Bloodlands is more restrained, but trust me, it serves up a couple of lethal doozies.
Although you can follow the action without knowing the historical backstory, it helps to remember the basics. Starting in the late 1960s, Northern Ireland lived through a de-facto civil war between Catholics and Protestants, and the violence killed many thousands of its citizens. The conflict ran until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which brought about an uneasy peace in a small, intimate land where nobody was left untouched by bloodshed.
Bloodlands begins 20 years after this truce when a car is fished from Strangford Lough with what seems to be a suicide note in it. Assigned to the case is bottled-up police detective Tom Brannick (James Nesbitt) and his partner Niamh — well-played by the sympathetically offbeat Charlene McKenna. Tom spots a connection between this note and an unsolved case — and not just