in England. Not sure how that factors in, but OK I like Tennant. Whatever.

This story has two sides - the Tucci side and the Tennant side. The Tucci side is fantastic. Good premise, fun dialog, interesting characters. The Tennant side is where, in my opinion, the story falls apart. It's just one random contrivance after another to back Tennant into a corner where he's left with "no choice" but to take the actions he does. Let me explain.

The first big confrontation that, I think, makes little sense is after the Tennant gets home from a day at his church. That day, he was handed a flash drive containing porn by one of his attendees. A clearly troubled, most likely mentally unwell boy. But he agrees to take the flash drive for safe keeping from the boy's puritanical mother, and not recommend the boy seek other forms of help. Because church, I guess? Anyway, he leaves the drive on a shelf in the entryway, where by coincidence his son grabs it to load some learning modules on from his math tutor. I think he hands the drive off to the tutor? The story's already getting a little hard to believe, but it's still within the realm of possibility.

The math tutor, Janice, quickly realizes what kind of porn is on the drive while she's moving files. The illegal kind. She calls Tennant over to the computer and confronts him about it, and Tennant starts to explain that it's not his. She jumps to the conclusion that it must be his son's, and he tries to deny it
and tells her it's a member of his church but can't say who it belong to. I assume because he made a promise before God and takes it VERY seriously. You know, more seriously than pedophilia. Good ol' Church!

So this is where things get even less believable. See, they try to circumvent the weirdness by having a prior scene where Janice is shown to be a bit of a weirdo loner who has a hero complex. She doesn't believe the Vicar at all, and acts very cagey. He repeatedly asks if she's going to tell the police as soon as she leaves, and she does a very bad job lying about it. Ultimately they get physical as she's trying to leave, and Tennant winds up pushing her down into his basement and locks the door behind her. The idea is that, in parallel with this, Tucci is telling the audience how it doesn't take much for a normal person to become a murderer. Tennant's story is supposed to be one such example, unbelievable as it is.

My problem with this whole scene is that normal people don't act like that. I think most reasonable individuals would try and have a calm, rational discussion with someone who is clearly very trusted within the community, and claiming you're mistaken. Especially when the evidence is circumstantial at best. It just so happens that SHE is one of a handful of people on the fucking planet who'd act really awkward about it and immediately try and bolt to tell the police the version of the truth they're SURE must be true. Instead of, ya know, talking about it.

Obviously Tennant's character is also in the wrong for not just coming out and saying who the drive belongs to, but he's the Vicar of course. It's just another contrivance in the long list of contrivances to make this whole story possible.

As you can imagine, things keep spiraling out of control from there. The next big contrivance to move the plot along is that the boy who actually owns the porn, Edgar, suddenly has a 180 and vehemently denies ever owning it. Tennant tries to secretly record a conversation of him confessing to the ownership, but he has this big dramatic scene where he can't even say it in front of God. Further driving the Vicar into a corner and giving him "no way out". Also side note: did he not expect Tennant to see what was on the drive? I feel like people who deal in that stuff are way, way more careful. Then again, he's deeply mentally unwell and shown to be suicidal. How convenient! Gotta keep that plot rolling somehow! Also, is getting him to confess without him knowing somehow not breaking your vow? Seems very loophole-y to me.

So now you've got a story with one woman who's probably on the spectrum and a boy with deep mental health issues, all coalescing around this deeply devout man of god who feels honor-bound to keep this boy's privacy...but only sometimes. By coincidence. And even then, the obvious solution is to just go the police at this point. If the boy is careless enough to hand unencrypted drives to people, he's probably got a digital paper trail on his home computer. Tenant's character apparently never even considers this possibility. There are just so, so many other obvious ways to resolve the situation that any normal person would think of. But he doesn't....to move the plot along.

I could keep going (and believe me, there are more), but I've already written enough. I made it the end of episode 3 as more and more of these contrivances stacked up to make the story "work" that it just became comical and unfun to watch.

I'm just curious if anyone else who's seen this one disagrees, or what they thought of it.

I can’t tell if I hate it?

The main character is not very impressive nor do they demonstrate their skills that well in the writing. The other main character makes the worst decisions I’ve ever seen in a single program.

That said, the cast was great! Absolutely charming. But the characters were so shallow I think they all get all the awards for making characters out of napkins. The dialogue was fun but the story was nonsense.

Honestly, I haven’t been so conflicted about a show in a long time.

Edit: can I just say how much fun it’s been to have a new bunch of comments ripping the show to shreds. I’ve been on this site for a decade and this is my favourite exchange. The true Inside Man was the friends we made along the way.

It makes sense that Steven Moffat wrote this heaping pile of garbage. The “genius” in this show was written in such a similar fashion to the “geniuses” from the last season of Sherlock.

1. I can’t believe by the end of the show the only character I still liked was the serial killer who eats feet and murdered 15 people.

2. Neither of the “cases” Grieff “solved” made any sense at all. They make huge assumptions and if the secretary kept paying the guy rather than the therapist wouldn’t the therapist say “hey why do you keep having late payments”? Him saying she’s just obedient is so dumb. Also the train one makes no sense either. He was trying to escape the ceremony to get home?? To be murdered by his wife?? Was she not at the ceremony? That only makes sense if he had run away, not if he had been murdered?

3. The writing and character development on the show was HORRID. How you fail to fill only 4 episodes with enough content is beyond me. If he shouts “I’m the fucking vicar” one more time - or if one more person gets pushed down the stairs in a fit of rage.

4. Also on the writing - why the hell would the vicar be so hellbent on protecting Edgar, but 5 seconds later be trying to get him to confess and record him. Also the vicar downloading MORE CHILDPORN and printing it out was HORRIBLE writing. Great now you really have committed a felony when NONE OF YOU HAD SONE ANYTHING WRONG? Also what pedo PRINTS OUT CHILDPORN.

5. Grief’s “network” of criminals and henchmen was such a lazy plot point that was literally lifted from Sherlock - like literally lifted.

6. Also googling “how to murder” or “how long carbon monoxide take to kill someone” WTF. Literally cannot stress how bad the writing was. Also I lost it when she said “I cut myself and bled and pissed in every corner of this basement” lmao.

7. If you’re only going to do 4 episodes, I don’t think you’ve built up enough tension to be able to do cliffhangers for a second season. How about just making this a normal length season?

Overall dumb show. Mostly Good actors done in by horrible writing.