A cop, tortured by memories of child abuse and unable to connect with those who love her, returns to her hometown to try and address her past pain. Her obsession with doing her job well is her sole driving force, so much so that everything else in her life is sacrificed at the altar of this goal.
If that premise sounds familiar, it’s because not only is it the basis of “Get Millie Black,” HBO’s newest drama series, it is also more or less the plot of the same network’s “True Detective” and “Mare of Easttown.” The only difference is the setting: instead of the Louisiana swamps or middle class Delaware towns, this variation takes place in Kingston, Jamaica. “Get Millie Black,” inspired by a short story by Marlon James, must rely on its ensemble to save the day from fairly rote filmmaking. Fortunately, this is a mostly successful gambit.
Millie Black (Tamara Lawrance) was raised by a horrifyingly cruel parent who regularly beat Millie’s brother Orville while screaming homophobic slurs. Millie was packed off to live with relatives in London; later, her mother phones to coldly inform her of Orville’s death. Consumed by wanting to find missing children, Millie becomes a cop, but goes back to Kingston when, on her mother’s death certificate, she sees her brother’s signature.
Upon her return, Millie doesn’t find Orville. Instead, she finds Hibiscus (the immensely talented Chyna McQueen), who, after transitioning, has built a new community of sisters in the Gully, a small haven for Kingston’s trans community that is also a target for attacks from local bigoted thugs. Even though “Bis” has carved out a life for herself, Millie can’t get over the fact that she returned to find and save someone who has already found themselves and doesn’t need saving. Even the genuine affection of her fellow detective Curtis (Gershwyn Eustache Jnr), a gay policeman forced to pass as straight, doesn’t help Millie feel secure. In between trying to bond again with Bis, Millie throws herself into her latest assignment, the case of Janet Fenton, a missing straight-A student (Shernet Swearine).
Attempting to find Janet leads Millie and Curtis to the Somervilles, a wealthy white family whose son Freddie (Peter John Thwaites), also missing, appears to have a penchant for underage girls. If this wasn’t frustrating enough, Millie is also assigned to work with a Metropolitan Police cop, Luke Holborn (Joe Dempsie, who played Gendry Baratheon on “Game of Thrones”), who has arrived to take Freddie into custody as a witness on a gang-related case in London. Before long, hidden agendas and secret conspiracies are uncovered, none of which are particularly surprising, and both are conveyed with fairly humdrum directing and, aside from a few very good jokes, fairly banal writing.
What helps is the acting. Eustache Jnr’s excellent comic timing adds speed and zip to just about every scene he’s in, but that’s not to say he’s the comic relief. His performance is shaded by the heartache of hiding his reality, of having to carefully modulate his behavior and speech in order to avoid being arrested. McQueen provides a glimpse into the joys and fears of Kingston’s trans community, which no one outside it really understands: their chosen family is giving, encouraging, and exuberant, enjoying their lives with abandon, even though the threat of violence is an ever-present reality. Hibiscus’s scenes with Millie are a formidable study of sibling dynamics, so clearly different are the two sisters’ circumstances, expectations, and anxieties; Lawrance and McQueen’s two-person ballet of frustration and anger are among the episodes’ best scenes. Lawrance, well-versed in Shakespeare, glides with ease from anger and revulsion to tenderness and sorrow. In Millie’s most unbalanced moments, Lawrance helps her come across as someone who, on some level, is aware of how badly her trauma is affecting her, but is also equally powerless to stop its relentless reign on her psyche.
But in the four episodes made available for review, Swearine is the one who really shines. Janet’s steely gaze and hardened soul are a tragedy for one so young, but instead of pity, you feel a strange sort of admiration for her resolve. Her composure in the face of out and out chaos is reminiscent of Dominique Fishback’s terrific performance in “The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray.”
The writing can feel stilted, the direction staid, and the editing in particular struggles to stand out from the pack of hyper-specific crime dramas currently littering television. Yes, “True Detective” reinvented the cop drama ten years ago, but it’s clear the genre demands reinvention once again. If nothing else, “Get Millie Black” is a great introduction to actors with a bright future.
Four episodes screened for review. Premieres on November 25th.