{"id":122551,"date":"2025-10-15T00:52:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T00:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/122551\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T00:52:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T00:52:10","slug":"finally-a-ghoulishly-gripping-killer-drama-to-call-our-own-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/122551\/","title":{"rendered":"Finally, a ghoulishly gripping killer drama to call our own \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

These have been a shaky few years for RT\u00c9<\/a>, but the national broadcaster isn\u2019t dead and buried quite yet. Amid such setbacks as Tubridy-gate and a slew of dire scripted output, it has produced the occasional gem, of which the brilliantly bleak Obituary (RT\u00c9 One, 10.15pm) is perhaps the pick of the bunch. <\/p>\n

Series one was a wonderfully dour blend of Netflix\u2019s Wednesday, serial killer caper Dexter and a Cure video shot in Donegal. It starred Siobh\u00e1n Cullen as a frustrated freelance journalist who decides to top up her income as an obituary writer by taking extreme measures (we\u2019ve all been there). <\/p>\n

Her plan was to keep the demand for obits in the fictional Donegal seaside town of Kilraven ticking over by adding to the body count herself. Unfortunately for her, the strategy quickly went off the rails. <\/p>\n

Obsessed with recent deaths, Elvira became accidentally entangled in the mystery killing several years earlier of a German journalist, with consequences that ultimately proved horrific.<\/p>\n

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The gothic Irish trappings are also fleshed out with a genuinely engaging murder mystery<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Obituary series one was smartly acted with an enjoyably tart script \u2013 though the plot turned a tad too convoluted in a confusing finale. The show also won an unlikely cult following in the United States, where it streamed on Disney\u2019s Hulu network, and viewers both at home and abroad will be delighted to catch up with Cullen as Elvira moves forward with her bloody adventures in journalism. <\/p>\n

The major addition to the cast in season two is the impressive M\u00e1ir\u00e9ad Tyers. She shrugs off her involvement in the atrocious adaptation of Marian Keyes\u2019 Walsh Sisters to play the hard-nosed new editor of Cullen\u2019s local newspaper. A disrupter who believes in setting journalists at each other\u2019s throats \u2013 indeed, a not unrealistic depiction of certain Irish newsrooms \u2013 she demands that Cullen and her fellow journos pitch exciting new stories. The winner will thrive, the losers will be fired.<\/p>\n

Elvira\u2019s chief rival for Vivienne\u2019s approval is spoiled intern Ruby (Aisling Reid), which leads our homicidal heroine to scheme her murder. But Elvira\u2019s bloody plans go astray when a masked intruder dispatches Ruby first, as an aghast Elvira watches from a parked car outside. Who is the killer \u2013 and what was their motivation for bumping off the daughter of the owner of \u201cthe county\u2019s third biggest waste disposal business\u201d?<\/p>\n

Obituary is ghoulishly gripping and Cullen excels as a woman dealing with bone-deep trauma. As with series one, the gothic Irish trappings are also fleshed out with a genuinely engaging murder mystery. <\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t quite enough to raise a moribund RT\u00c9 from the dead, but it is an excellent example of what can happen when a broadcaster dares to do something different. Amid so much home-produced stodge, it\u2019s great having a killer drama in our midst. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"These have been a shaky few years for RT\u00c9, but the national broadcaster isn\u2019t dead and buried quite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,117,19,17,1181],"class_list":{"0":"post-122551","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-rte"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}