'Broadchurch' Recap: 'Series 3 - Episode 5'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

It’s always fascinating, when a story suddenly resembles a gathering storm. When suddenly, the air surrounding the characters is charged with energy and you quickly realize that something, be it good or bad, is about to happen in the story; and you’re drawn in even further because of this newfound energy and that’s precisely what’s happening on Broadchurch right now.
 
Because after weeks of a slow burn in the storytelling, the kind that has only yielded a handful of clues, everything is starting to build toward something far greater. Suddenly tensions are now rising amongst the people of this town, clues are dropping left and right and who knows where it will take us when all is said and done but wow, it made last night’s episode an absolute must see, and if anything, let’s start with a discussion on the tension building within this town because that might explode before anything else.
 
After all, Cath is now aware of the fact that her husband and Trish have slept together, and the bad blood that came out of Trish’s confession to her friend seems to have set off a chain reaction in the town. Suddenly, no one seems to trust one another, and everyone is at one another’s throats and that led to a couple of scary moments last night wherein Jim just about strangled Clive when the cabbie decided to sass Jim when he gave him a ride, and Jim also paid the price for his affair when Ed gave him the business straight out of the blue and well, I’m quite happy to see everyone paying the piper in some form or fashion. It’s clear now that horrible things have been happening in the shadows for some time now between this supposed group of friends and it’s a good thing that each and every one of them are having to face their demons and their past transgressions.
 
But while all of that was fascinating to watch, the other building tension in this story came from the case itself, which is quite amazing, considering that once again…we are no closer to having a clue as to who is behind this heinous crime. But what we do know, now, is that whomever committed this heinous act against Trish, appears to have done it again and again, since the details of Trish’s assault seem to match the account of the young woman we met last week, and to make matters worse it would seem a third unreported assault is about to come to light as well. Of course, some of these revelations, and the fact that Aaron Mayford worked for the company that employs the second victim leads to him being brought in for questioning, but alas…that goes nowhere.
 
If anything, we at least know now that Mayford isn’t directly involved in one of these crimes since he was serving time when it happened and quite frankly, while the guy is a creep and a jerk and hiding something, at this point, I simply don’t see him being involved in this whole matter. Especially when one considers that Leo is clearly hiding something since he asked his girlfriend to lie for him and also because…Ian continues to be one shady son-of-a-gun since he broke into Trish’s house, no doubt to get his hands on that laptop, in the closing moments of the episode. But…on the plus side, at least it seems Hardy and Miller have their hands on the sock that that was used to gag Trish which could help move the case forward at last…until next time.

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