'Passenger' Fails To Resolve Anything in Its Final Episodes
Friends, I’m at a loss as I write this recap. After Passenger’s sixth and final episode, I assumed series creator and writer Andrew Buchan had written it as a cliffhanger. But in a recent interview with TellyVisions, Buchan described it as a limited series (though he’d welcome a second season). So, these six episodes are meant to function as a complete story, but I struggle mightily to understand that argument. There are so many strands of plot left dangling, so many characters seemingly abandoned to uncertain fates, so many moments that make little sense that I thought I might have missed a seventh episode.
Some elements of the story do resolve throughout Episodes 5 and 6. These include the results of Chadder Vale’s entry in the Best Kept Village contest (abysmal failure, leading Linda to trash her office in a fit of disappointed rage); Katie’s arc (seemingly no longer coughing up the black goo from her experience in the forest, she boards the bus to Manchester); Kane’s arrest (when he’s charged with Mehmet’s murder, a crime he did not actually commit, he’s relieved to be leaving Chadder Vale behind for the relative safety and normalcy of jail); and Eddie’s arc (it turns out he did not attack Jim, after all – it was boxing gym owner Tony, at the behest of Jumbo Bread Factory manager Des).
By no means do I need every storyline to be neatly sewn up – I love a good, open-ended, ambiguous ending. I wish that Passenger delivered ambiguity. What it furnishes instead is a tantalizing, vexing mess. That’s not to say it’s devoid of any value. Indeed, the final episodes include moving, scary, and funny scenes by turns. I particularly appreciated Riya’s dedication to getting the story right about the attack on Jim that Eddie did not commit. Embracing first the possibility and then certainty that she had been wrong, trying to make amends with Eddie, and exposing Tony as the actual assailant is most likely her final act as a DS in Chadder Vale, and it’s a deeply meaningful one.
