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BBC One’s newest crime thriller, The Jetty, delivers death, danger and menace in spades.
It follows the implausibly named Ember Manning, who is training to be a detective for the Lancashire Constabulary, played with sardonic wit by Jenna Coleman. Oh and there’s tragedy in her past – she’s a mum in her early 30s whose husband Mack died a year earlier, leaving her to parent their teenage daughter Hannah (Ruby Stokes) solo.
Ember had Hannah when she was 17 and while that’s never been a problem for her before, things start to change when she’s called into investigate the arson of Mack’s old boathouse.
The arson itself is relatively open-and-shut but where it leads is anything but. Soon Ember is poking her nose into the case of local girl Miranda Ashby (Shannon Watson), and it leads her into a sordid underworld of dark secrets, missing women and crimes whose leads have long since gone cold.
The Jetty is a complex series, and Coleman carries it beautifully; whether she’s doggedly interviewing suspects or breaking down at home, she’s never less than magnetic. The police case is just the start of the story, really: what the show is really about is power, and how power can be abused, especially in relationships between young girls and older men.
Ember’s revaluation of her relationship with Mack (who was significantly older than her when they first met) offers parallels to another story: that of two teenage girls who form an intense and unhealthy friendship one day when the rebellious Amy (Bo Bragason) rocks up at Caitlyn’s (Laura Marcus) school.
The problem is that Amy is herself in a relationship with a much older man (Tom Glynn-Carney, who’s doing a good line in menace (alongside playing Aegon in House of the Dragon). With an enamoured Caitlin getting increasingly jealous, you don’t have to be a trainee detective to see that it’s going to end badly.
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Throw in a journalist/ podcaster (Weruche Opia, playing Riz) investigating the cold case of a girl who went missing 17 years earlier and things really start to heat up.
This is a wonderfully claustrophobic series. As Ember digs ever deeper, locals become suspicious, rules start getting broken and a sense of menace inexorably rises to the surface. The story takes its time and keeps the viewer hooked (even with a slightly dubious plot twist), as the unease grows and grips ever tighter.
The setting is also a stroke of genius. The picturesque lake acts as a the focal point of all the action, veering from pretty to ominous as it laps at the titular jetty of Mack’s boathouse, hiding both secrets and bodies. The end result can be unbearably tense at times, but the show also offers flickers of light in the form of Ember’s relationships with her nearest and dearest.
In addition to her arms-length relationship with colleague Hitch (Archie Renaux), those relationships mainly revolve around Ember’s daughter Hannah, and her eccentric mother Sylvia (Amelia Bullmore, always on hand with a quip). “Widow’s fire,” she tells Ember during one conversation about moving on. “I was insatiable after your father died!”
It’s a welcome breath of fresh air in a series that spotlights and celebrates women – as well as pointing out the dangers of being a young girl in a world where men lurk in the shadows. It’s a message that feels all too relevant today; the show doesn’t offer any easy answers, but the end result is electric.
