Cracker - Series 2

Cracker - Series 2
by Charles McDougall, Jean Stewart, Julian Jarrold, Michael Winterbottom, Richard Standeven

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DVD Cover Information

• 2003 - Granada / HBO Video
• Cracker : Series 2
• Stars: Robbie Coltrane
• 3 Disc DVD Set
• New- Collectible

Movie Reviews of Cracker - Series 2

Movie Review: Marriage, Life, and Whiskey - all on the rocks.
Summary: 5 Stars

The second season of Cracker picks up a short while after the events of series one. On the personal front, Fitz and his wife are still coping with their marriage issues while at the same time he deals with a rather put-out Jane Penhaligon and the affair that wasn't. On the professional front, the gambling debts weigh a little heavier as Fitz finds his police work curbed courtesy of a standing grudge between himself and DCI Bilborough over their last case together.

Into these lives come three extraordinary stories and a cast of characters that will irreversibly change the course of events in Fitz's world. The first story, "To Be A Somebody", is considered the strongest of all three seasons. It features a tour de force performance by Robert Carlyle of "Trainspotting" fame in a teleplay that discourses vitriolically on themes of immigration, family, and class warfare. The second story, "The Big Crunch", features Jim Carter (Brassed Off) and Samantha Morton (Minority Report) in a melancholy tale of greys in the decidedly black and white world of organized religion. The final story of the season, "Men Should Weep" offers no denouement and no respite, a powerful and personal story that will leave you waiting breathlessly for the release of series three.

Through all the tales of crime and punishment, the story of Fitz and his life is interweaved. The beauty of the show, indeed its greatest strength, is in how seemlessly that story is told and how it manages to compliment the overarching plot of each episode. "Cracker" is as good as television gets, and season two is the very best of a great series.

Summary of Cracker - Series 2

"To Be a Somebody" begins where series 1 left off. Fitz and his wife, Judith (Barbara Flynn), and two kids are living together again, but the rotund profiler--still juggling multiple addictions to booze, gambling, nicotine, and overall self-destructiveness--is on a new, downward spiral. His name is also mud with Detective Chief Inspector Bilborough (Christopher Eccleston) and would-be lover and police detective Jane "Panhandle" Penhaligon (Geraldine Somerville). But a series of class-anger killings by a psychotic welder-turned-skinhead pulls Fitz into a case so disastrous that every major and minor character is profoundly affected. Portraying the murderer, Robert Carlyle (Trainspotting) is brilliant, as terrifying and sympathetic as Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle.

The emotional and dramatic fallout of "To Be Somebody" carries over to "The Big Crunch," in which Fitz's relationship with Jane intensifies while he pursues a religious cult that may be responsible for a girl's abduction. The final story, "Men Should Weep," concerns an investigation into an unnerving string of rapes by a masked, mutilated cab driver. More startling is a link between these crimes and eruptive events in the lives of Fitz, Judith, Jane, and thickheaded, thorn-in-the-side copper Jimmy Beck (Lorcan Cranitch). A breathtaking climax and shocking, cliffhanger ending make "Men Should Weep" a must-see for thriller fans. --Tom Keogh