The Bridge

The longer The Bridge’s second season continues, the more a singular thematic thread becomes apparent. Regardless of character, the second season of The Bridge is about the struggles of living in a world of compromise, where morals and traditions fall to the wayside, and everything in life becomes a transaction or an ultimatum. Is there such thing as definitive “justice” in the modern world, or forgiveness? Is there such thing as absolute loyalty, or do the negotiations between politics, personal pride, and business ruin those who refuse to live sitting on the fence? These are the kinds of questions the pulpier, more character-based second season of The Bridge is exploring: and although it’s not quite hitting on all cylinders in “Goliath”, that central idea continues to manifest in fascinating ways.
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There have been unfair comparisons made in the past between The Bridge and The Wire, but there’s no way not to invoke the latter during the last two episodes of The Bridge, which have seen various characters from both sides of the border crossing paths, at times seemingly at random. And like it often did with The Wire, The Bridge’s use of this narrative device serves a useful purpose outside the plot: it narrows the show’s scope a bit, adding a bit of focus to a sprawling world rich with diverse characters that would otherwise feel like a random collection of stories only related by geography. The more characters on The Bridge enter each other’s lives, the tighter the show’s story and world feel: and in the case of both “Harvest of Souls” and “Lamia”, do wonders to bring focus to the season as a whole, and begin pushing forward to its inevitable climax.
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If there’s been a common theme among the main characters of The Bridge, it’s exploring the darker avenues of dealing with great loss. It occurs on both a human level, and with the larger plots at play: while Fausto and his organization scramble from the $70 million loss they just took on the other side of the border, characters like Adriana, Marco, and Sonya are dealing with the loss of family members, and Charlotte and Ray find themselves at a loss for freedom under Galvan’s violently oppressive thumb. And as all these plots begin to coalesce, “Eye of the Deep” reaches farther and deeper than the episodes before it to go out of it’s way painting a group of people reaching their wit’s end with the current state of affairs – and in the process, delivers the best episode of the season so far.
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After spreading things out for three hours, “The Acorn” is the first episode of The Bridge’s season that begins to condense its story, connecting dots between Galvan, Eleanor, Marco, and everyone in between. For the first time, it feels like The Bridge has one large snowball rolling down hill gaining steam, not a dozen tiny ones bouncing around aimlessly without direction or momentum. I wouldn’t say it has completely solved it’s identity crisis just yet: but with a few brief, wildly effective scenes, “The Acorn” begins arranging the violent, allusion-heavy pieces on the table, and begins assembling its grand story for the season.
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“Sorrowsworn” is an interesting turning point for The Bridge, both in construction and delivery: continuing the trend of the last two episodes, “Sorrowsworn” layers more intertwining characters and stories into the larger story, while at the same time attempting to find intimate moments with characters, an interesting experiment in pressing on the gas pedal while slightly massaging the brake at the same time. It makes for an uneven ride at times, sure, but like last week’s episode, there’s the growing sensation that The Bridge is finding its direction as it transforms, slowly relaxing into its new identity.
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Unexplained pools of blood, assassins, break-ins, and sexcapades mark the opening of The Bridge’s second season, an uncomfortably scattered hour that only seems to prove this show still hasn’t figured out what it wants to be. A jumbled mess of familiar and new faces dealing with both new and familiar problems, “Yankee” is an hour that ignores major plot threads from last season (if only for the time being) in order to introduce a plethora of new ideas, without giving the audience much sense of direction as to what this seemingly random collection of scenes actually means. Is it intriguing? Sure, there are parts of “Yankee” that suggest this season of The Bridge could head in some interesting directions: but surrounded by so many other plots and characters, it’s unclear what this season actually wants to be about.
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