Review- Wreck season 2

 

Season one of Wreck was a low key success largely through word of mouth. Framed with horror iconography it’s killer wore a duck mask representing Quacky, the mascot of a cruise ship company Velorum. A duck mask may not sound that scary but there is something unsettling about it’s expression and also the fact that its wearer is carrying a very large knife. Yet in between the frights were characters who were more than the standard potential victims and had interesting lives of their own plus a central character searching for the truth about his missing sister. The media seem to have flagged up the LGBTQ+ aspect of the show though this is included as being part of the everyday lives of the two main characters despite the official title of episode one.

There is a lot of violence – and I mean a lot- which is both realistic yet absurd at the same time and if this sounds like something that would disturb you its probably better to avoid. Also I’d recommend for maximum effect watching an episode a day rather than bingeing because it really draws out the tension and the mystery. I’d actually advise this with any thriller or mystery. Binge watching may seem more convenient but you are missing out on a whole part of the appeal of such shows which is that gap where you speculate and anticipate. The episode reviews that follow were penned directly after I’d watched each episode on different days so they make no reference to subsequent events. It’s a bit like live reacting except obviously not live.

Spoilers lurking in the dark after the beak, I mean, break…

 

Episode one

The action picks up seven months after the events of season one. While a lot of people who were on the Sacramentum took generous payments in exchange for their silence, Jamie and Vivian have continued to doggedly pursue any avenue to try and expose Velorum’s secrets though without much success. Even Vivian is on the verge of giving up when a lead emerges from a wellbeing camp located in Eastern Europe. Could this be the place which holds the answers?

Sophomore seasons are tricky to pull off successfully as while there may be a ready made audience what do they want? More of the same? Or something that develops into different areas? Wreck was quite specifically set on a ship to which even the title alludes but instead of simply having Jamie and Vivian going undercover on another ship the production moves onto dry land though its no safer there. Just when we think most of the surviving principal characters will be with us once again a whole tranche of them are killed off in a shock operation at a party by two – yes two- Quacky masked intruders one of whom is Beaker. I keep calling the duck Quackity but that’s someone else who I’m sure has never behaved like this!  The sequence is the centrepiece of the episode and is one of those classic horror scenarios where you want to yell `behind you`. One particularly brutal scene takes place in the background while we’re watching someone else.

The other standout of this episode is Oscar Kennedy’s committed performance. He has a lot to do – his unswerving commitment to fighting Velorum, the unexpected separation from Ollie and at the end reacting to the apparent discovery in this camp of missing sister Pippa and he nails all of it so well. The tone of the episode maintains the creepiness that made season one stand out and in some ways it’s even more menacing because while the characters are not confined by the ship this time, it doesn’t seem to protect them much from Velorum’s  clutches.

Director Chris Bough really amps up the tension in the attack scenes whatever the location and it is noticeable that the episode is more visceral than most of season one as if the series is revelling in the opportunities offered by less limited locales. By episode’s end several characters from last series have bitten the dust, a number of plot fuses have been lit and our heroes have rocked up right in the midst of Velorum’s latest scheme. A quacking start. (sorry)

 

Episode two

It is fascinating how a good director can make something as pleasant as a sunlit woodland seem like a dangerous place and that’s what Chris Bough achieves in this episode. Oscar has confronted the believed- to- be- dead Pippa to find she is alive, well and undercover doing in a somewhat more professional way what he’s attempting to do and expose Velorum. After the initial emotion of their reunion (beautifully played by both Oscar Kennedy and Jodie Tyack)  Pippa soon shows the metal that has got her this far. Tricked into the woods Oscar is drugged by a couple in protective suits and left in a very woozy state – cue lots of interesting camera effects and a sense that this location is potentially more dangerous than it looks. Someone brings him back to the no less spooky cottage they are staying at– but who? The woodland actually works better than the ship did in the first season offering more atmospheric potential and as for the wooden cabin where the group have to stay – well it is a cabin in the woods and the show is happy to lean into that trope enjoyably. I love the way something falls off the place the first time they set eyes on it!

The episode switches from conspiracy theories and some more gruesome sequences in which nobody seems to die in the same way. Can you imagine  the script meetings where they have to keep thinking of different methods! The most horrifying fate awaits the two French engineers who’ve already been grumbling about their lot to batty Devon Devereaux (a sure sign really that they don’t have long) and what happens to them is even too extreme to relate here. 

