Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

The Fall: Series 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Cold Pursuit

Reviewed by Michael Reuben March 16, 2016

Spoiler warning: This review assumes that the reader has seen Series 1 of The Fall and contains spoilers for those who have not. A spoiler-free review of Series 1 can be found here. If you have not seen Series 1, proceed at your own risk.

Series 1 of The Fall ended with both a resolution and a cliffhanger. After five episodes tracing the parallel paths of a Belfast serial killer and the London cop determined to catch him, creator and writer Allan Cubitt finally brought his two antagonists together for a confrontation—but only over the phone. As the killer, Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan), announced his intention to "walk away" from his reign of terror, DCS Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson) replied that "[i]t's never over for someone like you". That appeared to be the case, however, as viewers watched Spector pack up his family and drive out of Belfast, leaving Gibson and her colleagues with a string of unsolved homicides.

Series 2 confirms Gibson's diagnosis, as Spector quickly returns to his former hunting ground, but the game has changed. Having failed to achieve satisfaction with his latest victim, Annie Brawley (Karen Hassan), who survived his attack, Spector now pursues a new and riskier source of thrills by toying with the police investigation itself: taunting it, sabotaging it and attacking people involved in it. That Spector must do so without the protective cover of a normal family life only seems to embolden him.

Series 2 picks up just ten days after Spector called Gibson, who has remained in Belfast, determined to identify and pursue the killer. As her investigation continues without an arrest, Gibson will find herself threatened with the same kind of "28-day review" that originally brought her to Ireland. But Series 2 sees Gibson and her team making steady progress through a combination of dogged police work and Spector's compulsive meddling in the investigation.

The survivor of Spector's latest attack, Annie Brawley, awoke from her coma at the end of Series 1, but we now discover that she cannot recall the events. Gibson believes that Annie's memory is blocked by trauma, but even as she is unable to recall her attacker, Annie inadvertently supplies a vital lead. The sketch provided by Rose Stagg (Valene Kane)—a college friend of coroner Reed Smith (Archie Punjabi)—whose former boyfriend exhibited behavior that seemed to anticipate Spector's method of killing his victims, has been widely circulated to the public, but the strongest reaction it provokes is from Spector himself, who guesses that the information came from Rose. Spector's desire to exact revenge from his former lover for "betraying" him provides one of Series 2's core dramas.

Spector's attempt to start anew in Scotland has failed, and his wife, Sally Ann (Bronagh Waugh), has returned to Belfast with their two children (and a third on the way, as she learned at the end of Series 1). She is still reeling from her husband's "confession" to an affair with the family's babysitter, a story that Paul invented to cover up the real reason for his nocturnal absences. As Sally Ann tries to restart her old life in the family's Belfast home, she is unaware that her husband has secretly left Scotland and checked into a local hotel. From this base, Spector now redirects the focus of his deadly urges from meticulously planned ritual murder to improvised acts of cruelty, many of them directed at individuals involved in Gibson's investigation. Even Gibson is not immune, as she discovers when Spector engineers an especially brazen intrusion into her private life.

The most elaborate of Spector's games is his developing relationship with his children's former babysitter, Katie Benedetto (Aisling Franciosi), who has deduced that the handsome dad on whom she has a crush is also the killer terrorizing Belfast. But in one of The Fall's most twisted turns, Katie's discovery of Spector's true nature brings her more deeply under his spell. Apparently indifferent to the risk, Katie chases after Spector, imploring him to "teach" her something. Eventually Spector obliges, but it's unclear whether he is preparing Katie to be his companion or his victim. (It's as if he can't make up his mind.)

