Shetland’s post-Jimmy era begins with Series 8 and the arrival of Ashley Jensen’s DI Ruth Calder
“It’s great she’s back but I doubt she’ll stay”
So Jimmy’s gone, apparently never to be mentioned again as Shetland returns with Series 8. Change is afoot from the very beginning as we open in London, watching a Met Police operation go awry with the murder of a police informant and the disappearance of a witness who just happened to be robbing him at the same time. The witness, Ellen, is originally from Shetland and so she flees there and as chance would have it, the investigating officer DI Ruth Calder is also from the isles and so she’s dispatched to find her.
Shetland being Nordic noir by any other name means that Calder hasn’t been back there in decades, though she’s initially tight-lipped about her family history. And as we discover that Ellen also has her own troubled relationship with her kinsmen, she is chased by hitmen from London, leaving a bloody trail from their pursuits which makes for a change of pace for “Temporary DI” Tosh who has been investigating a series of ritualised sheep killings. Calder joins forces with the team on her case but the ripples it causes uncovers some really traumatic secrets from the past for several islanders.
The focus of Paul Logue’s story feels like a deliberate choice to return to a Shetland-based mystery, despite that beginning. The coils of family history that both Ruth and Ellen tried to escape have to be explored and their intersections with the multiple cases that emerge are craftily engineered and prove utterly gut-wrenching. I think this is the saddest I’ve felt after finishing a series, so brutal are the events here, and there’s an impressive plate-spinning act in the number of storylines it manages to fit in and conclude satisfyingly.
Ashley Jensen’s Calder is a strong presence. Her provisional status in Shetland allows her to maintain a belief that she’s headed back to London any day but as she connects with Tosh (the newly promoted Alison O’Donnell in fine form) and reconnects with her brother Alan (the ace Steven Miller), you can see her resistance being worn down episode by episode. Phyllis Logan is brilliant as the vituperative Grace, the stalwart matriarch of the family Ellen tried to escape, Dawn Steele breaks hearts as Ellen’s mother Stella and Barry O’Connor and Russ Bain both impress as Ellen’s father and uncle, each tangled in their own way. Plus Jamie Sives as Ruth’s old squeeze Cal is a riot. Dare I say it, a return to form for Shetland after an underwhelming Series 7.
