The Widow episode 3 & 4 review ★★★★★

Like with most investigative dramas, The Widow finds pleasure in slowly fitting pieces together to form a full, complicated picture. Writers Harry and Jack Williams clearly adore their 1000-piece-puzzle narratives, spread into a few, barely connected areas.

With every episode, another piece connects seemingly unrelated areas together with a fascinating sense of subtlety and pace. Even if these pieces involve bullets and explosions, there’s a soft pleasure in watching them all connect together. It’s like doing a puzzle with a time-bomb nearby.


Watching The Widow is like doing a puzzle with a time-bomb nearby

At the start of episode 3, we enter into what’s probably the most significant flashback. After years of suppressing the trauma from the plane crash, the blind Icelandic man Ariel (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) remembers back to that fateful day before he lost his sight. We see him walk through the airport, and disparate elements suddenly connect together.

We gradually realise he’s the most important witness in Georgia’s investigation – his blindness is like a laugh of irony. But that doesn’t make him useless, far from it. He’s a vital piece of the puzzle. In fact, he’s the guiding hand.


Ariel (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) unknowingly puts the pieces together

Meanwhile, Georgia (Kate Beckinsale) is on the ground in the Congo, straddling the line between courageous and just plain crazy. It’s hard at times to believe that Judith (Alex Kingston) would facilitate Georgia’s attempts to find the hard-shelled Pieter Bello (Bart Fouche) – deliberately entering dodgy territory that could end with a bullet through her forehead.

But the reasons are convincing enough, and Judith manages to get a doctors’ van to take Georgia to where she needs to go. She has to pretend she’s a journalist researching the area. However, it’s not long before that mask starts to slip and Georgia has to resort to violent measures. As she grows desperate, the person she was starts to dissolve. If she ever finds her husband, will either of them be the same?


Certain heavy and harrowing details drip into the story, elements of Georgia's past she’d rather forget.

The mysteries aren’t reserved only for crashed flights or child soldiers or blind witnesses, however. Even after spending three hours with Georgia, the Williamses don’t reveal the full scope of her pain. Certain heavy and harrowing details drip into the story, revealing elements of her past she’d rather forget.

And doubts come to the fore – maybe her marriage wasn’t as bright as morning sunshine through the curtains, or cheeky jokes under comfortable sheets. As Georgia reaches closer to Will, we get closer to her.

Eight episodes is probably excessive, but shortening the series would risk the pace going too quickly. The Williamses shine in their slowness, and that needs to be maintained. The overloaded expositions from episodes 1 and 2 have been reduced (thank god), which allows the multiple strands of Georgia’s character to grow. And after watching both episodes and understanding Georgia better, her insane jungle adventure doesn’t seem so crazy.