Gibson remains the coolly distant superior, although her colleagues are becoming more familiar with her propensities. The scandal of her one-night stand with fellow officer James Olson (Ben Peel), who was later gunned down in the street, continues to reverberate through the department and the press. Eyes roll whenever Gibson interacts with a good-looking male subordinate (and sometimes the reaction is justified). Her continued presence in Belfast seems to be especially upsetting to her superior, Asst. Chief Constable Jim Burns (John Lynch), whose romantic history with Gibson remains an issue and puts both senior cops at risk in unexpected ways. The sudden disappearance of a witness, presumably at the hands of Spector, becomes a source of anguish for Gibson, as she keeps pushing both herself and her subordinates to capture the predator. The Fall's creator, Allan Cubitt, has said that he wanted Series 2 to reflect the toll taken by a long and unresolved investigation on the cops who are conducting it. An excruciating example occurs in Episode 5, "The Perilous Edge of Battle", in which Gibson watches a horrifying video created by Spector. Though her face changes only slightly while she stares at the screen, Gibson's torment is as palpable as the victim's cries for mercy.

Cubitt's scripts for Series 2 continue to include intriguing subplots that intersect the main story in unexpected ways. One involves a botched surveillance effort that requires the police to improvise a last-minute coverup. Another brings Asst. Chief Constable Burns face to face with a priest, Father Jensen (Sean McGinley), who is serving a long prison term for molesting children but chillingly insists that he remains a man of God. Still another concerns the couple that Spector was counseling after the death of their child and in whose marriage he intervened by having the wife, Liz Tyler (Séainín Brennan), report her husband, Jimmy (Brian Milligan), for spousal abuse. Liz has taken refuge in a women's shelter, but Jimmy has all of his former comrades-in-arms from Belfast's sectarian warfare searching for both her and Spector.

Series 2 expands to six episodes instead of five, with an additional half hour added to the final episode, as Cubitt weaves together disparate strands into a shocking conclusion. "Other people's pain gives me pleasure", Spector tells Katie. In Series 2, Spector seizes every opportunity to inflict pain and suffering with a creativity that surpasses his earlier murders. The world kicks back at him from numerous directions, but one of Spector's most disturbing traits is that he doesn't seem to care.

The Fall: Series 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Cinematographer Ruairí O'Brien returned for Series 2 of The Fall, and he discusses some of his visual strategies in the extras. Shot on Alexa, the six episodes of Series 2 have been evenly divided between two 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-rays. The image is comparable to that of Series 1 on Blu-ray, except that the film's intentionally muted palette frequently contains more red as the action and emotions become more intense (a conscious decision, as confirmed by production designer Tom McCullagh). The six episodes have been encoded at an average bitrate of 22.08 Mbps, and the image is free of noise, interference or distortion.

The Fall: Series 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Series 2 of The Fall arrives on Blu-ray with a lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 that reflects a similar approach to that heard in Series 1. Subtle atmospheric cues occur in the surrounds, but the emphasis remains front-oriented and dialogue-driven. Keefus Ciancia took over scoring duties, retaining David Holmes's theme and the minimalist style established in Series 1.

The Fall: Series 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes (1080p; 1.78:1; 12:01): Like the featurette that appears on Series 1, this behind-the-scenes look is hosted by producer Julian Stevens and focuses on the challenges of continuing the story. Interviewees include Anderson, Dornan, Lynch, Punjabi and creator/writer/director Allan Cubitt.



• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 1.78:1; 9:58): The eleven scenes are not separately identified or selectable.



• Photo Gallery (1080p; various; 2:07): A brief slide show of behind-the-scenes photos.



• Bonus Trailers: At startup, disc 1 plays trailers for Acorn TV, New Worlds and Black Work.

The Fall: Series 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As The Fall's fans eagerly await the concluding installments of the show that Britain's Daily Mail called "[t]he most repulsive drama ever broadcast on British TV", one can only guess at the further developments creator Allan Cubitt has in store. By the end of Series 2's extended finale, so much has changed that the story can no longer continue along the same path. Wherever The Fall goes next, you can be sure that it will be someplace dark and disturbing, yet bizarrely alluring. "Modern life is such an unholy mix of voyeurism and exhibitionism", Gibson observes at one point. The Fall turns that unholy mix into drama you can't look away from. Highly recommended.