SerpApi.Org
How would you react if your lifelong partner suddenly vanished without a trace? For David Morrissey's Michael Polly, the impenetrable private school headmaster at the center of BritBox's latest import "Gone," the answer is barely react at all.
"I have 160 pupils about to sit exams," he explains to the bewildered Detective Sergeant Annie Cassidy (Eve Myles) about his troubling lack of concern. "Those predicted grades will determine which universities they go to. The fact that their headmaster's wife has not been seen for 24 hours shouldn't concern them." Married to the job is an understatement.
Polly initially appears to be entirely incapable of expressing any emotion other than abject disdain, his face barely moving from its default state of "bulldog chewing a wasp," even when his real pride and joy - the St. Bartholomew's rugby team - have just pulled off a hard-fought win. "Lose with dignity, celebrate with grace," the party pooper barks in the changing rooms as the victors dare to revel in their glory.
Of course, a stiff upper lip does not a guilty man make. And "Gone" spends six episodes continually shifting the finger of suspicion, patiently and methodically exploring themes of control, trauma, and grief, particularly the attitudes toward those who don't necessarily adhere to the uncontrollably sobbing norms.
A press conference appeal, delivered so cold-heartedly he might as well have held a placard reading "I did it," doesn't exactly help his cause, though. Likewise, how he spends more time vacuuming his carpeted hallway - and chastising those who've muddied it - than questioning his wife's whereabouts. Responsible or not, Polly's behavior is therefore at best cavalier, and at worst, especially during his police room interviews, downright cocky.
But the show refuses to paint him with monstrous broad strokes, offering enough glimpses of humanity to leave his culpability in doubt. On acknowledging how harshly he's treated star rugby player Dylan (International Emmy winner Billy Barratt), for example, he offers to provide extra history tutorship (the lessons on Neville Chamberlain - a "man who fails to address his problems" - are perhaps a little too on-the-nose). And there are other instances when he's clearly the wronged man - the physical attack that ensues when he tries to interrupt a domestic, or the job interview with the graduate more interested in extra perks than education.
Morrissey, fast cornering the market in stifling repression following his recent turn in Russell T. Davies' incendiary state-of-the-nation "Tip Toe," is typically superb as a man clearly haunted by a past which unravels in devastating (the moment his emotional barriers finally burst open is palpably gut-wrenching), and often pathetic, fashion.
Indeed, "Gone" excels at painting the picture of Polly's life - and all its humdrum minutiae - before it came crashing down. Although he's only ever seen with the missing Sarah (Hollie Bailey) in photos displayed in their picture-perfect cottage, a number of telling throwaway comments make the loveless, passionless state of their marriage crystal clear. "Oh, it wouldn't be that," he dismisses after Cassidy suggests trying his birthdate to unlock the phone mysteriously found under his wife's bed.
"We didn't argue, we never do," he insists to daughter Alana (Emma Appleton) - a product of her environment judging by the fact she, too, demands visitors to take their shoes off - who, against all instincts, starts to suspect her dad isn't the upstanding member of society she's always believed. The discovery of Sarah's diary, in which she writes about the "boring Michael who everyone laughs at" and questions her initial attraction, also suggests that the pair had moved beyond apathy and into outright contempt.
This isn't the only toxic relationship on display, though. Cassidy is first shown tentatively reconnecting over an Italian meal with Craig (Peter McDonald), a DI who, on the surface, appears to be full of Irish charm. But the hints of passive-aggressiveness, not to mention how her colleague Becky (Jennifer Macbeth) is horrified to learn of their reunion ("You said to scream at you if you ever went back"), implies that the mask will once again slip.
In fact, the men here are uniformly awful, from the adulterous husband (Elliot Cowan) who coerces his poor downtrodden wife (Claire Goose) into providing an alibi, to the detective inspector (Arthur Hughes) so threatened by Cassidy's tenacity that he demotes her to family liaison officer.
Still, this ultimately allows Cassidy to play the hero, albeit by breaking every ethical code in the police handbook in a classic case of cop-gone-rogue. Myles, who'll later this month reprise her DCI role in Paramount+ thriller "The Crow Girl," matches Morrissey toe-to-toe as the show's most sympathetic character, a woman torn between the incriminating evidence stacking up in front of her and the personal bond she's worked so hard to establish. It's a fascinating struggle to watch as the two leads continually gravitate toward cat-and-mouse duel before settling back into amicable neutral territory.
"Gone" is less gripping, however, when it shifts the focus to the disappearance of a young woman eight years earlier, a cold case Cassidy feels so guilty about failing to solve she still rocks up weekly to the victim's ailing mother for tea and cake. Perhaps writer George Kay, who'd previously tackled the fatal poisoning of a defected Russian spy ("Litvinenko") and the biggest manhunt in British history ("The Long Shadow"), felt compelled to get back to true crime following the preposterous hijinks of Idris Elba vehicle "Hijack." (It's very loosely based on the non-fiction book "To Hunt a Killer" by the very real former DS Julie Mackay). But it's an aimless narrative thread whose only purpose is to set up a potential second season.
A return for Myles' determined sleuth would certainly be welcomed, however, none more so than by the Bristol tourist board (you're never more than a couple of scenes away from a sweeping drone shot of the city's picturesque broccoli-like forests or Clifton Suspension Bridge). Like its prime suspect, the show is a stately, remarkably measured affair which, when compared to the trend for flashy, breakneck speed procedurals, could also have emerged from a bygone age.
All six episodes of "Gone" will be available to stream on BritBox on Thursday, July 23.
