Bellevue comes to WGN America tonight and is not to be missed. This is the USA airing of the Canadian-made show which debuted earlier on CBC.
The show is a small-town mystery with bigger secrets than mountains it is set against. Anna Paquin as Detective Annie Ryder does a great job of keeping this tale moving until the end. Twenty years ago, the murder of a young woman rocked the town and that killer is back. Or is she or he really back? Is there a copycat? The show keeps its cards close, so you must keep watching as the plot grows. And let’s just say that Detective Annie Ryder has her own issues in spades. There are subplots going on, as well. Bellevue has a drug trade and how she deals with the drug-dealing scumbags would be a story all on its own. The other subplot that could stand on its own complicated relationship with her on again, off again ex, Eddie (Allen Leech).
But the core of the story is Detective Ryder is looking for a missing teenager, Jesse Sweetland. The high school hockey star has, in the words of police chief Peter Welland (Shawn Doyle), been “contemplating his gender identity.” The team coach (Vincent Leclerc), churchgoing teammates and many others in the school have issues with his life journey. This new case will bring up memories of the murder of a girl which may have led to the suicide of Annie’s father, a former police chief. Her father never was able to close the case.
One of the main plot drivers are these elaborate brain teasers, which she must solve. These brain games have double meanings which may be key to the solution of the murders.
The largest hole for many viewers many be the lack of detailing her relationships with other women. Instead weget, and sometime too much of it, the tale of relationships with difficult men from her father to the police chief and her boyfriend.
Those parts of the tale lead to some of the slow pacing issues and at times just make a smart woman look dumb in front of the boys. Lucky there are enough examples of her being smart rest of the time to frame her as what she is. A smart woman that has issues but manages to excel despite them.
I would like see another subplot about her dealing with other women during the series or cut the series down by two episodes
Even with the above issues this is a strong show about a women in power, who has co-dependency issues, in a small town that has issues dealing with the modern world and what people’s roles are. Oh, yes she is solving a murder too.
You can see the show kick off tonight (Tuesday, January 23) on WGN America at 10 p.m. ET / 9:00 p.m. CT. The show is rated Rated: TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14)
Production Notes
The eight-episode, one-hour series stars Academy and Golden Globe winner Anna Paquin (True Blood) as Detective Annie Ryder; Shawn Doyle (House of Cards, Fargo) as Police Chief Peter Welland; and Allen Leech (Downton Abbey,) as Eddie Roe. In addition to Paquin, Doyle and Leech, rounding out the “Bellevue” cast are Madison Ferguson (The Stanley Dynamic) as Daisy Ryder; Sharon Taylor (Supernatural) as Virginia Panamick; Billy MacLellan (“Defiance,” “12 Monkeys”) as Brady Holt; Vincent Leclerc (Being Human) as Tom Edmonds; Janine Thériault (“Degrassi: The Next Generation,” “Being Human”) as Mother Mansfield, the Mayor of Bellevue; Joe Cobden Blindspot) as Father Jameson; Victoria Sanchez (Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan) as Maggie Sweetland; and newcomer Sadie O’Neil as Jesse Sweetland.
Paquin also serves as an executive producer alongside co-creators and showrunners Jane Maggs (The Offering) and Adrienne Mitchell (Durham County), and executive producers Janis Lundman, Michael Prupas, Morwyn Brebner and Jesse Prupas. Bellevue is produced by Muse Entertainment and Back Alley Film Productions.
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