Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Prime Suspect 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Doing the Right Thing While Trying to Get Ahead

Reviewed by Michael Reuben August 23, 2013

(Spoiler alert: The following assumes that the reader is familiar with the previous series of Prime Suspect. If you haven't seen the previous series, proceed at your own risk.)

First Broadcast: December 15-16, 1992 (U.K.); February 11, 1993 (U.S.)

In Series 2 of Prime Suspect, Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren) discovers that it isn't enough just to be a good detective. With greater responsibility comes greater dependence on the judgments—and the mistakes—of those around her, and some of them have baggage even heavier and more unwieldy than hers. Also, Tennison's private life intrudes on her work in ways she never imagined, and a high profile case triggers social forces that no cop can hope to control.

Series creator Lynda LaPlante developed the story for Series 2, but turned over scriptwriting to Alan Cubitt, a budding talent who would go on to a prolific career of both original writing and major literary adaptations such as Anna Karenina. Directing duties fell to John Strickland, who has continued working in the crime genre with episodes of Poirot, Agatha Christie's Marple and numerous entries in the long-running cop series, The Bill.

A year after closing the Marlow case, Tennison is sufficiently part of the "club" that she has joined another DCI named Thorndike (Stephen Boxer) in holding a weekend seminar on interrogation techniques. Attending the conference is a young black sergeant, Robert Oswalde (Colin Salmon, Resident Evil), who is ambitious, highly qualified and alert to any hint of racial discrimination.

But Tennison is called back to London in the middle of the conference by DS Mike Kernan (John Benfield), because workmen have discovered a human skeleton buried behind 15 Honeyford Road, a house in a largely Afro-Caribbean neighborhood of London. Everyone's first thought is that it's the remains of Simone Cameron, who has been missing for several years and whose grief-stricken mother, Nola (Corinne Skinner-Carter), remains distraught with grief. Tennison is the investigator assigned to the case.

Even as the coroner is trying to confirm the identity of the remains, the discovery becomes a media circus. Many in the neighborhood believe that Simone's case was mishandled and that the wrong man, a relative, was imprisoned for her presumed murder. A local politician, Jonathan Phelps (Stefan Kalipha), pounces on the occasion to hold rallies and press conferences to bolster his campaign for office. Eventually, though, the medical evidence establishes the truth: The body is not Simone's. It's another young woman, strangled and buried. For purposes of the case file, she is dubbed "Nadine".

Tennison and her squad now focus on identifying the occupants of 15 Honeyford at the time when the stone slabs were laid under which Nadine's body was found. The house belongs to a married couple, Vernon and Esme Allen (George Harris and Claire Benedict), who used to live next door to 15 Honeyford with their son, Tony (Fraser James), and daughter, Sarah (Jenny Jules), but have since moved to another part of town. At the time, Vernon rented 15 Honeyford to one David Harvey (Tom Watson), an unpleasant white man, whom no one in the neighborhood liked and Vernon was glad to be rid of. Indeed, the more Tennison learns about David Harvey, the more he seems a likely candidate as the prime suspect in Nadine's murder.

But someone on Tennison's squad has other ideas. Without consulting Tennison, her boss, Mike Kernan, has added a new black sergeant to her previously all-white squad, in the hope of improving the department's image with the local citizenry. Until now, the typical police attitude has been reflected by DI Frank Burkin (Craig Fairbrass), who can't canvass the neighborhood around 15 Honeyford without getting into an altercation. The new sergeant recruited by Kernan is none other than Robert Oswalde, the sergeant Tennison met at the interrogation course. Tennison is furious that Kernan went behind her back, and she has personal issues with Oswalde, but she has no choice in the matter.

Oswalde quickly focuses on a different suspect in Nadine's murder, after he brings in the Allen family to view a detailed reconstruction of the victim's face, extrapolated from the skeletal remains. The Allens say they don't recognize the face, but Oswalde observes that young Tony Allen is deeply disturbed, staring at the life-size model as if he'd seen a ghost. When Oswalde questions Tony Allen, he becomes agitated and incoherent.

