Liar series 2, review: A confusing return with too many murder suspects

It’s been a few years now since the innovative and well-received crime drama Liar (ITV) ended on a dramatic cliffhanger, so a bit of a recap is in order (though not in the disjointed order of events as seen in the first series).

So... youngish teacher Laura Nielson (Joanne Froggatt) meets the father of one of her pupils, a distinguished, urbane handsome surgeon and widower, named Andrew Earlham (Ioan Gruffud). They go for a drink, he laces it with the date rape drug, and she eventually realises that he took the opportunity to rape her. She then seeks revenge as the police fail her. The first few episodes are concerned with determining whether it is she or he who is the “liar” in question, a rather loaded and controversial premise. After she discovers that he has filmed his crimes – which include another 18 more victims – the audience is in no doubt about what happened. She drugs and kidnaps him; and season one ends with a stark aerial shot of Earlham’s remains, throat cut, dumped in the Kent marshes.

I hope that’s adequate. The trouble is the new episode’s jumpy and disjointed collection of clips told in flashback sequences are rather messy and not just the close-ups of Earlham’s muddy remains. Dedicated viewers of season one with sharp memories were no doubt OK; newer less familiar viewers were somewhat left in the dark.

With Earlham definitely dead and suicide ruled out by a forensic scientist, we are left wondering who knocked the monster off. The 19 victims plus a wider penumbra of loved ones who are also devastated by Earlham’s evil activities provide a substantial list of potential killers. This group also includes Earlham’s 16-year-old son, who we learn tries to take his own life when the police turn up looking for his dad.

Anyway, without any power of arrest or summons, the audience has to rely on a new cop on the case, DI Karen Renton (Katherine Kelly). Nielson is the prime suspect because of her proximity to Earlham before his death.

Renton is the most significant new character in Liar, and I’m not at all sure it was a wise one. The writers, Jack and Harry Williams are usually outstanding (they did BBC1’s The Missing and produced Fleabag), but they’re not so assured here. It looks as though they were trying to create a sexy, assertive, flawed, intriguing sort of female cop, but DI Renton spends a lot of her time tottering around in an all-black skin-tight outfit, chewing nicotine replacement gum. She resembles Olivia Newton-John’s Sandy-gone-bad in Grease. When Renton eventually arrests Nielson for the murder of Earlham, I half expect her to break into a chorus of “You’re the One That I Want”.

All the many flashbacks are “three weeks earlier”, which is fine until you forget that you’re suddenly “three weeks later” and you don’t know what you’re watching, or why.

OK, Earlham was a prolific serial sex attacker, but that means the list of murder suspects is absurdly long, and there’s no time for any development of the characters. They remain, so far, two-dimensional; traumatised, but not much more (if that doesn’t sound too callous). There’s also an unbelievable (in a bad way) plot twist involving a lost car key, and I suspect from a telephone call we see Earlham make to his cosmetic surgeon friend that he might return looking different.

All involved do their very best with it, and the direction and cinematography is stylish. But I can’t help wishing Earlham had been left to rot in his sludgy grave, with no further explanation for his demise required.