2 out of 5

Written by: David Ireland

I was confused. I reached out to Reddit to ask: what the hell is going on with Coldwater?

Reddit – the internet – will traditionally be confused on matters as well, but I did find conversation that was a bit more to my point: what kind of show is this? Is it actually intended to be a drama? Is it a comedy? The general consensus seemed to be (based on the writer’s playwright history; based on some interviews) that it was a comedy, but also that it was a drama. So… no consensus. And I know you’re thinking that dramedies exist, or perhaps this is dark comedy, and yes and yes but no. In a future world, I rewatch Coldwater for some reason or another and I’m suddenly like, “oh, I get this and it’s genius!” As of today, though, I don’t think anyone – the actors, the writer, the directors, etc. – really agreed on what they were making, which at least results in one agreeable term: a mess.

Coldwater is the name of the Scottish town to which John (Andrew Lincoln) and his wife Fiona (Indira Varma) have retreated after a particularly traumatizing event for John requires something of a soft reset for his marriage. The wounds run deep, though: there’s another inciting incident besides this trauma, and that’s led to a constant power imbalance between the couple, each essentially questioning the others’ competence. This leads to John pushing for “normalcy,” which of course involves getting to know the neighbors.

Who are very friendly! But also weird.

Rebecca (Eve Myles) is the local minister… who doesn’t believe in god. Tommy (Ewen Bremner) leads Bible study for several men in the congregation… in which they “study” serial killer autobiographies instead. Still, Fiona takes to Rebecca’s frankness, and John is easily swept up by Tommy’s overwhelming personality, to the extent that he accepts an offer to pray together, and to come to church the following Sunday, two things Fiona can hardly believe, given their rather religion-less lifestyle otherwise. John and Tommy’s oddly quick bond deepens, such that when John finds himself in a bind, Tommy is quick to jump in and help. Unfortunately, things aren’t so magnanimous, as this turns into a pretty one-sided quid pro quo, with Tommy potentially a much more dangerous figure than John had realized.

My usual acknowledgment: this is a fine premise. It’s a good way to parallel the marital power dynamics with those found in religion, further broken down in the differences between Tommy and Rebecca. The quid pro quo gives it all some stakes, and the series has some nice add-ons to that down the road. And given the general pitch with which Bremner and Myles present their characters – both very scenery chewing in their own ways – you can really see that this was probably supposed to be a cheeky dark comedy.

Alas – I’m just going to say it: Andrew Lincoln. Lincoln was, of course, massively important to bringing Rick Grimes to life in The Walking Dead, but once the series got past the shock value of its first season, he became less and less convincing as an authoritative type, beyond the power struggles written into the role. When I’ve seen him pop up elsewhere, I’ve equally had problems buying him as a lead. Lincoln has the looks of a leading man, but not necessarily the presence, which seems to further get confused by him doing a bit of character acting that never quite (to me) feels natural. Here, Lincoln tries to play in to the same absurdities as Bremner and Myles, and just gets absolutely lost. Indira Varma is left to be the straight person amongst the batch, but her dialogue is written in extremes – meaning Fiona is meant to be on the same emotional pitch as John, but Varma was seemingly struggling to pull that back into something more relatable, and / or she was directed to do so – leaving the lead cast very, very jumbled.

This compounds with the storytelling: we open on the aforementioned traumatic event, and while I think the way it’s shot and cut is meant to indicate how things go from 0 to 100 when we experience them, the rather sniveling persona Lincoln puts on immediately sets the scene up as “funny,” with the quick cuts on the actual event making it more dreamlike than affecting, which leads into a similarly dreamlike – because it’s like a Benny Hill moment – smashcut to Lincoln running away, which then smashcuts into the opening credits… which are of Lincoln running.

Running does (literally, figuratively) play into the series; and we will revisit this moment briefly, eventually, but if by traditional TV standards you’re expecting to get some more context on it – no. We’re suddenly in Coldwater, and although it kicks off with John in a therapy session, discussing the above event, it’s almost just done for the sake of doubling down on Lincoln’s representation of John as sniveling: I don’t even need therapy; why am I here type questions that would make more sense if he hadn’t elected to go, with the therapist pitched as a small town yokel befitting the attempted dark comedy… which, like, might be working except for Lincoln’s miscasting / mis-acting.

But circling aback around on the compounding, as the darkness of the “comedy” seeps in, the show leans harder on more impactful aspects and subject matter – gender roles; society’s violence against women – and whatever cleverness is in the script’s management of these themes against the circus-y playoff between John’s nebbishness and Tommy’s manipulations is completely bungled: it’s never clear how seriously we should be taking any of this, or if the whole thing is a farce on small town living, or if Lincoln is actually acting or purposefully being completely unbelievable, and if Varma is fed up with the show or if her character is fed up with everything else…

To be fair-er, I think if everyone was playing it straight against Lincoln, it could work. Varma is normally great but gets reduced to Shrieking Wife; similarly, Lois Chimimba (playing a local bartender) is always nice to see, though is also used in a rather reductive fashion. Otherwise, Bremner and Myles get away mostly unscathed, but that’s because they were cast in the “fun” roles… which I guess is also reductive, further underlining that there was likely a quirkier project in the works with Coldwater, but mismatched acting and directing and editing buried that.