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Cardinal

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Television Review: Cardinal (Season 3, 2019)@drax66d

(source: tmdb.org)

The third season of the Canadian crime TV series Cardinal begins at the most difficult moment in the life of its titular protagonist John Cardinal (Billy Campbell), a police detective from Algonquin Bay, a small town in the north of the province of Ontario. His beloved wife Catherine (Deborah Kay) has just committed suicide after a long struggle with bipolar disorder. Cardinal attempts to restore some semblance of normality to his life by throwing himself completely into his work, and there's no shortage of it even in the provincial town that has recently become the scene of brutal robberies targeting people withdrawing cash from ATMs. A far more serious crime is a double murder that took place at a remote summer house, which Cardinal's partner Lise Dellorme (Karin Vanasse) must somehow solve despite the fact that there are still no bodies. Assistance could come from a young waitress and art student Sam Duchene (Devery Jacobs) who, in fact, witnessed the bloody event, but has personal reasons for keeping her mouth shut. The perpetrator, who managed to get hold of her mobile phone, is trying to convince her further by starting to intimidate her. Meanwhile, Cardinal begins to be harassed by anonymous messages accusing him of being indirectly responsible for his wife's death. When the detective launches his own investigation to uncover the sender, he begins to increasingly suspect that Catherine actually committed suicide.

The third season of Cardinal firmly adheres to the formula established in the previous two instalments. This means that the main villains are again pathological killers who skilfully exploit the low population density of the Canadian province to torment their victims in isolated locations, victims they have abducted, intentionally or accidentally, during their murderous forays. It also means that the main hero, although striving to perform his police duties as conscientiously and thoroughly as possible, will be burdened by a series of dreadful personal problems. And, of course, everything must culminate in a spectacular, action-packed finale. Despite all this, the third season does not create a sense of 'déjà vu', and this can primarily be explained by the fact that the formula works well, and that the writing-producing team led by Aubrey Nealon ensures that everything functions like Swiss clockwork, while simultaneously striving to make the third season at least a little different. Perhaps the most important role in this is that one of the main roles is entrusted to Devery Jacobs, an actress who looks different not only because of her Indigenous heritage, but also due to certain physical parameters that Hollywood has accustomed us to, and in all this she demonstrates exceptional acting talent. The rest of the cast is more than good, with Alex Ozerov particularly standing out in the role of a young psychopath. American actress Rya Kihlstedt also handles her role well, a role that in other circumstances might have been thankless. Billy Campbell has done a good job, and he is still served by the 'chemistry' with Karin Vanasse who plays his partner. The finale is also far better than that of the second season, although one could say that the writers perhaps overdid it a bit in trying to resolve all the subplots as thoroughly as possible. Despite that, Cardinal deserves a recommendation to all fans of Nordic noir in the Canadian style.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

(Note: The text in the original Croatian version is available here.)

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›Television Review: Cardinal (Season 2, 2018)@drax74d

The second season of the Canadian crime TV series Cardinal suggests that its producers wanted something different, and in doing so they understood the term "season" in the way it means in the English language, where it is synonymous with "time of year". While the first season was set in winter, the second season, based on the novel The Blackfly Season by Giles Blunt, takes place in summer, a change that is extremely striking when it comes to the north of Ontario province, where instead of snow and ice-covered wastelands one is suddenly surrounded by forests and lush vegetation. At the very beginning, however, this atmosphere does not seem too idyllic for an unnamed red-haired girl (Alex Paxton-Beesley) who is desperately trying to flee from someone or something through the dense forest. A few hours later, the same girl finds herself in a bar frequented by bikers and similar sorts, where her unusual behaviour catches everyone's eye, including that of a local policeman who soon discovers a frightening explanation for this phenomenon. Someone had apparently tried to kill her with a gunshot, with the bullet ending up in her brain. After prompt surgical intervention saved her life, police detective John Cardinal (Billy Campbell) and his partner Lisa Delorme (Karin Vanasse) begin an investigation with the aim of finding the perpetrator of this crime. The problem, however, is that the girl, whom everyone calls "Red", has developed amnesia and is unable to say what her name is or where she comes from, let alone who fired the fatal shot at her. While Cardinal and Delorme patiently try to find clues that would indicate the identity of "Red", horrifically mutilated corpses of members of a local biker gang begin to be found around Algonquin Bay, and it is unclear whether this is a feud related to drug trafficking or the work of a disturbed serial killer, or perhaps a combination of both. Cardinal begins to think that these events might be connected to "Red", but his investigation is complicated by the increasingly fragile mental health of his wife Catherine (Deborah Hay).

