Review By Kamal K
Season 3 picks up three years after Danny Latimer's death, where Ellie Miller (Olivia Colman) and Alec Hardy (David Tennant) are now official detective partners who are brought in to lead an inquiry into the rape of a women, Trish (Julie Hesmondhalgh), outside of the venue for her best friend's 50th birthday party. The show takes its time in these early episodes, especially in the premiere, as we sit with Trish and go alongside her through the process of reporting her attack. There is something about the methodical forensic and bureaucratic nature of it that is even more devastating - it's happened so many times that it's become routine. Even as the police and care workers do everything they can to make Trish feel supported, it feels like this intimate violation has been turned into an institutionalized event.
Broadchurch's central crimes, through its three seasons, have always been sexual in nature. In Season 1, Danny was essentially groomed by his father's best friend Joe Miller (Matthew Gravelle), and when Danny ultimately resisted his overt advances, he paid for it with his life. Season 2's muddled story focused on a couple obsessed with one another but who were driven mad by another accidental death that originated with a sexual act. In Season 3 the focus is on a rape, and eventually, a serial rapist's actions, but while the show goes in-depth with this issue (focusing, rightfully, on the survivor and her journey), it does so against a backdrop of more general male privilege and the sexism that infiltrates the town.