3 out of 5

Written By: Tony Basgallop

That’s cool, bro.  I love unnecessary plot twists.  Another total slow-burn UK mystery thingy, ‘What Remains’ stands a few steps (ugh) above the rest thanks to a strong setting and group of characters, but structure that relies on flashbacks for filling in purposefully withheld info and some rashly stuffed in 11th hour switcheroos prevent the mini-series from leaving a strong after-image.  However, writer Tony Basgallop does make the final word one that strengthens the themes, so despite the plot rearrangements to create mystery where there is none, from afar the feelings laced through the episodes hold up.  And to pull an 11th hour on these first couple sentences, that’s what makes it worth watching.

David Threlfall is retiring from policework.  As one of his last cases, he takes a look at a rotting body discovered in the attic of a small apartment building.  It’s the remains of a tenant… whom no one noticed was missing for some time.  The incident is brushed off as a suicide, but Threlfall isn’t convinced, and the case lingers in memory beyond his leaving the force.  It’s a perfect setup, initially distracting us with the core whodunnit mystery and playing off of the Unknowns of each tenant on each floor – smiling faces when answering the door but rumors and sleights leverage to one floor or the other when questioned further – before pulling at the strings to study ‘What Remains’ of our past lives all along the chain… floor one has a son bouncing between the past of his recovered alcoholic father and his new life… the ground floor’s elder teacher who seems to have a younger girl living with him… the new couple with the child along the way… the lesbian couple in the throes of a break-up… and over-seeing it all, the man whose been shuffled along to retirement, half wanting it, half not knowing what to do with his time otherwise.  And so he neglects to tell the tenants that he’s retired, and he keeps investigating, obsessing to the point of starting to spend nights in the vacated apartment.

For three episodes, the slow twisting and turning works, even though I think flashbacks – to how the top floor tenant interacted with her building-mates – are generally a cheap way of doing plot reveals, here they are only slightly used as red herrings (‘ooh they had a fight he/she musta done killed her’), not really rubbing any obvious conclusion in our face – and rather, at some points, using it to underline that Threlfall’s obsession might be for naught, and that perhaps she was a suicide – but overall using the scenes as just another method of thematic exploration.

As was desired in the show’s design (according to a wiki blurb), the building itself proves a pivotal character and is of absolute importance in terms of tying these people together in a realized, physical space as well as confining all the oddities of private lives and behind-doors scrutiny.  Every tenant, of course, has their story and secrets, and these are illustrated somewhat tangentially to the main tale.  Unjustly, everyone is too realized for a four episode run, giving things a hodge-podge feel (especially with the ending) when, if allowed more space to grow, these people absolutely work as a believable nest of normal, dysfunctional, fucked-up humans.  I only describe this as unjust because too many series get a greenlight for 13 or 22 episodes and can only manage character templates; ‘What Remains’ has too many interesting pieces in too little of a space (something something meta commentary about the house but no).

Watched in one sitting, ‘What Remains’ is still hobbled by a too-purposefully ‘gotcha’ ending, but shows strength in its structure and pacing up to that point.  Watched week-to-week, the reliance on withheld information seems too misleading and strays from what seem to be core elements.  Either way, the series ends up growing beyond its 4 episode confines.  Better than the average depressive UK mystery show, some awareness of the whole scope of presentation could’ve pushed the final product into truly superior territory.