The Split has been getting pulpier with every series. With this surprise two-parter (a late addendum after the show supposedly ended in 2022), it may have finally reached soap opera levels of melodrama.
When we left off Abi Morgan’s hugely popular BBC drama – which follows the Defoes, a multi-generational family of divorce lawyers – Hannah (Nicola Walker) and Nathan (Stephen Mangan) had finally called it quits on their marriage following her affair with American solicitor Christie (Barry Atsma). The opening episode reintroduced them as friendly exes, unsure about this new phase of their lives, as the entire Defoe family rocked up to Barcelona for the wedding of Hannah and Nathan’s daughter Liv (Elizabeth Roberts) to handsome Spaniard Gael (Alex Guersman).
Nathan, now remarried, had an earring he swiftly removed; Hannah had recently ghosted sexy new man Archie (Toby Stephens), who, of course, then turned up at the wedding. From the start, it was clear the solicitors were soon going to be using their drafting skills for dramatic purposes and debating the legality of prenups scribbled on napkins. Fountain pens at dawn.
Annabel Scholey as Nina, Nicola Walker as Hannah and Fiona Button as Rose (Photo: BBC/Sister)Where once The Split’s characters – which also includes matriarch Ruth (Deborah Findlay) and her other daughters Nina (Annabel Scholey) and Rose (Fiona Button), the only non-lawyer in the family – trod a fine line between entertaining if improbable wit and nuanced emotional truth-telling, in these two hour-long episodes they were constantly saying things designed purely for viewing pleasure with little to no feeling of authenticity.
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Read MoreMangan has always played Nathan with a sweet nerdiness, but there were moments here where his lines were so overwritten they felt like am dram. “Then you get married and really quickly you’ve drifted past lust, swung a left through familiarity and then you’re hovering around regret and contempt before you know it, and then what have you got? A load of John Lewis crockery and Netflix shows you can’t finish,” he told someone in a muddled attempt to persuade them that marriage wasn’t worth it. Neat and funny yes, but does anyone actually talk like this?
Most of the drama surrounded the “will they won’t they?” of Gael and Liv’s wedding, and the events that set it off course. Nicola Walker continued to anchor the show, retaining an appealing combination of maternal concern and middle-aged curiosity.
Is a divorced woman whose children are finally flying the nest supposed to feel good about dating? Especially when her very job continues to show her that the odds are, always, stacked against love? Walker has a face that shifts from one emotion to another in a micro-second and here, amongst the olive groves and pricey flower arrangements, she deployed it to tremendous effect, morphing from flattered to offhand to business-like and back to affectionate in mere moments.
Annabel Scholey as Nina and Dariam Coco as Lola (Photo: Daniel Scale/BBC/Sister Pictures)Stephens was an excellent addition, a sturdy, likeable presence as Archie, the love interest and, of course, also a lawyer. There were stories too for Rose and Nina and their boyfriends, though they felt very much like afterthoughts.
The real problem was that the careful Paso Doble between romance and the exploration of what its opposite might be (Hate? Friendship? Legal battles?) around which the previous seasons operated was at last completely overwhelmed here by a crude fandango, where expensive weddings with fine china and bad speeches automatically represented insincerity, while a beach, a cheap dress and casual beers meant true love.
Again, the script was absurdly trite on this point. Hannah even said: “If there’s anything more romantic than chicken in a basket and a karaoke machine then I don’t know what it is.” Really? At this time of year we want our TV shows to be warmer and cuddlier than usual – but not so much that they descend into telenovelas.
‘The Split: Barcelona’ continues tomorrow at 9pm on BBC One
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