A fine drama. The (characteristic) mixture of past and present, personal a political was seamlessly achieved and each aspect was well balanced with the others; too often in shows such as these, one element can dominate, if not all the way through, then certainly at some points. The other common trope (the outsider coming in to a small and/or tight community was another well done element that can too often be something of a lazy cliché. Here the ’disruptor’ Hess had many characteristics of this clichéd figure in this role (abrasive/smart/overly independent) but gradually was revealed to be rather more than that. And his back story was very gradually revealed – another good technique that is not used often enough. Too often we get an information dump for most characters at the start.
There was a fine and moving depiction of the effects of long-term grief on individuals and how they dealt and processed it – or did not. In fact, at the start, this was the focus, which was refreshing and it helped to put the impact of later events into perspective.
By part 4 the political elements which had been hinted at from the start were coming more into the foreground and Hess was moving to become a ore central character with his story dovetailing in with the situations and history of the man characters.
The ending was marvellous – powerful emotionally as well as true and done in a gripping way. The final emotional resolution was marvelously and powerfully concisely created. But intriguingly, there were questions left at the very end which must be leading on to a second series.