Meanwhile, Tennison has located her prime suspect, David Harvey, in a squalid council apartment, where he is dying from a heart condition, cared for by his sister, Eileen Reynolds (June Watson), and her son, Jason (Matt Bardock). Harvey is evasive and uncooperative at first, but after a major heart attack lands him in the hospital, he tells Tennison he wants to make a dying declaration. Tennison takes Harvey's statement with his nephew, Jason Reynolds, as a witness, but the statement does not conclude the case.

Much of the plot of Series 2 turns on false assumptions and deceptive appearances: about race, about gender, even about photographs. By the time the body buried behind 15 Honeyford has been identified and the murderer captured, a great deal more damage has been done to both the police and the community. As the officer in charge of the investigation, Tennison gets much more of the blame than she deserves, but her aggressive style makes her a convenient scapegoat for the higher-ups, including her mentor, Mike Kernan, who has his eye on a Chief Superintendent's position and has no intention of letting adverse publicity get in his way.

Prime Suspect 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

For a discussion of Series 2's reformatted 1.78:1 aspect ratio, please see the Video section of The Complete Collection review. The extra screencaps with this review include sample comparisons between the Blu-ray and Acorn Media's DVD release of Series 2, which retained the original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. (Note that the DVD image has been slightly squeezed; this was not uncommon on DVD to compensate for overscan.) The 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray opens with the disclaimer quoted in the Complete Collection review.

Series 2 was photographed by two cinematographers, Ken Morgan, who shot Series 1, and David Odd, who later shot Series 3 and 4. This accounts for the consistent look of the first four series. The Blu-ray image quality on the two parts of Series 2 is comparable to that of Series 1, which is to say that it varies from sharp with detailed clarity and some remarkably vibrant colors, to fuzzy with soft edges and more pronounced grain. Fortunately, the latter is the exception, not the rule. Overall, the image reflects a strong rendition of a 16mm filmed image.

Some light noise reduction has clearly been applied, but not at the expense of detail or at the cost of motion artifacts. Certainly enough film grain remains in the image to indicate that any filtering was done with a light hand. As with Series 1, compared to the DVD, the Blu-ray image of Series 2 is considerably brighter, but I see no reason to regard the DVD's image as some sort of "standard". Blacks, when they occur, are sufficiently black to suggest that the brightening remains within appropriate parameters.

Like its immediate predecessor, Series 2 runs 213 minutes in two parts. A BD-50 has provided enough room for the compressionist to accommodate the program without noticeable errors.

Prime Suspect 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Series 2's stereo track is presented in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0, and the mix is somewhat more full-bodied than Series 1's, especially when dealing with a visit to a sound studio where a reggae band is recording and with tapes of a reggae concert acquired during the visit. (The concert becomes a key element in the investigation.) Steven Warbeck's score continues to be used sparingly, but Series 2 is bolder in its sound design, deepening the bass extension for background noise, interweaving sonic elements in distinctive environments such as David Harvey's hospital room and overlapping voices in interesting ways (e.g., an extended scene in the police station's lockup).

Prime Suspect 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No extras are included with Series 2. At startup the disc plays a trailer for Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button.

Prime Suspect 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

During the course of Series 2, Tennison applies for a promotion and learns that getting ahead isn't just a matter of doing your job well. She is also reminded that a woman's personal life is evaluated differently from a man's when it comes to professional advancement. Taking all this in during the final moments of Series 2, Tennison comes to a major decision regarding her career, which she announces just before the credits roll. One of the most intriguing subplots that creator Lynda La Plante wove throughout the first three series of Prime Suspect is the story of how Tennison learns to "play the game" against the big boys—and beat them at it. That narrative reaches a conclusion in Series 3, but one can't fully appreciate its resolution without knowing Tennison's first failed attempt in Series 2. This is essential Tennison.