3 Kernels
Welcome to Flesh & Blood. An ITV British series now showing on Masterpiece. Beware. It’s another series with no promise of season two as of writing this review, that brings another cliffhanging ending that causes your mouth to gape open and utter, “what the heck.”
One of the perks of donating to PBS, is Passport. I don’t have to show up every Sunday evening to watch new shows. I can binge.
Meet the family. A widowed mother and three siblings all living secret lives of screwed-up dysfunctional existences. Oh, and then there is the neighbor. We cannot forget Marry Bennet living next door, who is quite the character as the episodes continue.
The story is not unlike a recent one GoldDigger, which I apparently watched and was too lazy to write about. Here’s a link to the Guardian about the series. Slightly different, Flesh & Blood focuses upon a seventy-year old woman finding love eighteen months after her husband dies, while GoldDigger focuses upon an sixty-plus woman finding love after divorce with a younger man. In both instances, the grown children are not too keen on the idea and dig into the pasts of these men, looking for dirt to change their mother’s mind.
Flesh & Blood follows the same trail, but focuses upon each of the grown children as well. One daughter, with marriage problems, is deep into her career, stirring up problems for herself. The other is in a five-year long relationship with her married boss going no where. Then there is the son, separated from his wife because he gambles and spends his time prostituting himself out to make money. When their mother falls in love with Mark, played by Stephen Rea, they don’t like it. They are suspicious of his motives, and the story does lead you down the trail, questioning whether he’s a good or bad bloke.
Of great interest in the story is Mary Bennett, the neighbor, played by Imelda Staunton. A sweet old lady, for the most part (wink, wink) that has her own issues of wanting to keep her neighbor around. She is part of the entertainment factor if nothing else.
It’s an okay series for what it is. Nothing special, frankly. An overused trope lately rehashed elsewhere. Nonetheless, it will fill your Sunday night and leave you wondering if there will be a season two.
