Hidden 2: Find It

          Mia                                     lawyer                                         Cad

Hidden is back for its second season on Acorn.  The close knit police procedural set in Wales is well worth your viewing time.

The villain this season is a psycho young woman, Mia, highly intelligent and attractive and able to get two men her age - all are in high school - to do her evil bidding: meting out murder to someone she deems worthy of this fate.  Lee is the brawn and not too bright.  Connor's bright and sensitive, and doesn't like being any part of any killing, or even associating with the killers.  But Mia's sway, in significant part sexual, is too strong for Connor to much resist.

Hidden takes the risky mystery tack of letting us know who the killers are in the very first episode.  This put us the audience in a position of knowing a lot more than DCI Cadi John and her junior partner DS Owen Vaughn, and the hook in the mystery is seeing how they learn the identity of the killers and deal with them.  Given Mia's persuasive powers, and the personal complexities of both Cadi and Owen's off-the-job lives, this is no easy task.  Indeed, all too often their off-the-job lives are so intertwined with their police work, they have a tough time having personal lives outside of their jobs.

The countryside is splendid.  My wife and I have been to England and Scotland a wonderful number of times, but not Wales.  Seeing Hidden will make you want to do that.  Sian Reese-Williams is totally convincing as Cadi. Annes Elwy is deadpan effective as Mia. And I especially liked Steffan Cennydd as the troubled Connor.  Hidden is perfect early hot summer, tired of COVID, television.  Find it and watch it.

See also Hidden 1: You Must See It

Hidden 1: You Must See This

My wife and I just binge-watched, over a couple of days, a Welsh-noir short series, Hidden, shown last month on the BBC and now available here on Acorn TV.

In a word: Outstanding!  This is a story of young women kidnapped and kept in captivity - something we've seen a lot of before not only screen but, tragically, in the news.  But Hidden somehow manages to do this differently, with fresh voices, and more than a handful of original, memorable characters, including the minor as well as the major.

The police are DI Cadi John (Sian Reese-Williams) and DS Owen Vaughn (Sion Alun Davies), in a small town in Wales.  Cadi is the middle child in a family of three sisters, whose father is a retired detective in failing health, connected to the case at hand in the past.  Owen's girlfriend is expecting a child - theirs - but he's not quite yet come to terms with that, and finds himself attracted to a very attractive DC, Alice (Sarah Tempest), in the station.  Even the DSI in charge of the precinct, a very minor role, is done with care and originality: she neither gets in the way of the investigation nor is especially gung-ho, which strikes me as being very realistic.

The villains are complex and original, too.  The mother of the kidnapper, Iona Harris (Gillian Elisa), is a tough cookie.  She's on her son's back for, well, kidnapping and keeping these women for years, but she doesn't stop him or turn him over to the police.  Her position as a reluctant accomplice explains lots of things in the end.

And her son, Dylan Harris (Rhodri Meilir), is a first-class monster.  Soft-spoken, really wanting to take care of the women he kidnaps, yet utterly oblivious to the anguish he's causing the victims and their families, including an uncle who is serving time in prison for a murder Dylan committed.

We've been to England and Scotland.  After seeing Hidden - really well acted by everyone, including Gwyneth Keyworth as Megan, the current victim  - Wales is on the agenda.