The second season of Cardinal, despite using a new director-screenwriter team, has remained within the stylistic and atmospheric parameters of the first season in terms of style and atmosphere. Cardinal still leans on Nordic noir, that is, it strives to make the seemingly idyllic atmosphere of provincial Canada frightening, making quite skilful use of the dense, endless and dark forests that are full of life in summer, but also hide all sorts of monsters, of which, of course, the most dangerous are those in human form. From the previous season, the technique is also taken whereby viewers are almost from the very beginning deprived of any dilemma about who the main villain is. Despite this, tension is maintained relatively well, and the opening itself brings several rather surprising twists. The acting is up to par, and Alex Paxton-Beesley in particular deserves mention for a rather demanding role of a character who is, in a symbolic sense, simultaneously alive and dead. Bruce Ramsay also proved very good in the role of a monstrous yet charismatic villain.

Unfortunately, the good initial impression was not sustained until the end. The screenwriters were under too much pressure to fit the original novel and its plot into the format of a six-part mini-series, and over time the second season of Cardinal begins to seem drawn out. This is most evident through the subplots related to the private lives of the protagonist and his partner, which rely on the previous season and give the impression of reheated leftovers. The finale, however, is particularly disappointing due to a series of seemingly "clever" plot twists that, in fact, come across as somewhat irritating clichés, and the ending is in many ways banal. In the end, what saves Cardinal the most is its technical polish and good acting, which raised the overall quality of this season to more than a tolerable level.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

(Note: The text in the original Croatian version is available here.)

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›Television Review: Cardinal (Season 1, 2017)@drax85d

For decades, Scandinavia, or the Nordic countries, have been considered the most civilised, most peaceful, most advanced and socially sensitive parts of the world, often cited as the ideal towards which Western civilisation should strive. All the more curious, then, that at around the same time, crime novels by local authors depicting the dark sides of life in the Nordic utopia have become enormously popular. The trend, which in recent years has acquired the name Nordic noir, has also attracted interest from non‑Scandinavian authors, above all British and American writers who have sought to exploit it in their own way, through more or less faithful adaptations, or films and TV series inspired by Nordic noir. Some have been more successful than others, and among them is the Canadian TV series Cardinal, which is based on the original novels by Canadian author Giles Blunt. Among them is Forty Words for Sorrow, which served as the template for the first season, broadcast in early 2017.

The story is set in Algonquin Bay, a relatively remote town in northern Ontario where the titular protagonist, Detective John Cardinal (played by Billy Campbell), lives and works. He had recently been transferred out of the homicide division after failing to locate a missing Indigenous girl. Things change when her body is discovered by chance, showing clear signs of sadistic torture. Cardinal is called back to lead the investigation, but is assigned a new partner, francophone detective Lise Delorme (played by Karine Vanasse), whose speciality had until then been financial crimes. The two soon realise they are dealing with a depraved serial killer who, moreover, adapts readily to the situation, switching from girls to young men as victims, luring them by posing as attractive women online. One of them could be the missing young man, but while Cardinal struggles to discover his whereabouts and the abuser’s identity, he is unaware that Delorme did not become his partner by chance. While a detective in Toronto, Cardinal had been involved in a tragically failed operation to capture a drug dealer, and his superiors suspect he was in collusion with them; Delorme has been tasked with secretly investigating Cardinal and confirming those suspicions.

The creators of Cardinal do not strive to reinvent the wheel, nor to offer viewers something they haven’t already seen in countless similar crime series, whether Scandinavian, British or American. The only thing that might connect this series to Nordic noir is the wintry atmosphere, with low temperatures that, not without reason, play a certain role in both the plot and its resolution. The mystery is nothing particularly special, and the writing team led by Aubrey Nealon very intelligently decides to show its hand early on, depicting the killer in a fairly realistic manner. The series contains a good deal of potentially disturbing content, primarily related to scenes of violence and torture, though such scenes are not overly explicit. Far more interesting, and executed quite successfully by the standards of such series, is the interweaving of the investigation with the detectives’ private lives, with Cardinal and Delorme coming across as rather convincing characters – sufficiently “problematic” to be taken seriously, yet not so psychologically damaged as to be unable to perform their police duties adequately. The cast contributes greatly to this, above all Billy Campbell, an actor who at the start of the 1990s failed to establish himself as a film star via The Rocketeer, and has since languished mostly on television. Here, with considerable years behind him – which he makes no attempt to hide – he effectively portrays a not-so-simple character with whom viewers will sympathise despite constant doubts about his moral compass. The impression is not spoiled by the ending, which some might find a touch too melodramatic. A good thing about the first season of Cardinal is that it lasts only six episodes, so the plot isn’t stretched, and by the end presents a rounded whole. Three further seasons have been filmed, which should give fans of Canadian Nordic noir reason for optimism.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

(Note: The text in the original version is available here.)

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