The One That Got Away review – an irresistible treat for thriller fans

The Guardian

25-02-2025

The One That Got Away is a rare double delight – something not just better than you were expecting, but better than it needs to be. It is the English-language remake of the Welsh drama Cleddau, by Catherine Tregenna, in which two detectives with a shared past are forced into partnership once more when a new crime has echoes of a historical murder they worked on together. Is it a copycat, or did they put away the wrong man? Could there be another explanation? And when are the two detectives with a shared past going to have sex?
So far, so classic premise. If, as I do, you believe it is a classic for a reason, you will already be happy to spend six hours in TOTGA's warm embrace. If you do not, then you will miss a smartly plotted thriller, set in a Cambrian seaside town, that captures the warm intimacy and chilly bleakness of small-town life. You will also miss a drama that provides an astute portrait of complicated adults with complicated relationships that holds the attention no less than the twisty narrative.
The two detectives are DI Ffion Lloyd (Elen Rhys, who featured in the bilingual drama Craith/Hidden) and DS Rick Sheldon (Richard Harrington, perhaps best known for Y Gwyll/Hinterland). Fifteen years ago, they put away a man called Paul Harvey (Ian Puleston-Davies) for drugging and murdering two nurses. The town was shattered. Lloyd left; Sheldon stayed, got married and watched the place put itself back together.
The first episode opens in the present day with the discovery of the body of another nurse, Abbi (Bethan McLean). She is found near the same heart-knot motif that accompanied the previous murders. Lloyd is recalled from her new job and before long she and Sheldon – soon revealed to have been 'a cheater' – are working seamlessly professionally and awkwardly personally on the case. When I say 'awkwardly', I mean just that. I heartily thank whoever it was that decided the usual histrionics (furiously whispered, erotically charged arguments in corridors) could be forgone and replaced with the best efforts of two people old enough to know that they should save their energy for white-knuckling it through another rubbish bit of life.
Discarded pregnancy tests, sketches in a caravan, drugs flushed down a toilet and other clues amass. Suspects gather – including Abbi's steroid-abusing boyfriend Darrell (Rick Yale), then her obsessed and unstable ex, Ryan (whose text messages telling her to come to the woods were among the last to be read on her phone). Storylines layer – then are promptly ripped apart at the end of each episode by a cliffhanger, provided by mysterious tattooed men in woods or something equally irresistible.
Lloyd is staying with her parents. Her sister, Lisa (Hannah Daniel), is a frequent visitor. The resentment that Lloyd's arrival brings (not helped by immediate recommendations for the treatment of her father, who has the beginnings of dementia, in the face of Lisa's and their mother's daily care) is precisely drawn; deep, dark feelings have long been festering. 'When you come home,' says Lisa to Lloyd, 'life feels smaller.' The family dynamics feel painfully real, not least because they do not affect the abiding love the Lloyds have for each other at their cores.
Meanwhile, hormones, doubts, frustrations, anger, regret and yearning are zipping their way around the wife-husband-ex triangle. When circumstances conspire to take Sheldon's watchful wife (and Abbi's colleague), Helen (Rhian Blythe), out of the picture, they then switch back with equal ferocity around the husband-ex loop. Another rarity, I must note, is the length of time for which you cannot say with certainty which way Lloyd and Sheldon will fall. To manage to instil any credible doubt in the will-they-won't-they trope in this day and age is an achievement that deserves its own special award.
In short, The One That Got Away is a great psychological drama attached to a cracking crime thriller. Or a cracking crime thriller attached to a great psychological drama; I am not sure. Either way, it's a supremely satisfying treat. Don't – I think I am contractually obliged to say this – let it get away.
The One That Got Away airs on BBC Four and is available on BBC iPlayer