A Chill Rain – MURDER IN A SMALL TOWN Review

Let’s break down Murder In A Small Town episode 1.03 “A Chill Rain” and consider whether the show is trying to do too much.

This week in Gibson, the little town with a big ‘ole murder rate we meet Zoe Strachan (Stana Katic) who gets an unwelcome visit from her brother. It is clear the two don’t get along and that Benjamin Strachan (Ben Cotton) is a bit of a screw up. The reunion ends with Zoe refusing to help Benjamin with his money issues and him making a vague threat.

Meanwhile in the town proper we see that our sheriff is up to some DIY with some help from his Sergeant. Honestly I do like seeing that people seem to get along with our protagonist. For me it is better than him being in a self-destructive spiral while still being brilliant at his job. Cassandra has a friend visit who happens to be an actor and seemingly interested in her. He seems like a lot but he never goes over the line from eccentric to annoying.

Aimless

The weird thing is this second story just goes nowhere. It feels like maybe he was inserted to be a bit of a test for the relationship between Cassandra and Karl. It doesn’t develop though so I’m left wondering if there is a later payoff though that seems unlikely.

We see two thugs on Benjamin’s trail, they confront Zoe and that interaction seems to make things real for her. Soon after that we find Benjamin’s body washed up on the shore. That’s where we start our murder mystery but there is something I have to talk about here.

I don’t know how or why but Stana Katic’s performance is off, the accent is all over the place in a way that drags you out of the episode to take notice. I find it hard to evaluate the episode outside of it. Now let me be clear, Stana Katic is an amazing actress she’s a big part of the reason I remain a huge Castle fan and read a god half of those Nikki Heat tie in novels.. I don’t know what happened here maybe issues with filming but it was jarring.

Too Much Story Not Enough Time?

The issues around the portrayal of Zoe highlight something that seems to coming up. On investigation it seems this episode was based on one of the novels. There was too much story squeezed into a single an episode maybe? We should have spent more time with Zoe before things the murder. Even saying that though I don’t see how we could in this format but it did leave her as mopre caricature than character

Going forward I need to get an understanding of Cassandra’s role here, you’ve got Kristin Kreuk make proper use of her. I am just going to chalk this up to an off day because I’ve already grown to like this little town and its inhabitants.

Let me know in the comments if I am being too harsh about the performance. I’d like to hear other people’s opinions on this.