Gracepoint Review: “Episode 3” (Season 1, Episode 3)

Carver, on the other hand, cannot stand the small town niceties, complaining about how much he hates the air, the sea, and the people’s “smiling friggin’ faces.” (When we learn that Carver does not like to be around water, it doesn’t match with an earlier scene, when he stands near the cliff’s edge over the Gracepoint beach, though.) He is growing far too impatient, even reacting harshly to a forensics expert who could give him a potential break in the case. We will have to wait for next week’s installment for those results, though, to see if he can calm down just a bit.

Unfortunately, it is their frigid relationship that brings the most drama to Gracepoint this week, much more than the extensive puzzle they are failing to piece together. Gunn and Tennant remain superb, with the former actor showing some of the shades of pain and fragility viewers will recognize from her role as a pawn and victim in her husband’s criminal empire on Breaking Bad. Meanwhile, Tennant remains a close mirror of his performance from Broadchurch, and his accent has not distracted in ways it easily could have.

As in last week’s hour, the standout is Virginia Kull, huffing around in a state of confusion and ennui as Beth Solano. She feels trapped within her grief, trying to get out of the house and to an active place where she has control. She tries the treadmill in the garage and goes on a chipper walk to the coastline, hoping for a retreat back into the sanity of her old life. Kull never overdoes the sadness but shows a willingness to know more. After she finds out the police have arrested her husband, Beth brings Chloe into the bathroom, advising her to act strong in the face of scrutiny. “You have to be older than you are if necessary,” she advises.

In what could have been a silly moment, she meets Raymond, a medium who explains he has a message from Danny, beyond the grave. Some could be frustrated that this message – Raymond tells her that Danny was on a boat and the murderer is someone she knows well – could just be a stunt to get the mystery rolling again. However, Kull’s performance, balancing a thin line between removed from public life and motivated to find answers, makes this encounter with Raymond quite moving.

Director David Petrarca frames more than a few scenes of this episode on a window, with a character looking out of it, suspiciously. The exterior perspective, where we are standing on the outside looking in, is appropriate for a mystery where the main detective are having trouble finding a satisfying break in the case. This whale of a mystery tale is still intriguing, even if the parts seem quite disparate this week, with few leads moving forward. For viewers who did not tune into Broadchurch, this should be absorbing viewing; however, for those with fresh memories of the British series, the chilly, haunting atmosphere is noticeably absent. As a drama, Gracepoint has not yet created a sustained mood to engross audiences into the interior lives of these characters to the extent that its precursor did.