River (2015) is a six-part Mini Series starring Stellan Skarsgård and Nicola Walker.
DI John River (Skarsgård) is a Swedish-born London detective who works with his colleague, DS Jackie 'Stevie' Stevenson, a chirpy Cockney with a penchant for karaoke and takeaway food. There's just one problem...three weeks ago, she was murdered and so the Stevie in his head is basically one giant hallucination. And she's not the only one in his mind...victims, suspects and some Victorian serial killer called Thomas Cream (Eddie Marsan) also pop up at random.
As he tries to solve Stevie's murder, he has to deal with all of these 'ghosts' as well...
This show contains examples of:
- Afraid to Hold the Baby: John River is afraid to hold his new partner, Ira's, baby out of fear that he'll drop it. This may be a Casting Gag as Stellan Skarsgård has eight children, but it also represents River's loneliness and isolation from others.
- Ambiguous Situation: It's not clear at first if the manifests are a purely visual metaphor for River's thoughts that effectively exist only for the audience or if they are hallucinations that River experiences on some sensory level. It's later clarified that they're the latter during one of his sessions with a police psychiatrist.
- Black Sheep: Inverted with Stevie. Her family was a bunch of gangsters, The Irish Mob, and she became the family white sheep when she joined the police force.
- Blowing Smoke Rings: The ghost (hallucination?) of Christopher Riley does this to River in episode 2. River is racked with guilt that Riley, the man that River chased to his death, might have been innocent. (He was.)
- Cannot Spit It Out: River was very much in love with Stevie, and was about to tell her but she died before he received the opportunity. He finally manages to in the last episode.
- Da Chief: Chrissie Read, one of the closest things River has to a friend, and who is frustrated by the misogynist views that police only advance by having "balls."
- Dead All Along: In the final shot of the first scene it is revealed that Stevie is dead and is just a hallucination. We also see Erin hanging around in River's apartment whilst he gets up for work before we realise she is the missing girl whose body he is looking for.
- Deadpan Snarker: River, Stevie, Chrissie... quite a few.
- Defective Detective: Oh, boy. River is downright psychotic, actively confronts his hallucinations (what appears to bystanders as talking to or punching invisible people) and had a significant problem with addiction (to alcohol, most likely). Being stubborn and abrasive doesn't make him any more friendly.
- Enemy Within: Thomas Cream insists he is this to River.
- Family Versus Career: The reason why Stevie became estranged from her family; becoming a policewoman threatened their less than savoury activities.
- Faux Affably Evil: Michael. He behaves like a friend to River, always offering him help whilst looking like a pleasant old man. In reality, he is a criminal who molested his fourteen-year old niece Stevie, before having their son kill her when she "betrayed" him.
- Foil: Ira, a calm, composed, friendly and diligent family man is this to River. It extends even to their appearance. Ira is of Middle Eastern descent (half Israeli, half Palestinian) while River looks like your average Scandinavian.
- Ghostly Goals: River's manifests tend to hang around until he has solved their case, before moving on. Including Stevie.
- Historical Domain Character: Thomas Cream.
- The Irish Mob: Stevie's family.
- Living Memory: They clearly exist entirely in River's head. It's also made clear that he's been having these visions since childhood.
- The Loins Sleep Tonight: Frankie is suffering from this problem on the night of Stevie's murder.
- Magical Realism: It's never confirmed if River is really seeing ghosts or hallucinating.
- Mystery of the Week: While every episode has River investigating the overall arc of Stevie's murder, he has his own cases which he and Ira investigate every week.
- One Head Taller: Nicola Walker barely makes it up to Stellan Skarsgard's shoulder level. This adds an extra element to their interactions, as it is clear that petite Stevie was in charge even if River actually outranked her.
- Pretty Little Headshots: Averted. We see a large hole appear in the back of Stevie's head when it becomes obvious she's dead. Also, the black-and-white CCTV clip of her being shot is shown a good couple of dozen times, never getting any less horrifying.
- Reasonable Authority Figure:
- DCI Read, who does her best to keep River on the case even though the Superintendent is trying to get him removed.
- Even the Superintendent is fairly reasonable, it's only sensible that a man potentially suffering from schizophrenia be removed from the police force.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: At the focus group which he had no desire to attend, River finally lets loose about what he thinks about the group's delusion, and Rosa, the police psychologist who he dismisses as having a Messiah complex and makes a few cutting comments about her having no actual family to care about. This turns out to be
Harsher in Hindsight when Rosa reveals that she did in fact have a baby that died after only a few days. - Rewind, Replay, Repeat: River does this with the CCTV footage of Stevie being murdered.
- The Shrink: Rosa, the police psychiatrist that River is forced to visit. She lends a sympathetic ear.
