Detective thrillers have come a long way. Crime stories where the culprit is a flat-out villain or character with a certain detachment from society are no longer the norm, with TV shows and movies exploring the psychology of criminals with more nuances and depth.Inside Man, Steven Moffat’s latest experiment on the genre, takes the whole crime scene to the next level. The premise often repeated by one of the main characters is very simple: “anyone can be a murderer on a bad day.”
This Netflix series follows parallel stories. One revolves around Jefferson Grieff (Stanley Tucci), a convict sentenced to death row who happens to be a former law lecturer. Despised by public opinion after killing his wife, his terminal sentence is constantly delayed due to his amazing intellect insolving mysteries. On the other hand, Harry Watling, an English Vicar, is a man of good who gets involved in a sticky situation.
As the two stories slowly mix to an unexpected finale, viewers are faced with a fast-paced thriller with comedic and dramatic pinches, constantly defying their opinions on each new twist. The expectations and moral values of the characters are challenged, making audiences question each step. Let’s take a look at how this is developed.
No One Is That Good, and No One Is That Bad
Tucci’s character draws personalitytraits fromSherlock(also from Moffat) andHouse. Not misanthropic yet lacking certain people skills, Grieff is driven by curiosity and accepts receiving cases in agreement with the prison’s warden. There is only one condition: he needs to approve the person who comes for guidance. It’s hard to relate to the protagonist after learning he is in jail for killing his wife. However, his superior intelligence and capacity to solve mysteries make him appealing to the audience.
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David Tennant (arecurrent face inDoctor Who’smany renditions) plays Harry the vicar, a man of god. He guides his flock with a strong moral approach and a healthy sense of today’s ethical dilemmas. The situation gets out of hand when he receives a flash drive from Edgar (Mark Quartley), a troubled verger from his community, an object he ignores completely until Janice (Dolly Wells), the vicar’s son’s math tutor, discovers the content in it: obscene underage content. In a moment of confusion, Janice is led to think the flash drive belongs to Ben, Harry’s son. Janice is portrayed as a social warrior with a knack for manipulation, which worries the vicar to the point of kidnapping her in the basement to protect his son.
Every character has its shadows. When viewers start relating to or despising a character, a decision they make can completely change the audience’s opinion of them. Moreover, they are constantly faced with situations they wouldn’t regularly face, acting on whims or under pressure. The moral compass of each of them is made transparent from the very beginning, only to confront them with ethical dilemmas that can shatter their personal beliefs as well as their opinion of themselves.
Inside Man Plays With Social Perceptions
The impossibility of fully accepting or hating a characterplays a big part inInside Man, but for the viewers, challenging their ideas on how to act in nuanced situations is also crucial for the plot. It’s a common consensus that this type of obscene content and murder are two of the most atrocious crimes. Nobody would initially feel empathy for two characters convicted of these illegal actions. Yet, the show is constructed over the confusion over these crimes, showing characters reacting over terrible misconceptions.
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A father crossing the line to protect a wrongly incriminated son, a murderer who completely understands his mistakes and tries to balance part of his sentence/guilt by serving others, there are many shades to everything that happens in the show, making the four-episode series binge-worthy.
Secondly, the thriller style of Moffat’s latest incursion in TV is also refined by the right amount of drama and comedy. At times dark, at others heart-breaking or even absurd, the audience will jump from laughs to anguish in an instant, eager to know what happens to each character, withholding their opinions to see how everything resolves.
The show’s central hypothesis, “everyone can be a murderer on a bad day,” is backed strongly by showing the ingenuity behind most of the criminal actions in the series. Humanizing these kinds of acts is not a relativization of law and punishment but more of a social commentary on how little we understand the high rate of criminality that affects modern societies.
To summarize,Inside Manis an original detective-like thriller whose true center is the human reaction to moral crossroads. The show puts a gradient on more traditional black-and-white views on crime shows with the twist of constantly pushing every situation to the limit or the verge of it. Having directed many ofDoctor Who’slatest TV entries, Steven Moffat uses his dark humor andunique British TV approachto defy social views on complex moral dilemmas, depicting it with a fast-paced show where everything can change in just a blink of an eye.
