Worried about suffering withdrawal symptoms from “Slow Horses”? Well, in a clever bit of scheduling, just as its fifth series wraps up, Apple TV premieres yet another Mick Herron adaptation centered on the dodgy inner workings of the British government, starring an Oscar-winning national treasure.
Commander in Center in “Down the cemetery road“is however Emma Thompson in a role that, like Gary Oldman’s sleazy anti-hero, has the potential to define her latter-day career.
The Dame is of course no stranger to the small screen, having won a BAFTA for the 80s miniseries ‘Tutti Frutti’ and ‘Fortunes of War’. And who can forget her Emmy-winning cameo in “Ellen,” triple duty in “Angels in America” and chillingly prescient turn as a right-wing politician in Russell T. Davies “Years and Years”?
But this captivating eight-player is her first time leading a show in the streaming age. And, judging by the first three episodes, she’s instantly struck gold.
Thompson plays Zoë Boehm, a private investigator as spiky as her pixie cut. Much of her scorn is reserved for Joe (Adam Godley), her downtrodden husband and more pragmatic partner-in-crime. “Is it another desperate girl looking for a knight in shining cardies,” she taunts about his new fall, the first of several withering takedowns that immediately establish who wears the pants. “Sometimes I feel like your mom picking you up from freaking daycare” is another.
Art restorer Sarah (Ruth Wilson) also bears the brunt of Zoë’s sour tongue when she shows up at her unkempt office looking for help. (“Let me guess, you have a husband, he has a secretary, am I hot?”) Of course, after surviving a fireball that has torn through her suburban neighborhood, it’s arson rather than adultery she needs to investigate. Well, that, and the small matter of a conspiracy involving the Ministry of Defense, a neighborhood killer and a young girl who may or may not be dead.
In fact, ever since her painfully middle-class dinner is interrupted by a nearby house explosion—depicted in the kind of slow motion you’d expect from a Zack Snyder movie—Sarah has become something of an amateur PI herself. Unwilling to buy the story of the tragic accident, she makes herself a nuisance at the police station and hospital, spurred on by a mysterious newspaper photo that appears to have cut out a child she saw being rescued from the scene.
But is this all in the imagination of a bored forty-something looking for distraction from her faltering marriage to a man obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses? Or, as suggested by the shadowy figures that seem to follow her movement, are there really more nefarious things going on?
Of course, by now we already know the answer, confirmed by a series of secretive boardroom meetings between the cartoonishly domineering MoD chief known as C (Darren Boyd) and the weasel underling Hamza (Adeel Akhtar). The former also gets his fair share of zingers, constantly unleashing his disdain with the endearing zeal of “The Thick of It” favorite Malcolm Tucker.
“I’d love a heads-up on what Wreck-it-F**king Ralph has planned for an encore,” he scoffs as he learns how a planned hush-hush operation has literally gone up in flames. And it’s safe to say that his employment review of “You couldn’t protect him if he used you as a condom,” usually wouldn’t get past HR. It’s a double act reminiscent of the boss/officer dynamic in British classics like “Blackadder” and “Fawlty Towers.” A spinoff sitcom, both parties would make it to the end with their lives intact, that is, would not go wrong.
Screenwriter Morwenna Banks – who continues the “Slow Horses” tie-in after writing four episodes previously – generously ensures that every character gets a chance to shine. Sinead Matthews also provides plenty of comic relief as Wigwam, Sarah’s well-meaning but idealistic hippie neighbor whose domestic happiness arises from the unlikely circumstances. And while fully aware of the personal and professional pecking order, Joe is sometimes allowed to bite back (“Now that Cruella’s gone to hunt puppies, who’s getting a coffee?”).
Meanwhile, the ever-reliable Wilson, finally sharing the screen with Thompson after appearing separately in “Saving Mr. Banks,” makes Sarah’s outlandish situation feel believably grounded, the fact that her valid concerns are routinely brushed aside, indicative of a culture that is too quick to dismiss the female voice. And while she’s very much the straight guy on Thompson’s livewire, she’s still given the opportunity to get her hands dirty, whether it’s setting off fire alarms or battling hitmen in her own impeccably appointed lounge.
Still, “Down Cemetery Road” arguably belongs to its biggest star names. Thompson can play the formidable, no-nonsense anti-heroine in her sleep, but she’s in especially sparkling form here as a figure with an almost pathological aversion to manners and a moral compass that’s questionable at best. She’s arguably less disheveled, and probably more fragrant, than Oldman’s Jackson Lamb, but she’s arguably just as flawed, another example of Herron’s ability to make his female characters as complex and three-dimensional as his male ones.
And while there’s never any doubt that Zoë will form a mismatched buddy duo with Sarah, it’s fun to watch make her wait and advise her to scratch her couch with board games and get back to focusing on her “bland cushions.” Likewise, her pure contempt for anyone who doesn’t fit her free-spirited mold. “Seriously, this is what you want to do with your life?” she asks an aspiring Twitch streamer who helps her clean up some precious grainy CCTV. “F**k me.”
It would indeed be a serious mistake if Apple TV didn’t also adapt the three additional sequel novels that put Zoë on the case. Along with “Elsbeth,” “High Potential” and “Poker Face,” “Down Cemetery Road” belongs to this refreshing new club of semi-comedic mysteries that give women the greatest sense of agency. And in Thompson it has the most persuasive agent.
“Down Cemetery Road” will begin streaming on Apple TV on Wednesday, October 29 with two episodes.
