Dublin Murders - Episodes 1 + 2 - Advance Preview + Dialogue Teasers

As with her recent Christie adaptations, Sarah Phelps has worked her magic in bringing Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series to the screen. The shows which starts in the UK and Ireland next week, and on Starz next month, covers the first two books, In the Woods and The Likeness. Tying the two novels together into one coherent story can’t have been easy for Phelps, but the important moments in each of the characters’ lives along with the various twists and surprises sprinkled throughout both plots have been brought together seamlessly over the eight-episode.

I have not read the series, though I have started the first book and am hooked already, so aside from what I have seen in the first four episodes I am pretty much spoiler free. My previews will also not be revealing any big spoilers outside of the preview material already available, but as ever with adaptations please do take care when reading any comments below as some may get discussed. I will also ask that people use the spoiler tags when talking about future things in the books please, so others are able to decide if they want to read the spoilers or not. Thanks!

So, on with the first two episodes. It’s 2006 and Rob Reilly (Killian Scott) and Cassie Maddox (Sarah Greene) are detectives on the Garda Síochána's Murder Squad; they have been partners several years, work hard to close every case that comes their way, and have developed an almost telepathic bond which has made them stand out as two of the best in the force despite their young age. Some of their colleagues think that their closeness is more than just friendship, which isn’t surprising considering how much time they spend together off the job as they do at work, but they are wrong. They may know just about all there is to know about each other, have in-jokes and rituals, however, the thought of their relationship being anything more than friendly has never crossed the mind of either of them.

We just know that it’s not going to take too long for that cosy harmony to be broken though. This is a drama series after all, and if we’re starting out with everything looking rosy then that must mean that something is coming to rock that boat pretty darn soon. In this case, it’s difficult to pinpoint where the first domino falls in what can only be called a serious run of bad luck, terrible choices, and grim determination to see things through no matter what. The discovery of 13-year-old Katy Devlin (Amy Macken) in Knocknaree Woods, murdered and left posed on an altar at an archaeological dig site is probably as good a place as any, and it’s where episode one is going to introduce us to the main plot too. But there will be a fair amount of flashbacks and exposition along the way as this is a story with secrets and mysteries which will all need to be discovered, retold and laid bare before the cases are finally solved.

Scott and Greene are fab together on screen, both endearing and nonchalant at the same time with an obvious chemistry which makes you believe they have actually been working with each other for years. My favourite character however is their boss, O’Kelly (Conleth Hill), who is so damn quotable that I am going to find it hard not to include all of his lines at the end of my piece each week. Then there is Tom Vaughan-Lawlor who is a bit of a shady character from Cassie’s past called Frank. He isn’t in these first two episodes a great deal aside from one scene stealing point during a visit to Cassie’s home, but plays more of an important role as the series goes on.

Dublin Murders is on BBC One at 9pm on 14th & 15th October, below are some quotes to see you through until then. Look out for the review of the episodes on the site next week, we’d love to hear what you thought of the show after reading the review!

“This is your chance to get into Murder. I’m really happy you’re doing it”

“Do the English even do that? Heard from all the girls that they fake it cos you’re so shit and repressed”

“You’ll always think of her as a person, won’t you? Not a body who had things done to her, but a person, who was alive”

“Come back again and I’ll have you kneecapped”

“Marrying into that family was certainly the making of young Jonathan because he was a wild one”

“If I’d have wanted female detectives to stand around and look pretty, I’d have got ones with bigger tits”

“Not to Katy, to me. They’d wanna hurt me. ‘Cos of the campaign”

“To murder gods, may they reveal their fucking secrets”

“That’s why they’re doing the dig, all this is going to be flattened for the new motorway”

“We won’t see each other again”

“How did you afford this place, no-one else can afford to buy? Your partner rents a room in some cardboard piece of shit apartment block and your boyfriend rents in a part of town even I don’t want to live in”


Trailer Teasers

“Those children were taken as a tithe, it’s a reckoning to settle an account. You’re never going to find them”

“How much longer? When are you gonna be out of my way?”