A brutal Series 4 sees Shetland very much in its stride
“You don’t seriously think I had something to do with it, do you?”
I wonder how Ann Cleeves feels that Shetland has gone from strength to strength after they stopped adapting her novels and moved to original stories written for TV. For it was a bold move that paid off handsomely in an excellent Series 3 and with the bar newly raised, Series 4 comes close to matching it with another grimly compelling complex murder investigation which this time stretches as far as Norway but once again demonstrates the trickiness in conducting police investigations in as tightly-knit a community as that on these Shetland Isles.
This time around, we open with the return of Thomas Malone to Shetland, a man who has served 23 years in jail for the murder of teenager Lizzie Kilmuir, protesting his innocence to the very last day to the extent that he wasn’t even eligible for early release. Most everyone remains convinced of his guilt, something not helped by his erratic behaviour but Lizzie’s twin sister Kate leads the charge to consider that maybe someone else was responsible for the murder. Within days of his arrival though, local journalist Sally McColl is killed and the dark cloud of suspicion falls heavily on Malone.
The parallel murder (re-)investigations is a nifty device for the show, as it allows for multiple story strands to intertwine and intersect. Pérez’s ongoing grief at the loss of his wife, Tosh’s PTSD from the events of last series, Sandy learning the hard way not to get too and judgemental to people involved in the case, Pérez’s stepdaughter Cassie dealing with a break-up by flirting with an inappropriate lad, Duncan trying to outrun his bad behaviour of the past. And that’s not even mentioning the detour into dealing with the rise of the far right in Bergen.
The blend of the personal is really well done, Douglas Henshall and Mark Bonnar knocking it out of the park in the shocking late developments of Episodes 5 and 6 and Steven Robertson delivers great work too, too often overlooked as the junior member of the investigative team. My one bugbear would be the slight messianic complex coming in for Pérez, he rides roughshod over not one but two additional police forces in the blinkered pursuit of his own cases here – I was half surprised he didn’t end up in a Bergen nick himself given how things played out there.
As is becoming the standard, a strong supporting cast amps up the quality. Neve McIntosh is achingly good as Kate, full of complex emotion as painful memories are unearthed and with few appreciating the choices she’s making. Stephen Walters is excellent as the tragic Malone, damaged by his time inside with little substantive support now he’s out, we’re never quite sure how much of a victim he might actually be. I’d’ve loved more of Amy Lennox, as murdered journalist Sally and the great Eleanor Matsuura as DI Cole, sent from the mainland to get the case(s) closed but you can’t have everything.
