Recently I watched the first season
of ‘The Split’ on Tata Sky and then I just read about the next season to get to know what
happened next. And somehow, I did not quite like the S1.
‘The Split’ is a British television
legal drama series, written and created by Abi Morgan, and it was broadcasted
in the UK in 2018. It follows the lives of the Defoe family, who all work in their
family divorce law firm, except that the eldest sister Hannah (played by Nicola
Walker) works for a rival family law firm and the youngest works as a nanny.
Hannah is the protagonist in this story.
Ruth Defoe is the matriarch running
her family. Her husband Oscar Defoe had left her long back and she raised her
three daughters alone. She did not tell her daughters about the real reason why
she got separated from her husband. She had put the entire blame on her husband
for “abandoning” her and the daughters because, as she said, he did not want to
live with them. The daughters grew up hating their father. They hated their
father, whose memory they did not have, to the extent that one day when the old
man turned up after 20 years, they did not even want to see him. What unfolds
next is touching.
Hannah is the strongest of the three
sisters and has a harsh nature. She did not get along well with her mother too,
that was why she was working for a rival law firm. (Near the end of season-1, a
time comes when she could let her mother’s law firm win a case and it would
have helped her survive; but she chooses to defeat her knowing very well that
it would result in her mother’s company getting bankrupt. I think the mother-daughter
duo: Ruth and Hannah embody the ruthless, stone women which feminists want to converted
everyone into.
When Oscar, their old father, arrives
after 20 years in order to get their consent to sell his stake in the family
business, they all hate him, thinking that “it was all about money”! Later they
get to know that he was in fact dying with an ailment and perhaps the money could
help him get a better treatment. And the second woman he was staying with, was
actually a fragile and weird looking woman who looked and acted more like his
nurse than his partner.
In one touching episode, Hannah gets
to know that her father used to send her messages and gifts on the major occasions
of her life. But her mother did not allow her or others to know about those! The
sisters realize that their father did not want to abandon them; but their
mother had pushed him away and told bad things about him to them to make them hate
him. It also appeared that the person to blame for the separation was their
mother herself.
But, by the time the daughters realize
that their father was a nice person who actually loved them, it was too late.
Oscar dies of a heart attack.
There were many parallel stories
going on and at times the story lines got confusing. The pace of the TV series
is also fast. I did not enjoy this TV series much, not because the stories were
not interesting, but mainly because I could not connect with any of its
characters. The characters looked weird and I did not like watching any of
them.
Still, I got to know many things from
this TV series. One revelation was how the divorce lawyers enjoyed whenever
someone decided to file for divorce. In fact, when a major scandal broke out,
they started telephoning the wives of each of the culprits, expecting the wives
to file for divorce. They were like jackals trying to snatch flesh from an
injured animal. Second, when a rich man decided to divorce his wife, she
started behaving so rudely and abusively with him, and at the same time she tried
to snatch every bit of his wealth for her alimony. Third, it looked too bad seeing
old people divorce each other. If people must divorce, they should do it as soon
as they could while they are still young. Otherwise, everyone
loses.
‘The Split’ would add to my list of
TV shows watched but not liked. Still, this was a new kind of show and I had
watched anything on this theme before. Hence, it works fine.
- Rahul Tiwary
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