I’ve looked and haven’t seen a discussion thread for Gracepoint, especially for those of us who haven’t seen Broadchurch already. So here it is. Feel free to discuss, speculate, etc., but please try to keep the discussion focused on the Gracepoint story itself and not similarities or differences with Broadchurch, and no spoilers please.
I guess I’ll start. It seems to me they are trying too hard to make it look like the dad is somehow involved in the kid’s murder, so I’m going to assume that while he is involved in something questionable, it wasn’t that.
Likewise, I think the dog lady, who has the kid’s skateboard, is also a red herring. I’m guessing she found it while she was out walking the dog that morning and decided to hang onto it for some reason.
The pregnant mom of the dead kid? I’m guessing her husband is not the father, but not sure who the father is. I thought maybe the priest, since they seem to have a history, but my wife thinks he is either gay or a child molester (which is why he was gone for a while and just recently came back).
I guess I must be the only one who hasn’t already seen the previous incarnation of this show.
So now we know what the father was up to, and so does his wife. Does that make it less likely that the wife was also screwing around? I’m not so sure now.
The reporter from the Globe - her boss told her in the first episode not to go up there, but of course she went anyway. So is she up there on her own dime? And obviously she’s not showing up for work back home. When she was offering to share credit with the local reporter, I was thinking “You’ll be lucky if you still have a job when you get back!”
So why won’t the victim’s mom tell her hubby that she’s pregnant? Have they not been having sex themselves? When they found the blood on the boat, they should have called in the evidence team and secured the scene and not left until they were relieved. Seems to me that the detectives should have been briefed on any cuts and bruises on the victim before they heard the father’s story about the boy cutting his foot on the boat.
At first I was sympathetic to Ellie but now I think she’s just too attached to the community to be an effective detective.
As to who did it, I don’t think it was the victim’s father. Still too early in the series to be able to solve it, this must be a red herring. I’m leaning toward the priest.
I have yet to see it, but have seen the original and many David Tenant productions. How is his accent in this? I’m surprised he doesn’t maintain a British accent of some sort, but am curious how well he does an American one. His natural accent is quite thick.
I saw Broadchurch, and I enjoyed it, so I thought I’d see what they did with Gracepoint. The first two episodes have been a shot for shot remake, so while it would be interesting to see the perspectives of someone seeing it for the first time, I really can’t help with commentary because it’s too easy to give something away.
My biggest problem is that, although I love David Tennant, his American accent sounds so weird coming out of his mouth that I can’t watch. It’s not a bad accent, I’m just so used to hearing a Scottish version that it bothers me.
I’m a fan of his. I don’t think he does an American accent very well at all. There’s also something off about his performance in this. I can’t quite put my finger on it. He seems to be lacking substance, somehow.
I’ve seen the original and, from what little I’ve read, the guilty party is different in this one. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m holding onto the belief that it is true as to keep my interest.
Tennant’s American accent is pretty damned bad… I told my wife yesterday "At least they didn’t make him a southerner - can you imagine Tennant saying ‘Y’all get back now, you hear?’ " I hope they throw in a line or three about how he grew up in the Midlands or he has mouth damage or something along those lines to explain it. I also think there were times in the 2nd episode where he just went full-on Brit… but I’m probably wrong about that.
I missed last week’s episode but saw last night’s. I’m really getting hooked! I thought I would fall out of it as the middle episodes dragged, but it being only 10 episodes moves the pace of the plot along pretty briskly. Can’t wait for next week!
I agree. I hate when simple stuff like this goes totally unexplained when all it would take is a “I’ve gone off on personal leave, but they’ll totally forgive me when it’s the scoop of the century!” or such. Sheesh.
I don’t think the wife has been having an affair. I do think that she had some inkling that something was wrong between them, and although the show does imply that his tryst with Gemma was a one off, I bet he’s fixed boilers all over town for a while. But in typical
“I’ll save my marriage!” mode, she probably still has the occasional sex with him, hoping it’ll improve things / beholden him to her. And now that she’s pregnant (smack!) and she still felt something was amiss, she couldn’t tell him because he holds her in content. Or whatever.
As to Tennant, I like him fine, but on this he 1) has no nuance to his character. It’s all grousing, all the time. No one is that consistently unpleasant. 2) That’s the worst stubble I’ve ever seen. Good gracious, the unshaven / disgruntled look never came across that bad. I can’t speak to the accent, because in general, they never bother me. Even Hugh Laurie’s bad one on House. So go figure.
I love David Tennant, but his accent is awful here. My theory is that he has to work so hard to create his idea of an American accent, that it comes out completely flat and unaffected…what I mean is, if he were to overemote he might find it impossible not to swing back to his normal accent.
Yeah his accent is kind of flat, with the occasional hint of… something… but that something seems to change. It would be like someone trying to fake a British accent and tossing in a little Cockney one moment, a little Liverpool the next. It just sounds wrong.
And I always thought Hugh Laurie did a pretty good American accent.
Bumping for the final episode tonight, where we finally find out who killed Danny Solano and why.
They sure did spend a lot of time last week trying to make a case for the plumber’s assistant (I forget his name) to be the guy, so I assume that’s all going out the window tonight and we’ll find out it was someone else, completely out of the blue. But I can’t imagine who it would be. While there have been a lot of red herrings, one thing the show hasn’t done is establish a motive for very many characters. So it’s hard to say “this person did it because…”
And if they do, it’s a complete cheat as there is nothing that has Broadchurch’s killer be the same person who did it in Gracepoint (though I think that was the case in BC, to my fuzzy memory.)
So far, all signs point to the priest, though I’m likely viewing this as I would a L&O episode.
Here’s an interesting article about (somewhat) Gracepoint. Here is the author’s thesis:
That’s interesting because an article I read before the series started said it was definitely NOT the same person as it was in Broadchurch. Not having seen Broadchurch (obviously, per the thread title) I’m curious who it was and why. Feel free to put it in a spoiler tag.
I haven’t enjoyed a series so much since Twin Peaks. I believe I know the killer and won’t spoil it for you but you can spoil it (somewhat) for yourself if you do a little googling and take note of who is in and who is not in certain stills from the last eppy.
I must say the acting (other than the SF reporter) has been first rate. Nick Nolte did a superb job, David Tennant was fabulous and I look forward to seeing him in any role.
I felt like the killer in Broadchurch was out of the blue as well. I felt like it was a cheat and was actually let down by the ending. But I haven’t seen many people share my opinion.
