Bancroft, series 2 episode 1 review: TV's darkest and least-plausible detective series has somehow returned
On its first outing back in 2017, Bancroft (ITV) stretched credibility beyond breaking point with its overblown tale of bad-to-the-bone Bolton Det Supt Elizabeth Bancroft (Sarah Parish), whose efforts to cover up a past misdeed left a mile-wide trail of bloodied corpses and frame-ups in her wake. But when you’ve got a charismatic lead actress like Parish signed up, even a risible premise and a damning one-star average on the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes means you’re not dead yet.
So, after a period of reflection, Bancroft hit our screens again for another try last night with, two years on, our heroine freshly promoted and heading up the newly merged North West Police Force – her blood-soaked back catalogue of crime apparently no hindrance to her ambitions. Or could it be?
Her dim-witted rival Supt Cliff Walker (Adrian Edmondson) was still snapping bitterly – if entirely ineffectively – at her heels. But she swatted him away with a threat of retirement. Less easy to push to the margins was the horrific double murder of property developer Michael Connors and his wife, whose daughter Annabel (Charlotte Hope) just happened to be newly engaged to – surprise, surprise – Bancroft’s alienated son Joe (Adam Long). Let’s not forget the reason for their alienation: Bancroft as good as murdered the love of Joe’s life last time round, and he knew it.
Normally you’d assume that wouldn’t bode well for Annabel, given Bancroft’s skewed maternal feelings for her son. But nothing here is normal, so by the end of the episode we were being encouraged to believe that Bancroft might finally have met her match in this deceptively delicate young woman, who was now shaping up to be prime suspect in the murder of her parents.
Still, it’s a bit early for the real culprit to emerge. A better prospect – if only because so much effort was being made to deflect attention from her – was Naila Kamara (Shameem Ahmad), murderous mother of drug dealer Atiff Kamara whom Bancroft dispatched with a bullet to the bonce in series one. Did Naila commission the Connors’ murders in an effort to implicate Joe, and thus wreak revenge on Bancroft – one crazed mother to another? It seems as likely as anything else.
Daft as it might sound, Parish somehow brought enough conviction to the role to stave off total viewer incredulity – aided by the fact that she hasn’t actually done anything too evil this time round. Yet. That’s the oddest thing: after the ludicrous excesses of series one, knowing it’s only a matter of time before she goes fully over to the dark side again makes this series if not good exactly, at least maddeningly watchable.
