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This week’s episode of Accused was definitely missing that indefinable something that made the previous episodes so impressive, as this was easily the weakest episode of the series.
The central character this week was Kenny (Marc Warren) who, along with his friends, severely beat a man who they believed had molested his daughter, and the man then died from his injuries. This subject matter should have provided an episode that got the blood boiling, and should have caused sympathy for Kenny and his family. Alas, this was not the case. The main problem was Warren, who could not provide the powerhouse performance that made the earlier episodes so memorable, and he proved to be very difficult to sympathise with. He attacked a man who matched the description of his daughter’s attacker, but never asked him any questions, and then did not want the police involved just so he could save himself.
Another major problem was that the episode abandoned the structure of the previous episodes that always ensured viewers were on the edges of their seats. Just one scene of Kenny was shown before he discovered what had happened to his daughter and was beating a man to a pulp. The other episodes all built much more slowly, with the central character’s crime not being committed until very near the end of the episode. It was also disappointing that there was no twist regarding the crime, resulting in a great big anticlimax. Moreover, because it was always clear that there wouldn’t be a twist, it meant that the audience always knew exactly where it was going, so time dragged rather slowly, and it was the first time that I have found myself looking at the clock during an episode of Accused.
At one point, about 40 minutes in, there were some attempts at twists, making the audience wonder whether Kenny’s friend Gordon (Joe Duttine) or the landlord of the local pub had in fact committed the assaults. However, these potential plot developments were never fully explored and, while I am a huge fan of ambiguity, there was something frustrating about how open-ended it was. Was Kenny just being paranoid? Or was one of them actually responsible for the assaults? I don’t know, and neither did the writers, who seemed to throw these suggestions in merely in an attempt to make a weak story more interesting.
A further problem with the writing was just how contrived it was. Previous episodes haven’t exactly been without their contrivances, but the ones in this episode jarred rather than delighted. It just so happened that Kenny was in the hospital waiting for treatment on his wrist while the family of the man he had attacked was told that he was dead. It just so happened that Kenny worked for the undertaker’s who, guess what, were responsible for cremating the body. And who should be the employee to carry out the procedure on the body?
Therefore, ‘Kenny’s Story’ provided the first misstep of the series for me, with unlikeable characters, unsympathetic performances and, most astonishingly, poor writing.
The final episode of Accused, 'Alison's Story' airs next Monday at 9pm on BBC1.
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