Its impressive the way writer Ryan J Brown manages to utilise a very large cast yet the drama never seems overcrowded. Even the staging of the wellness camp has enough extras to convince us there are hundreds of people there even though there won’t be. Also he’s very good at hinting at potential developments or relationships. If this second series seems determined to despatch many of those characters from season one – even The Baby is goner this week- this allows some of the new ones to shine through. Niamh Walsh’s portrayal of the sadistic Devon Devereaux turns it up to eleven knowing exactly the crazy tone the series needs while also being casually terrifying. It keeps you glued especially when you get another unexpected appearance at the end of an episode- you’ll never guess whose footsteps herald a character’s return just before the credits!

Episode three

One of the complaints about the horror genre is that it doesn’t have enough character, that basically people are just being lined up for the slaughter. Superficially Wreck may appear to be the same however as this episode proves there is plenty of good drama too. In fact there are a relatively low number of fatalities this time one of which even occurs off screen a rare concession for a show that likes to show it all. They make up for it though with a brand new use for a pair of secateurs that will make me nervous the next few times I open the shed. The episode sees the undercover group trying to throw the less undercover group out and highlights Karen whose unexpected return at the end of part 2 is looked into in more detail. It turns out that after the events on the ship she was reduced to working in a customer call centre until `rescued` by Maggie. I found out afterwards the undercover group are called O, not sure if this is mentioned in the show.

Yet the dynamic between Maggie and Karen is fraying after the discovery of Jamie and co. Harriet Webb has already been sensational this year in the second series of Big Boys playing a totally different sort of role and here she knocks it out of the park again as Helen’s tough exterior and sense of contrition drives her to make risky decisions. It turns out to be Karen who carried Oscar back from the woods which when its revealed you think “Of course”! 

The simple reunion of two episodes ago between Jamie and Pippa seems distant now that they appear to be on different sides but much of this episode sees Pippa beginning to have doubts about the undercover mission. The scene at the gates where she finally breaks ranks is well written and played. So it’s a more talky episode than the first two but this works to good effect and of course the shocks are never too far away. A sequence in a lab inside an abandoned church is like some Doctor Who scenario in which Oscar is attacked by someone in a blank faced mask. The episode does have time for a little romance though as Ben and Lauren grow closer which is a nice break from the horror.

Final observations- the incidental music by Steve Lynch is excellent. Secondly can someone give Billy some dialogue please? He is in the middle of this scenario but we don’t know anything about him when it feels like everyone else has a backstory.

Episode four

This is a series that leads the viewer to expect sudden, violent deaths and it becomes part of the watch to try and guess who might be gone. This episode kicks off and ends with tremendously frantic scenarios and they are real edge of the seat material. Early on the main group who’ve left the camp are suddenly caught by Beaker and his silent duck mask wearing assassin friend leading to a stabbing and pursuit that is as exciting as anything I’ve seen this year so far. Even the outdoor locale does not lessen the impact.

Louis Paxton has taken over as director and imbues the moments of tension with nerve jangling precision as well as offering some inventive camera tricks through the episode. When two characters hiding under a bed roll out the camera rolls with them. When panicky Cormac is swishing a gun around our pov is on the end of the weapon. These touches and some very sharp editing make this a riveting watch. And in the midst of all this we lose Ben, a nice guy whose lingering death is made even sadder by Lauren’s grief. More than any other death so far- and there’s been a lot by now- this hits hard. When it happens I almost audibly called out `No` because it was an unexpected shock. The episode has more to offer though focussing partly on Sophia’s selfishness and the reasons behind it. Alice Nokes has had to make an unsympathetic character work and she has been an anchor against the group becoming too chummy so when she makes the ultimate sacrifice this episode there is a redemption of sorts though the show will miss her attitude.

While all this is happening Jamie, Vivian, Pippa and Billy (whose dislike of small talk explains his taciturn nature)  are discovering some more about Velorum’s plans. Jamie has won the confidence of the young psychologist Joseph Murphy played suavely by Greg Austin. It’s odd seeing him as one of the older characters when it doesn’t seem that long ago he was in his own perilous scenarios in the series Class. Can we trust him though?  We still haven’t seen big cheese Devereaux yet though a photo tells us he has an uncanny resemblance to a former inhabitant of Ramsey Street. In a flashback we do meet his preppy ambitious son who has charged Beaker with this task and given him the character delightfully known in the credits as The Creep to assist. He’s not introduced here and has even less to say than even Billy.

