Nocturne on Apple TV: A handsome crime thriller that’s colours within the lines
Nocturne has a raft of great performances, and there’s nothing wrong with it, per se, but it’s also hard to get excited by it.
If the beginning and the end of all you’ll ever know about crime thriller Nocturne is its logline, you might think this was a Silence of the Lambs-esque show.
There’s a menacing serial killer locked up in a super secure underground psychiatric facility, and a FBI agent who tries to get close to him for information about an ongoing case. So far, so familiar.
Which is not to say that Nocturne isn’t like a lot of other serial killer thrillers, most of them tend to have the same contours (and colour palettes). But this particular series does like to add more complications in – quite a lot more, actually.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.It’s only when all the different threads starts to be pulled together about three or four episodes in does Nocturne become a show you might be interested in investing medium-term. But the risk, as always, is that you might have tapped out before then. This is a series for the patient viewer.
Nocturne is set in Pennsylvania, a favourite playground of American TV dramas (think Mare of Easttown, Banshee and Long Bright River) thanks to its mix of urban and rural and some very foreboding-looking woods.
The serial killer in question is Jurek Walter (Stephen Graham, sans his British accents), who we meet as he slowly manipulates the guy in the next cell over to kill himself by bashing his head against the wall. Jurek, we are to understand, is a very dangerous man, even when locked up.
Above ground, one of Jurek’s victims, a young boy, is found wandering a backroad three years after he vanished. His sister, taken at the same time, is still missing.
The reappearance of the boy activates retired detective Jonah (Live Schreiber) who worked on the original case, and who faded away after personal tragedies in his own life. It also brings in to the investigation Saga (Zazie Beetz), a FBI agent whose father was Jonah’s partner.
Poorna Jaganathan, Bill Camp and Gary Carr round out the law enforcement supporting cast.
Saga’s assignment is to infiltrate the facility undercover as a criminal-patient, and to get close to Jurek to discover how is able to move the chess pieces from isolation. They’re convinced that he is responsible for the boy’s release, and Jonah always suspected an accomplice.
There’s also a subplot involving a nurse, Karl (Rory Culkin), who is seduced by Jurek.
Nocturne follows a lot of familiar genre beats, and what it has going for it is the performances really are very good. The characters are well-shaded and the actors are compelling – and Graham is definitely having a moment, and you can’t be mad about watching him weave his thespian magic.
But it also just feels like been-there-done-that. Certainly, there’s an audience for this kind of gritty crime thriller, whether it’s distinct or not. If you make it past the halfway mark, there is renewed momentum including a bonkers twist at the end of episode seven (seven out of 10 episodes were made available for review).
If you look at each aspect of Nocturne separately, most of it works – it’s a handsome, well-crafted production – but that adds up to be a “perfectly fine” series which largely follows a template rather than something that’s genuinely exciting.
It’s certainly no Silence of the Lambs.
Nocturne is on Apple TV from October 30
