TV Shows #26

The Sinner (2017-21)
Developed By: Derek Simonds
Starring: Bill Pullman, Jessica Hecht, Jessica Biel, Elisha Henig, Carrie Coon, Matt Bomer, Alice Kremelberg, Christopher Abbott, Natalie Paul, Frances Fisher, Michael Mosley, Hannah Gross, Dohn Norwood, Joe Cobden, Chris Messina, Abby Miller, David Huynh, Eddie Martinez

Certificate: 15 Running Time: 40-54 Minutes per Episode

Tagline: "Some sins don't stay buried."

Crikey, I think the last time I saw Bill Pullman was in Independence Day Resurgence, and the time before that was probably all the way back in Independence Day. No, wait - he did make an appearance in Battle of the Sexes as well, but he hardly seems the most prolific actor, certainly in recent years. And yet, here was his face, looking moodily sideways as though in a Scandinavian drama, on Netflix. Or was it Prime? One of those anyway, and the premise sounded interesting enough, so I figured it was worth a shot. As I soon discovered, the premise only applies to the first season as The Sinner was only meant to be a miniseries originally, but it proved sufficiently popular for more seasons to be made. In all of them, Pullman stars as Harry Ambrose, a police detective who becomes obsessively committed to resolving mysterious deaths.

He's a bit like a modern day Columbo actually. He is driven by hunches, suspicions and gut feelings and rarely thinks the facts at hand are the whole story. If he keeps turning up to pester the same person with questions, you can be fairly sure they are involved somehow. Suffice to say, whatever the opposite to Occam's razor is, that seems to sum up Harry's belief system! I guess it must work for him though, as he's a grizzled veteran of the force by the time we first meet him. His superiors seem to find him a pain in the arse at times, but they trust his intuition too. Fortunately for us, the show features four cases to challenge him and bewilder us, one case and (with one exception) a new cast each season. Here's a look at them all:

Season One (8 episodes)

We start the show not with Harry but with Cora Tanetti (Jessica Biel), a seemingly normal wife/mother who, on a normal family day out at a crowded beach, suddenly and brutally stabs an apparent stranger to death for no reason. Harry and his partner Dan (Dohn Norwood) are given the case but with dozens of eye-witnesses and Cora even confessing (though she claims to not know why she did it), there seems little need for any investigating. Harry, however, immediately feels as though something is off. He is of course correct - it would be a boring (and weird) show if there wasn't - and his poking seems to indicate a link between the murder and Cora's younger years, living with her strict religious parents and rebellious terminally ill younger sister, but she doesn't really remember much of that. Clues are given and things are eventually pieced together for us via flashbacks but how will Harry figure things out? It certainly is fascinating watching him unravel everything too, which is helped by an excellent screenplay, superb pacing, and fantastic performances from all, particularly Biel playing against type, as well as Pullman. It can be slow at certain points but this was still an enthralling first season if you ask me... 9/10

Season Two (8 episodes)

As with the other seasons, we have a new cast and a new location upon rejoining Harry. Specifically, he's in his hometown of Keller for the first time in 15 years to investigate a double murder at the behest of an old friend's daughter (Paul) who is now a cop. The killer is a 13 year old boy, Julian (Henig), who admits to the killings but won't say why he did it. Harry is intrigued and soon finds that Julian is from Mosswood Grove, a notorious 'utopian' commune near Keller run by Vera Walker (Coon) who has just shown up claiming to be Julian's mother. She isn't exactly forthcoming though, so it's again up to Harry to unravel the truth. He again proves dogged in this capacity, but even though most stories involving cults (which is what Mosswood Grove basically is) are inherently intriguing, this is a rather less captivating season than the first and, annoyingly (spoiler alert!), doesn't answer all nagging questions before it ends either. There is some excellent work from Pullman again though, as well as Coon, Hannah Gross and Henig as the young killer, and it's mainly thanks to them that the season remains engaging. Another unusual case but not as good as the first... 7/10

Season Three (8 episodes)

Things are quickly more interesting again when we return for the third season, but also a little confusing. It begins with a car crash in which the driver, Nick (Messina), is killed and the passenger, Jamie (Bomer), survives. Harry is called to the scene even though (I thought) he's a homicide detective. Perhaps it was more than a mere accident? It certainly doesn't take Harry long to find Jamie's account of the evening a bit fishy. Indeed, until that night he was a seemingly normal highschool teacher with a pregnant wife, but the relationship between he and his old college friend Nick was a bit complicated and, like season one, much of this is played out for our benefit by way of flashbacks, but Harry has to work it all out for himself as Jamie's world unravels by his own hand. It's the latter that makes this season compelling viewing too - why is Jamie going off the rails, how far will Harry go to try and understand him, and how will it end for them both? Harry does at least get some action this time as he meets Sonya (Hecht), but other than that relative normality, it's an unpredictable and very intriguing third season that goes way beyond a mere car crash... 8/10

Season Four (8 episodes)

Now that Harry has hooked up with Sonya who, breaking from Sinner tradition, returns for this season, he has an excuse to take a break from investigating gruesome stuff, so they go to an island town in the north-east to stay with a friend of Sonya. Of course, almost as soon as they arrive, Harry finds himself witness to the apparent suicide of a young woman who jumps off a cliff in front of him. Sadly, his obsession with finding out why soon drives Sonya back home, leaving Harry able to nose around to his heart's content, quickly finding that the suicider, Percy (Kremelberg), was a member of the Muldoon family who are big-shots on the island. Sadly again, the main Muldoons, Meg (Fisher) and Colin (Mosley), seem to resent Harry's attempts to find answers. We barely meet Percy before she seemingly offs herself which doesn't really help initial interest levels, and it's a bit of a dreary island too, where no one seems happy, but as always, Harry's dogged determination to uncover the secrets of half the people on the island, as well as a few helpful flashbacks, once again ensures you stick with it and the story picks up before too long. Excellent work from Pullman again and Fisher, and the ending is about what you'll expect from this show too... 7/10

Final Thoughts:

There have been so many shows based around murder, police investigations, and the usually-messed up people who commit these crimes now, that any new offering is going to need something different to stand out. Regardless of the ratings here, I did enjoy the entirety of The Sinner and a big part of that is down to Bill Pullman's performance. Most aspects of the production are of a high standard too, but there's just something about Pullman's Harry that compels you to keep watching.

He's a bit of an odd character really. He doesn't seem to have a life outside of 'the job' and I can't recall him smiling in any season, except that forced kind you have to do when you meet someone. In some ways he seems to be suffering from depression, though I'm not entirely sure it actually is depression as he probably wouldn't feel like doing anything, work or otherwise, if that were the case, surely? On the other hand, there were a few moments though the show that I genuinely wondered if he might end up taking his own life. Maybe he has some sort of PTSD.

He is certainly damaged from some previous trauma and yet one can't help but find his investigative dedication and tenacity compelling viewing, especially when it's combined with some unusual cases, the details of which are drip-fed to us as they are to Harry. It's a great combination that's for sure; I just hope we get some more, but at the time of writing there are no more seasons planned, and I wouldn't count on any either as series creator Derek Simonds has said that he always intended to bring Harry Ambrose's journey to an end in the fourth season.

Four seasons... seems to be a popular number these days. At least we got any at all I suppose, and it has certainly been great to see the underappreciated Pullman again. Who knows where he'll next turn up? Wherever it ends up being, I don't think it will be Independence Day that pops into my head. It will be The Sinner...

Here's a trailer for just the first, and I suspect most would say best season...