This had everything going for it, and bar the very odd "wtf" I was with it right up until the final episode. This is exactly why I never write a review lauding a programme until it is finished. Those gushing after episode 3 were right, it was pretty good at that point but the final episode lost the plot entirely.
Two main problems
a) Why did Aoife climb up the wall, how did she get in to the attic and if she had to smash through a wall to get in to the attic why didnt she smash through the wall which was freshly plastered and still letting light through and was right in front of her?
This made no sense. You wake up behind a makeshift plaster wall, not brick, not even wood and very poorly constructed. It would have fallen in an instant with any pressure from the inside. No, instead she scuttles sideways and climbs two floors of a house using the wooden frames of plaster boarded walls, losing a shoe in the process, just one shoe mind you. She is found dead in the attic. Now I am yet to see a house where you can climb up between the walls and end up in the attic without having to, at some point, break through a floor or a wall. No houses are ever constructed that way. One push or kick and she would have been straight in to Lorna's living room and free to leave. It strikes me they had a plot start and a plot end. "Woman thought to be dead is buried behind living room wall". The next plot point is "Wall is broken down and the person thought to be dead behind wall is gone". So we need those two things to happen. Problem is they had a complete brain fade for the middle bit so just made up something stupid, impossible and ridiculous.
As a late addition to point a) if I was a copper looking for a missing person in a suspects house and there was a freshly plastered section of wall with missing wallpaper that was about human size I would be asking questions about why is there a freshly plastered human sized section of wall right there in front of my eyes? Nope. Never even crossed anybody's mind.
B) sgt. Aidan Massey had already been warned off the case by his superior, he was on enforced leave. Is it plausible that his illegal theft of a mobile phone would be over-looked? Is it plausible that after already harrassing Coyle who was working for and with some very powerful people that he wouldn't have already have had Massey warned off again, that he would have had Massey suspended for harrassment, that he would have had Massey arrested for theft. That any evidence from the phone would be illegal. Are we supposed to believe that a powerful man carrying out illegal work on a mobile phone wouldn't have even had a simple numerical lock on that phone, such that Massey could just trip through the phone list to call the mysterious number of the woman who actually killed the priest in the first place. The real biggie is the lack of lawyer / solicitor. A very expensive one would have been crawling all over Massey after his first confrontation with Coyle.
It's like they had a lot of "A's" and a lot of "C's" as plot points but just didn't have the skill to join them up in a non-ridiculous way.
"Oh we'll just have the copper steal the phone from the man's pocket and it isn't locked".
Have they never heard of "warrants"? You kinda need one. It can take days / weeks to get a warrant to unlock a phone so they just had to make it "not locked".
You can possibly tell I am slightly annoyed with "The Woman in the Wall". It's a fantastic story that deserves to be heard by a wider audience. I just think it deserved a better writer than it got.
Two main problems
a) Why did Aoife climb up the wall, how did she get in to the attic and if she had to smash through a wall to get in to the attic why didnt she smash through the wall which was freshly plastered and still letting light through and was right in front of her?
This made no sense. You wake up behind a makeshift plaster wall, not brick, not even wood and very poorly constructed. It would have fallen in an instant with any pressure from the inside. No, instead she scuttles sideways and climbs two floors of a house using the wooden frames of plaster boarded walls, losing a shoe in the process, just one shoe mind you. She is found dead in the attic. Now I am yet to see a house where you can climb up between the walls and end up in the attic without having to, at some point, break through a floor or a wall. No houses are ever constructed that way. One push or kick and she would have been straight in to Lorna's living room and free to leave. It strikes me they had a plot start and a plot end. "Woman thought to be dead is buried behind living room wall". The next plot point is "Wall is broken down and the person thought to be dead behind wall is gone". So we need those two things to happen. Problem is they had a complete brain fade for the middle bit so just made up something stupid, impossible and ridiculous.
As a late addition to point a) if I was a copper looking for a missing person in a suspects house and there was a freshly plastered section of wall with missing wallpaper that was about human size I would be asking questions about why is there a freshly plastered human sized section of wall right there in front of my eyes? Nope. Never even crossed anybody's mind.
B) sgt. Aidan Massey had already been warned off the case by his superior, he was on enforced leave. Is it plausible that his illegal theft of a mobile phone would be over-looked? Is it plausible that after already harrassing Coyle who was working for and with some very powerful people that he wouldn't have already have had Massey warned off again, that he would have had Massey suspended for harrassment, that he would have had Massey arrested for theft. That any evidence from the phone would be illegal. Are we supposed to believe that a powerful man carrying out illegal work on a mobile phone wouldn't have even had a simple numerical lock on that phone, such that Massey could just trip through the phone list to call the mysterious number of the woman who actually killed the priest in the first place. The real biggie is the lack of lawyer / solicitor. A very expensive one would have been crawling all over Massey after his first confrontation with Coyle.
It's like they had a lot of "A's" and a lot of "C's" as plot points but just didn't have the skill to join them up in a non-ridiculous way.
"Oh we'll just have the copper steal the phone from the man's pocket and it isn't locked".
Have they never heard of "warrants"? You kinda need one. It can take days / weeks to get a warrant to unlock a phone so they just had to make it "not locked".
You can possibly tell I am slightly annoyed with "The Woman in the Wall". It's a fantastic story that deserves to be heard by a wider audience. I just think it deserved a better writer than it got.