You’re a good man, Alec.

One half always loses the other

At the start of Broadchurch S02E07, we hear Claire say the following words:

“You go about your life thinking you’re complete and then you meet someone and you realise you’re only really half of something… when you meet that person… you know it’s true. You’re only really whole when you’re with each other. Never ends well, does it?

Hardy says, “What doesn’t?”

“Love,” she replies. “It makes you strong, then it pulls you down. However it happens, one half always loses the other.”

Now let’s look at how this idea relates to Hardy and Miller in Season 2. Hardy and Miller were, of course, originally constructed as complementary opposites. They balance each other out. They form the heart of the show and we as an audience view them as two halves of a whole. In season 2, the idea of Hardy and Miller being two halves of a romantic partnership begins to surface and is reflected consistently in the camerawork of every episode. Let’s take a look at some examples:

Hardy and Miller are positioned on opposite sides of the frame. They mirror each other’s pose and Hardy has dropped his height to appear on equal footing with her. You can basically split this frame right down the middle and it will be perfectly weighted on both sides.

Here are some more examples:

You can split any of these shots right down the middle and Hardy and Miller will take half the frame each. Even in instances when they are not in the same shot, Miller will occupy one half and Hardy on the other.

Throughout the season the camera treats them as two halves of a whole:

This doesn’t necessarily suggest a romantic entanglement in itself, but then we come to the infamous hotel scene:

Miller comes into the room and they get into the bed. As they do, the camera moves steadily and subtly to the right in a single shot, until…

Bam. A centre-framed shot, almost perfectly symmetrical. Hardy and Miller as two halves sharing the same bed. Notice that Miller sleeps on the right, just like she did with Joe, and Hardy takes the half that her husband used to occupy.

In the final episode, many of the interrogation scenes exploit this technique:

And after they’ve secured a confession, this technique takes on a different meaning. The case and the trial have held them together all season - and now they start to drift apart.

Hardy and Miller in the classic ‘two halves’ position - but Miller’s body is positioned away from him. She gets a call from Beth and leaves. Then we see this:

Doesn’t this shot just feel incomplete? Doesn’t it feel like there’s something missing?

Now we come to the goodbye scene.

In the establishing shot we see Hardy and Miller on opposite sides, but it lacks the satisfying symmetry of the other examples. It is set up to make us feel like we are looking through curtains, as though we are intruders peering into a window and witnessing something private. Interestingly, throughout the scene, Hardy and Miller do not appear clearly in the same frame except for here, and in two other instances:

The handshake is our final instance of Hardy and Miller taking one half of the frame each - but this is our first example of a shot where they are presented as halves that cannot be clearly separated. The two of them are merged, making a single whole at the centre of the frame.

Miller leaves him with tears in her eyes. We do not see her go; the camera stays trained on Hardy as he watches her, his expression tortured.

The last shot of the entire season is of Hardy alone; but before that we see him looking at his own reflection in the car window, a technique that emphasises his solitude and the fact he is missing something.

The whole season Hardy and Miller have had each other. Hardy helped her through Joe’s trial and kept her strong throughout the hellish ordeal; Miller saved him from nightmares and the demons of his past. She solved the Sandbrook case with him and gave him hope for the future. They helped each other, loved each other and made each other strong before painfully separating. Doesn’t that remind us of something we’ve heard before?

“Love. It makes you strong, then it pulls you down. However it happens, one half always loses the other.”

Shit. I just realised.

Remember this photo?

(Original post here, courtesy of creamcolored-converse.)

This is a shot that appeared briefly in the making-of Broadchurch 2 video. We don’t know what this scene is about or why it was cut, and the full sequence doesn’t appear to be on any DVDs or deleted scenes, etc. Basically it’s a mystery.

But look at how it’s set up.

Look at how bright and pretty it is. Look at the greens and golds, so at odds with the blues and greys that typically saturate Broadchurch’s colour scheme. Look at the composition. Hardy and Miller are at the same height. They’re wearing similar clothes and mirror each other’s pose, facing towards one another. The power pole in the middle of the frame cuts the image in two and divides them perfectly, giving Miller one half and Hardy the other. On this same dividing line rests a vase of pink flowers (possibly roses) that are quite opposed to the melancholy bluebell motif we’re used to seeing. The green foliage hems them in on both sides, emphasising the neat division between them and the power line works to draw the eye down diagonally to the pole, also highlighting that dividing line. Everything about this shot is precisely set up to make them appear like two halves of a whole and the colour scheme, motifs and general setting all make it appear quite warm - even romantic.

So what exactly happened in this scene to make Chibnall cut it and hide it away from us?

I was watching the making of broadchurch 2 on youtube and I want to know

what the frick is this 

Broadchurch || 2.02

Broadchurch (s2) ⇒ scenery

Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller s2 Broadchurch

let them be everything, because, they are everything (insp)

I can do it, I can face them…

Broadchurch