✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we send newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Support Us Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Shopping
  • CW SHOPS
  • Support Us
  • Get Started
  • Tickets
  • CW SHOPS
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
TV

The Cry finale review ★★★★★

On 21 Oct 18, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM

Jenna Coleman delivers another heart-ripping performance in The Cry finale, which reaches an unsettling conclusion

By Euan Franklin on 22/10/2018

Jenna Coleman in The Cry
Jenna Coleman in The Cry
The Cry finale review 4 The Cry finale review Euan Franklin
‘The monster was only pretending to be asleep’ reads the caption on a scary painting composed by one of Joanna’s school children. It’s a variation on the famous line in The Hobbit, in which Bilbo Baggins sneaks into the mines of the Lonely Mountain and finds Smaug the Dragon there waiting for him. Such flights of fantasy don’t belong in The Cry, but the monsters still exist. (some spoilers ahead)


In this final episode, Joanna (Jenna Coleman) begins to fix the pieces together. After the revelation from last week, where we found out that she’s being accused of the murder of Alistair (Ewen Leslie), we follow the events leading up to that point. The police have put the investigation on hold, and Joanna and Alistair are adjusting to their new life, post-Noah, in Scotland.


This episode doesn’t dish out the stomach-churning emotions of episode three, nor is the situation as intense after the investigation has essentially been called off. But writer Jacquelin Perske and director Glendyn Ivin provide a finale weighted with absorbing guilt and lies.


Alistair, solely concerned with his own motivations, signs up to a book deal discussing their story, which is very unlikely to be a truthful account. He doesn’t even consult Joanna, and it gets to her – she wants it all to disappear, but it refuses to. As the hard-nosed detective says at the start of the episode: ‘People think the weight of guilt will lessen with time. But in my experience, it’s quite the opposite’.


Jenna Coleman the cry
Joanna (Jenna Coleman) wakes up in the hospital


But Joanna and Alistair do have to live with what they’ve done even if, like Joanna, they didn’t know they were doing it. She struggles to endure Alistair – his schemes behind her back, his subtle deceptions – and tries her best to live with him, keeping him happy at all costs. The fragments of disturbing memories even begin to soften. But, as Joanna realises, this has even more horrific implications. Alistair begins to soak into Joanna, with such quiet build-up in Perske’s writing, existing inside her like a permanent spectral presence.


This series has been one of the most emotionally hard the BBC has produced, even within their recent television renaissance. Coleman in particular exudes such heart-ripping grief that one scene – in which she lays her head on a patch of grass under a tree – is like a traumatised painting.


The finale is muted compared to the devastation rippling through the other episodes, and contains an element of winding down – but it reaches an excellently unsettling conclusion. Its closing revelation is predictable, but not annoyingly so, and Ivin directs it with stirring suspense. If one thing is to be taken from The Cry, it’s that monsters don't leave even when they’re dead. Nor do the innocent.




What The Cry finale review
When On 21 Oct 18, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Price £n/a
Website



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend: 17–19 March
Things to do in London this weekend: 17–19 March
Irene Maiorino and Alba Rohrwacher in My Brilliant Friend season 4, HBO/Sky Atlantic (Photo: HBO)
My Brilliant Friend, season 4, Sky Atlantic: first-look photo, release date, plot, cast
Best art exhibitions in London. Photo: Thin Air at the Beams
Top exhibitions on now in London

Editor's Picks

Robin Wright in House of Cards season 6
New to Netflix UK: November 2018
The best TV dramas to watch in Autumn 2018
The best TV dramas, Autumn 2018
Oliva Colman, Fionn Whitehead and Shalom Brune-Franklin in Great Expectations, BBC One (Photo: BBC/FX Networks/Pari Dukovic)
What to watch on TV this week
Orange is the New Black to be cancelled after Season 7
Orange is the New Black cancelled after Season 7
Morfydd Clarke in Saint Maud (Photo: Sky/StudioCanal)
Best horror movies and TV shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video
Robin Wright in House of Cards season 6
House of Cards final season review
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).

The Cry

TV

Jenna Coleman

BBC One

You might like

  • Jenna Coleman in The Cry

    The Cry episode 3 review ★★★★★

  • Jodie Whittaker and Bradley Walsh in Doctor Who

    Doctor Who episode 2 review ★★★★★

  • Callum Booth-Ford in Butterfly

    Butterfly episode 1 review ★★★★★

  • Toni Collette in Wanderlust

    Wanderlust finale review ★★★★★

  • Olivia Cooke in Vanity Fair

    Vanity Fair finale review ★★★★★

  • Jenna Coleman in The Cry

    The Cry episode 2 review ★★★★★



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • Support Us
  • Tickets
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×