The Escape Artist - Playing Football

Now we are getting somewhere. 

I'm sorry for my last week's review not being an awfully nice one. However, I wouldn't change a single world of it. Because all of it is true. I still think last week's episode was too much action/too many introductions to in-jokes and hints. And too little time to appreciate them. At the same time I'm pretty aware of that at least some of that stuff had to be there in part 1 in order to lie the grounds of making part 2 the well, not exactly masterpiece, but it still manages to be better than some of the other stuff presented right now on TV. And yet episode 1 saw too many hints hinting at too few actual surprises.

Nevertheless, this week we got the time to catch our breath between takes. Unlike last week we remembered that watching TV does not need to feel like running a marathon. 

We also got all the tiny references which were laid there to pick up last week. And this time we did not know their meaning but felt it too. A bit.

Like Will freaking out about Danny not coming home straight after school. And the fact that his son finds himself sitting next to his mum's murderer on the bus is not really helping teenagers to win an argument  about personal freedom... only in real life.

Wolstencroft also makes sure to tick off the 'add some emotion' box. Somehow, the moment when Will is repeatedly calling his wife's number only to listen to her voice on the answerphone was the most touching moment of the series so far.

And luckily, Maggie did not repeat Will's mistake of refusing Mr Foyle's handshake. 

We also got that green apple reference, and oh my dear, is Foyle having an affair with his witness? His attachment to her seems to get stuck on a professional basis, though. 

Then there were those hilarious scenes  at that Japanese restaurant in the mall, them talking about "football". Loved the illusions. Besides it seems that Will and his lawyer friends are going to get  some trouble because of that blond woman - what's her name. Talking about names... or rather about the loss of them. It seems I'm not the only one who is struggling with the names Wolstencroft has chosen for his characters. It's just a 3 episode series... not likely to get another season.  This means even the folks writing for the Guardian do feel OK referring to the characters using the actors' names. Admittedly, it's tempting.

And finally,  Wolstencroft also gives us a cliffhanger. Some sort of. After all, when you're exposed to the stuff written by the Mighty Moff your definition of  'a cliffhanger' dramatically changes. Well, not only that, I guess. But that's something for another post. 

So, given the fact that this episode is not written by the mastermind when it comes to frustrating cliffhangers, I guess Maggie doing what Will Burton did in episode number 1, and Foyle having not awfully terrible chances of getting away with it yet another time ATM, is as close to a cliffhanger in this series as things can get. 

Interestingly, the strange thing is, and I'm not sure if Wolstencroft has been aiming to achieving this effect, that one can easily imagine something like this happening in a real court. And by this I don't mean the still highly surrealistic situation of the actual case, but that in the end the one having the better lawyer/defender wins.