I quite liked it, especially the ambience that deltasigma praises. The long shots are gorgeous and the close-in gritty bits are, um, gritty.
The scene in the car was quite tense. I was ready to close my eyes or hit the Pause button that whole time.
I like Ruiz, and I started to like Cross when she was so calming to the guy in the car. I agree that she shouldn’t have been sent to the judge’s house to deliver the bad news.
It looks like she’s not only driving her dead sister’s car but also wearing her jacket.
I would venture to guess most bridges don’t have a human at the exact millimeter border line in the middle of a bridge. There was a bridge between East and West Berlin ages ago, and the official border was in the middle of the bridge, but you simply showed your passport on both entries to the bridge, and then just saunter across. The only exception was transfer of spies…they would walk out and meet in the middle of the bridge to do this, maybe to make sure the spy didn’t jump off the bridge on the way to the other side?
Otherwise, why would you build a checkpoint, ON a bridge? Costly and not particularly smart - especially if you have tons of cars/trucks driving across it. Would probably be a strain on the construction and just a bad idea all around.
So far, the show is OK - we’ll see how the next episode or two go before I keep it on the DVR.
It’s the border for the purpose of legal matters. In the original the bridge was a jointly funded project but, in any event, it’s a very simple and transparent plot device.
Oh shit. That’s where I recognize him from. I don’t remember him looking quite that haggard and decrepit. Since Monk ran until 2009, that musta been 4 years of some really hard living. :eek:
NPR’s review on Fresh Air last week also mentioned this “spoiler”, so I had no idea it was meant to be a mystery either. Not sure if it changes much if there is a reason why she’s “quirky”. The real El Paso PD homicide squad is pretty boring in real life, the city has an extremely low homicide rate, especially compared to Juarez across the border.
Saw it - meh. I find Diane Kruger distracting - her character feels unrealistically “off” and, while I find her pretty in a brittle sort of way (she looks like a pretty skull to me), the fact that the actress was Helen of Troy in a movie keeps intruding on my thinking. Flawed and hot is a tough line to walk - Clare Danes mostly pulls it off, as does Benedict Cumberbatch as a guy (I am assuming ;)). Kruger? She didn’t during the first ep.
Given the forced darkness of it, I will be surprised if I stick with it. I like the male lead, but that won’t be enough.
Unfortunately, this was complicated by the fact that my son finally got me to watch the first season of Breaking Bad over the weekend. The level of quality between BB and The Bridge wasn’t even close - jeez, BB is really well done.
I’ll keep watching but wouldn’t be broken-hearted if it was cancelled.
There’s too much going on. We have a shady Mexican police chief keeping a secret about a dead cartel (?) guy, the dead judge’s tunnel, someone killing illegals, someone killing prostitutes, a guy looking for one of the victims and making another body, Ruiz’s home life, Sonia trolling for sex in bars, Linder becoming interested in that blonde in the halfway house.
Are we supposed to think Linder made the recording? Is someone pulling his strings? He doesn’t seem together enough to put the bomb in the reporter’s car.
I liked seeing Lyle Lovett, but he’s a better singer than an actor.
Forgot to mention that I’m liking the dialogue. “What dialogue?”, you might say. It’s so realistic that it’s unnoticeable. They talk like real people talk. Not the witty back and forth of shows like Justified or Gilmore Girls, but just plain talk. I like it.
I’m still having a hard time believing that someone with almost zero social skills is in the position she’s in. It’s almost like she’s an alien or something.
I wasn’t expecting to see Lyle Lovett.
Did anyone catch the Neil Young reference?
When Linder was going into work (Halfway house? Group home?) he asked the woman that was getting off work what had been going on while she was there. One of her comments was, “Big John’s been talking about the river and Emmylou.”
This is a reference to a line from “Powderfinger” by Neil Young and Crazy Horse.
“Big John’s been drinking since the river took Emmylou.”
Neil Young’s wife is one of the founders of The Bridge School for children with speech and physical impairments. Neil is very involved with a yearly benefit concert for the school and performs every year at the benefit.
Very cool! Makes me wonder about more musical connections with the show’s producers. Neil Young reference and Lyle Lovett in a role – I’ll be listening for more but I probably won’t recognize them. Lyrics after 1962 are lost on me.
That’s almost as cool as Christopher Molisanti (The Sopranos), late for a meeting because “the highway was jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive.”
I wonder if The Sopranos ever used a Springsteen song. I can’t think of any. I don’t recognize most of the music on that show either, but I can usually tell what they’re watching on TV. They like the old stuff.
Maybe it’s just the similarities in the desert setting, but I think the cinematography in this is almost as good as Breaking Bad.
I like the little bits of humor – not overdone. I like the realism of Frye’s co-worker’s house. I grew up with a girl who had five sisters and for a long time they lived in a one bedroom house – it looked a lot like that house.
Sonia’s Asperger’s is toned down a bit. My husband asked what’s wrong with her, and I said she’s like Sheldon.
So Linder is doing all this? He’s such an unlikely criminal mastermind.
Yeah, the “alien dropped on earth” stuff wasn’t as obvious in this episode. About the only thing was the “I can’t have sex at work” line which I thought was way over the top even for the behavior we’ve seen from her previously. I’m still enjoying the series so far and plan to keep watching.
