MotherFatherSon: It started well but is the ultimate bad dad show running out of steam?

Tonight, BBC Two, 9pm
Guy Pewsey3 April 2019

It's always the father, isn’t it?

A character in your average novel, play or film presents unpleasant traits. They are cold. Manipulative. Detached, maybe. What could possibly be responsible for such moral dubiousness? What sucked out the goodness, leaving a villainous vacuum in its place? Why it was dear daddy, obviously.

Case in point: the latest episode of MotherFatherSon.

Up until now one could have applied the title to the three main characters — Richard Gere’s media mogul Max, Helen McCrory’s Kathryn and their adult son Caden (Billy Howle) — but now, perhaps not: Max is, after all, a son too, of a cruel father and an absent mother. This unholy trinity made him the man who now plots against his own family.

Media mogul: Richard Gere plays publishing tycoon Max
BBC/Laurence Cendrowicz

Previously we’ve seen what he is capable of. At the beginning of the series Max flew into London to meet the Prime Minister and the female opponent who hoped to dethrone him. His intention was clear: to decide who his media empire would back. A journalist, then, on the surface, but also a kingmaker, a silver-haired, malevolent phantom.

Caden, made of softer stuff, was primed to inherit his empire but has been felled by a stroke. He is propped back up by Kathryn, guilt-ridden at not having been there for him before. Now, the three meet in a swanky glass bungalow in the middle of nowhere to talk things through. But people who meet in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

The first episode was tense and interesting, if overwrought. Now, I fear it has run out of steam. The action is based firmly in the house as they relocate and relocate to thrash things out — around the dining table, at the kitchen island, in the living room — the scenes interspersed with flashbacks to Max’s past.

Family: Richard Gere plays Max, Helen McCrory as Kathyrn and Billy Howle as Caden
BBC/Parisa Taghizadeh

He is a child, quiet and well-behaved, fond of animals and his bespectacled teacher. In comes his steel magnate father Walter (Ciarán Hinds) with a challenge: go downstairs and fire one of the factory workers. Later, dad takes him to a hotel restaurant for his birthday, then sends him upstairs to redeem his curious gift. He may grow up to be Richard Gere, but this ain’t Pretty Woman. Throughout, the message is clear: Max may be a b******, but only because dad made him into one.

Throughout the series there are shades of theatre. The debut’s now notorious sex scene, with its stilted language and almost Ivo van Hove-esque staging, made it feel like you were watching a play. And now, with one location taking the focus and only three characters featuring — and with The Ghost of Bad Dads Past popping up as punctuation — that is even more stark.

The language, though, can’t deliver. It is thoroughly lacking in subtlety. “You’re iron, son,” Walter growls, “I’m going to make you steel.”

Again, it’s all lifted by McCrory. She is calm and collected, and then close to cracking, a fragile form on a precipice. A scene in which she sheds tears is perfect: her face is steely, resolute. But she cries, regardless, a few quick threads of misery stream down her face and then she’s back in the game, ready to fight. She has been fighting to the death since scene one of the first episode: a fight to keep the drama intact. If it weren’t for her, I’d have given up long before.

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