the cry | what to watch?

The Cry | BBC One | Sundays at 9pm

I AM ABSOLUTELY OBSESSED WITH THIS TV SHOW!! If you aren't tuning into BBC One every Sunday night to watch this programme... you absolutely need to catch up on iPlayer right now. I haven't been this engrossed in a TV show for a long old while- I would even go as far as saying that it's on-par with my all time favourite psychological thriller The Missing (Series 2) which, again, featured on BBC One two years ago. If you read my top five tv crime dramas post from a while back you would know that I am a huge fan of dramas that involve missing people, and this one doesn't disappoint. Thinking about it actually, The Cry and The Missing hold many similarities in that the disappearance of the child is not as clear cut as you initially think. There are going to be spoilers ahead so be warned.

Jenna Coleman (what a brilliant actress able to play such diverse roles, huh?) stars in this psychological thriller which involves the mystery surrounding the disappearance of baby Noah. In all its complexity, the story line encompasses affairs, lawsuits, ex wives, child custody, the Australian outback, cold and rainy Scotland, postnatal depression and a mother's desperation... especially when the father of her child is as manipulative as her husband Alistair is. However, we found out in episode three that baby Noah has not disappeared after all, but that mother Joanna found Noah dead in his car seat on their drive from the Australian airport to wherever it is they are staying in the hopes of gaining custody of Chloe, Alistair's daughter from ex-wife Alexandra- all a bit confusing, I know. The disappearance of Noah is a cover-up created by Alistair, manipulating Joanna into embellishing the disappearance story by coaching her to cry at public appearances and training her to be more convincing at press releases- he has convinced her it was her fault, saying in her exhaustion she had mixed up and given Noah the wrong medication on the plane.

Now if you had scrolled through the hashtag on Twitter after the first episode, you will have seen that it was absolutely slaughtered for being ‘confusing’, particularly because of the chopping and changing of timelines, but you have to really just concentrate- put your phone down until the end of each episode! The first episode really throws out all the possible theories of Noah’s ‘disappearance’ and gets you thinking. I must confess that I sit on Twitter looking through the hashtag for at least an hour after each episode to see what everyone’s thoughts and theories are as I’m just so invested. I’ve also been enjoying watching Nadia Sawalha and her husband Mark’s live reviews after each episode and they seem just as emotionally invested into the series as me! I love how you really have to engage with all the possibilities but also second guess the writer and producer, as I’m always conscious that they never give the game away too quickly. Even though there is only one episode to go, there are still so many unanswered questions, despite giving so much away already.

Now, of course, I couldn’t not mention that the BBC devised this series from the novel written by Helen Fitzgerald (who I was very excited about when she liked my tweet the other day!). Having loved the show so much I’m definitely going to download the book on my Kindle and see how it differs. I’m waiting until the final episode has been shown though as I don’t want to spoil it for myself (I’ve done that enough reading through everyone’s Twitter theories!).

I’m absolutely buzzing for the final episode on Sunday, especially since it was revealed right at the end of the penultimate episode that Joanna is on trial for the murder of… her husband Alistair. Can’t say he didn’t have it coming to him- but is that just what the directors want you to think? I’m sure all will be revealed on Sunday, and then it’s on to reading the book!

Let me know your theories on what on earth you think has happened on The Cry by commenting below or drop me a tweet/message over on Twitter! I’m sure you’ll see a few very excited tweets of mine before and after the final episode on Sunday- haha!