None of us know the way we might react to the information of the physique of a cherished one being discovered in woodland close to our house. But David Morrissey’s painfully uptight headteacher Michael Polly’s first thought is to furiously reprimand Detective Annie Cassidy (Eve Myles), who has simply delivered this horrible information, for strolling mud into his home. It is, as we’ve already discovered by that time, pretty typical behaviour. Polly is, as Cassidy places it, “a funny fish”. Might he even be a assassin? Let’s simply say that on the premise of early impressions, it doesn’t appear not possible.
ITV’s new crime thriller Gone is a fiction however one impressed by real-life detective Julie Mackay and crime journalist Robert Murphy’s 2024 e-book To Hunt a Killer. As such, it has the ring of each sensible and narrative veracity. Michael Polly lives for his work: the plush personal faculty on the outskirts of Bristol over which he presides is clearly organised in his personal picture – starchy, strict, terribly correct, seemingly seething with all method of unresolved darkness. His unlucky daughter Alana (the wonderful Emma Appleton) and his self-evidently much more unlucky spouse Sarah are additionally lecturers on the faculty. It’s horribly cosy and cosily horrible. Mr Polly concludes just about each dialog together with his household with the phrases “I’ll see you in assembly”. Soon, it sounds extra like a menace than a promise.
Gone is written by George Kay, who was additionally liable for 2023’s outstanding The Long Shadow. Among the numerous dramas which have tried to get below the pores and skin of the Yorkshire Ripper murders, The Long Shadow was uncommon for its willingness to drag again from the crimes themselves and discover the troubled internality of these most affected by them. This largely meant girls: Peter Sutcliffe’s victims and close to victims and the feminine detectives pressured to endure the typically subliminal however at all times toxic misogyny which enveloped the period like smog and of which Sutcliffe was merely an excessive manifestation. And Gone is one other story about masculinity and establishments; about highly effective males and gamely struggling girls; about folks outlined by their identities and stifled by their environments. It finds its drama – which is appreciable and involving – in nuance and it’s assured sufficient to eschew the crass and the plain.
It isn’t only a home story although. As a lacking individuals enquiry turns inexorably right into a homicide investigation, Detective Cassidy finds herself sidelined. There’s an unfolding backstory round her too; a barely boilerplate troubled romantic relationship and, extra intriguingly, the repercussions of an unsolved case from eight years earlier. Soon, she isn’t the chief investigating officer anymore.
The implication that this may by some means be man’s work is left hanging. Instead, she turns into the police’s household liaison. She’s clearly miffed by the downgrade. However, with a household just like the Pollys, it’s a lot to be occurring with. They have a big, creaky previous home to sneak round in. An intuition for omerta worthy of the Cosa Nostra. And sufficient pregnant, responsible secrets and techniques to final a copper a lifetime.
Gone is a six-part sequence and solely two episodes have been made accessible pre-transmission. For all of its promise, it could or could not stick the touchdown. It will most likely be finest served by not making an attempt to do an excessive amount of; maintaining its circle tight and creating as a sequence of acute character research. However, whereas a reviewer’s job includes avoiding spoilers, at this level, the query of whether or not or not Michael Polly killed his spouse feels virtually incidental. There’s already a deadness about him; a toxicity ensuing from suffocating maleness, an institutionalised life, an incapacity to see different people as something way more than our bodies for his beloved faculty rugby group.
Morrissey is a positive lead, as ever manifesting a stoical however unravelling, deeply repressed middle-aged man with unnerving talent. Myles is a likeable antagonist too, expressing a convincing mix of compassion, irritation and cautious, midlife disappointment. Everyone, even the varsity’s youngsters, appears barely haunted.
However, Gone’s actual cleverness lies in its establishing of a intentionally apparent premise however then continuously asking the viewer to query their very own judgement. Are all of us going to leap to predictable conclusions about Michael Polly? A six-part drama a few single homicide has to disclose its truths progressively. Gone is a gradual burn however its consideration to element means few moments are wasted. Towards the tip of episode two, Polly stumbles off to a shed on the varsity’s grounds and eventually breaks down and cries. Are these tears of trauma? Of stress? Of guilt? A combination of all three? It’s properly ambiguous and fittingly consultant of a drama that’s by no means fairly as easy because it appears. Might Michael Polly be harmless? That doesn’t appear not possible both.
