Nocturne Wants Your Fridays Until Christmas
Ten episodes is a lot of time to spend waiting for a clever murderer to explain himself. Nocturne, which starts on Apple TV this Friday, October 30, has a tempting answer to that objection: Stephen Graham as the murderer. His casting earns our interest. Keeping it will take more than a good interrogation scene.
Graham plays serial killer Jurek Walter. Liev Schreiber is Jonah Lynn, a former soldier and homicide detective who moves to western Pennsylvania hoping for a quiet life. Zazie Beetz plays FBI agent Saga Bauer, his surrogate daughter. The search for Walter's last missing victim sends her up against him. An adaptation of The Sandman, the series puts a particularly nasty choice in Jonah's hands: asking somebody he loves to get close to a killer.
After Adolescence, in which Graham played the father of a boy who killed a classmate, the appeal of changing roles is easy to understand. He told TV Insider he was drawn to a character he had never played before. Viewers have a different calculation to make. A performance can be compelling even when the story surrounding it goes nowhere.
A girl still needs finding
Jonah has already helped put Walter away. Yet, as TV Insider's preview explains, a boy reappears after three years in captivity, his sister is still missing, and Jonah suspects Walter has an accomplice outside. Catching the killer has left somebody in danger.
That is a useful safeguard against a familiar thriller indulgence: letting the villain talk for so long that everybody starts admiring him. Every conversation with Walter has a potential cost for somebody else. We want the detectives to gain ground while there is still someone to save.
Saga is an undercover specialist as well as Jonah's surrogate daughter. That combination is the part of the premise we want the show to pursue. He needs her judgment while fearing what the assignment could do to her. She ought to be allowed to disagree with him and be right.
Jonah's concern could make her work harder, even if it comes from love. There is a good drama in somebody having to ask a parent to get out of the way. Let that argument get messy. Walter should not have to arrange every setback himself.
Start with the opening pair
Tim Van Patten directs the first two episodes. Graham told TV Insider that the director was his main reason for taking the role. The collaboration that drew him in is there from the opening night.
Watch that pair on October 30. Come back the following week if you want to follow Saga and Jonah when Walter leaves the frame. If you are only waiting for Graham to return, ten episodes may be too much. The remaining eight arrive weekly on Fridays through December 25.
