The Bridge episode reviews

With all the pieces of The Bridge’s second season neatly in place for the finale before “Quetzalcoatl” even begins, it’s no surprise that things don’t really go anywhere in this penultimate hour. Throughout, it feels like a buildup to two big events – Galvan’s Last Stand, and Linder’s Final Act of Vengeance – but neither comes to light in the framework of this episode, an hour that methodically fans the flames of the season’s conflicts, with Eleanor continuing to poke her head in and out from the shadows said fire casts on the metaphorical wall. That doesn’t mean “Quetzacoatl” isn’t an boring hour, though: as the show pauses to consider just how far Galvan’s gone with the approval of the CIA, and how little anyone involved can do about it, The Bridge finally feels like the show it’s always wanted to be, occasional spurts of blood and all.

With Nacht’s disturbing behavior finally on the sidelines, “Beholder” doesn’t waste any time getting to the point of The Bridge’s second season – and thanks to the slow burn of the season’s first half of episodes, allows these increasingly dramatic situations to be filled with characters we’re invested in. Marco and Sonya are a given, but did one expect to feel such remorse for characters like Adrianna or Fausto? “Beholder” is an hour consumed by the idea of tragedy: coming to terms with it, trying to avoid it, accepting it as one’s fate or defining characteristic – and with each character taking a long look at what they’ve lost and how it’s changed who they are, “Beholder” delivers one of the show’s strongest hours.

For all the talk around the internet of how The Bridge solved “the David Tate” problem of season one by removing the whole Serial Killer with a Personal Vendetta crap from the proceedings, “Rakshasa” and “Eidolon” both prove – as the entire season has, really – that the show hasn’t really ‘solved’ this issue at all, even after killing off David Tate a few weeks ago. They’ve merely replaced it, morphing a scorned employee of a main character’s wife into a one-off villain whose personality and characteristics are as random as the motivations David Tate seemed to have throughout season one’s episodes. I’m obviously talking about Eleanor Nacht – and while the performance and dramatic storytelling around it continue to be entertaining, her presence is a glaring flaw in an otherwise wildly entertaining two hours of The Bridge.