Episode five

The art of the cliffhanger has been diffused somewhat by today’s tendency to binge watch one episode after another. Wreck is a series that knows how to cliffhang so to start at the end most of the surviving principal characters (admittedly a dwindling number) are trapped underneath the house which is about to be blown up in fifteen minutes and counting by Karen’s bomb including Jamie because he trusted Joseph, Well we all did didn’t we? How we get to this point is via some of this season’s more conversational developments because Wreck is not all slash, slash, slash.

The debate over whether in taking this extreme action of blowing up the house when it contains the Devereaux family goes to the heart of the age-old argument over whether the means justifies the end. Jamie is having none of it and hasn’t forgotten the prisoners they are supposed to be rescuing. This scene shows how he is the only character left who hasn’t been swayed to change tack by events even if he’s been fooled by Joseph.

We also finally meet Owen Devereaux played by tv legend Alan Dale though he doesn't need to do much except react with weariness to the larger than life family he seems to have. One sequence which involves alot of characters for a scene actually works better than you’d imagine oscillating from the amusing to the terrifying often at the same time. It’s a measure of the series’ confidence that this can be pulled off.

Yet this is an episode that leans heavily on argument and persuasion as well as violence. There’s a neat parallel at work here about how falling for someone or at least falling for their argument can adversely affect judgement though I find Pippa a tricky character to pin down. The fact that these are forty five minute episodes rather than thirty allows room for these moral debates. Even our tall and silent friend The Creep is seen in a different light though I’m not sure it answers any queries as to who he is. We visit his lair which is like a child’s bedroom crossed with a fluffy duck factory and in which the injured Cormac is held. It’s interesting that he is the first person to have been attacked but not been killed by the Creep; indeed the latter makes a crude attempt to sew up his wound. 

Episode Six

There’s this thing that fictional villains do to eke out the tension on our behalf which is they threaten their victims for long enough to allow some feasible escape or rescue to occur. This concluding season two episode plays with that trick to powerful effect. Each time you think it is going to go one way it goes the other and this plays all the way to the end. It’s a necessarily less frantic episode than the previous ones - even that bomb countdown seems to go a little slowly - yet works superbly. The production even manage to get round the fact that they can’t actually blow up the real house so we see it from the point of view of someone on the island.

In a season packed with nasties, its surprising to find the starkest threat comes from Joseph who seems to have been far more of a mastermind than we’d assumed. He also prepared to double cross the Devereaux’s by knowing of the bomb but then denying it exists. He’s a nasty piece of work indeed and the final sequence brings this into focus. Before that we lose Beaker whose psychotic behaviour could not surely have been redeemed.  You have to praise Warren James Dunning for bringing to distinctive life such a unique character. Plus, we learn that the character dubbed The Creep in cast lists is actually another Devereaux which explains why he has a basement bedroom. He still doesn’t say a word and when the  mask is pulled off we don’t see his face.

Ollie played a low key role this season, indeed he disappeared for a while before turning up in Beaker’s car boot and then was chained underground. This episode sees him reunited with Jamie but once on the island things go awry. The climactic scene where Joseph tries to make Jamie choose between his sister Pippa or his boyfriend Ollie as to which one should be shot ends badly for all concerned and seems to send Jamie off on a revenge mission with only Karen for company. Everyone else alive is left literally at the gates. It’s another "No!" shock twist in a series full of them and once again the cast- especially Oscar Kennedy- rise to the occasion. So at the end it seems that the Devereaux family all survive except maybe the Creep while Jamie and Karen are going off in full tilt kick ass mode leaving everyone else at risk.

Wreck is quite exhausting to watch if you invest in the characters because it mixes thrills, action and some sudden shocks in a soup of conflicting emotions. Other series do parts of that but it’s impressive that Ryan J Brown has wrangled such a large ensemble and an unlikely scenario into something so well produced. It is definitely a heightened world and should you apply any logic to matters then of course such a wide screen operation would surely not go unnoticed in the real world. Or would it…?

 Wreck season two cast at the premiere screening last month.