In lighter television news, last night I discovered a series on FX called The Bridge and decided to take a peek. While not necessarily a "horror" television show in the same vein as American Horror Story it is a suspense/crime drama that takes in place in none other than good 'ol El Paso, Texas; lil' Lovecraft's hometown. And since every other horror site is covering Bates Motel, Hannibal, Sleepy Hollow, etc. I wanted to cover one that seemed neglected to a certain extent. While I will begin series reviews on the others, this one is brand new and I'm all about it.
Fueled by a sense of home-sickness and excitement to see my hometown on the biggish screen, I hunkered down to settle into the first episode and was pleasantly surprised.
The Bridge was based off of a Danish/Swedish series entitled Bron, 10 guesses as to what that translates to. The series follows the hunt for a serial killer who is terrorizing both sides of the border, and leaving perfectly bisected bodies directly on the border at the Bridge of the Americas (the bridge that serves as a crossing between El Paso and El Ciudad Juarez).
SPOILERS:
The show opens with the discovery of a woman's body lying on the borderline. Det. Sonya Cross from El Paso PD and Det. Marco Ruiz, a homicide detective for the state of Chihuahua, Mexico have been called to the scene and Cross is quick to claim ownership of the scene and case. When Det. Cross refuses to allow an ambulance carrying a man dying of a heart attack back across the border to receive medical care, Ruiz lets the ambulance cross which causes immediate tension between the two detectives. While it is never mentioned, only implied, Cross has a mean case of Aspergers Syndrome, which will play heavily into the development and psychology of her character.
As the scene is being processed and the ME prepares to move the body, they realize that this body has been perfectly bissected down the middle, and not is it just any body, it's the body of Judge Lorraine Gates, a judge who recently passed very controversial rulings regarding the protection of the American border and more specifically making it illegal for Mexicans to cross the border and stand on corners while looking for manual labor jobs in the the American city.
During the autopsy another discovery is made regarding the body, while the top half may be that of Judge Gates, the bottom half is from an unidentified Hispanic woman. Two women, two nationalities, two countries, all tied into one case. Cross must unwillingly bring Ruiz into the investigation as she learns more and more about this killer who is attempting to bring social injustices into the light, such as the murder of thousands of Mexican women that go unnoticed, while the murder of one white woman brings an entire homicide unit to it's attention.
SPOILER END
I thoroughly enjoyed this first episode, it was well written, well paced, and what can I say, I loved getting excited seeing all these places that I grew up in and around on the television screen. While there were a few things that I turned my nose up, such as Det. Cross going into an autopsy with street clothes, hair around her neck and digging into a dead body, for the most part they were things that were easily dismissed in anticipation of the story unfolding further. The use of diverging story lines was fantastic as well, leaving subtle and effective cliff hangers to get viewers to the next episode. While there isn't much to say as of yet, it's a series and not a film, I know that I will be watching more of it, excited to see what it may hold next.
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