'Say Nothing' Says So Much & Yet So Little
Say Nothing, the FX/Hulu limited series adaptation of Patrick Radden Keefe’s bestselling, award-winning 2018 book of the same title, covers forty years of events during The Troubles in Northern Ireland and England. Over the scripted series’ nine hour-long episodes, viewers get to know historical figures of the era and a feel for the wretchedness and devastation wrought by a multi-decade civil war. Like Keefe’s book, the series, created by Joshua Zetumer, is deeply invested in examining the urgency and importance of documenting history in the words of the people who live it, how young revolutionaries age and find themselves in places very different from where they started; and what solutions people can (and cannot) live with if a durable, longstanding peace can be negotiated. Even in the spots where Say Nothing stumbles, the series’s bracing ambition and unflinching, often-tortured heart make it well worth viewers’ time.
We decided to take a different approach with this piece than we usually do here at Telly Visions, a conversation between critics about what works in this series and what doesn’t. Due to the passionate fan response to Keefe’s best-seller, there are two kinds of viewers coming to this show: those like Sophie, who have consumed quite a few other Troubles-related films, books, and TV series, including Keefe’s, and care deeply about what’s happened so far, and what could happen in the future; and those like Marni, who have probably barely heard of it and may only know about The Troubles from Derry Girls and songs by politically-minded Irish artists.
The forty-odd years covered by Say Nothing are bookended by events surrounding the 1972 abduction and murder of Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten in Belfast, who the IRA suspected of being a tout (informer). Her children steadfastly deny that their mother – who struggled to make ends meet and was deeply depressed – informed on their republican-leaning neighbors. They attained a measure of justice when her body was recovered over 30 years later from a grave dug into the dunes of an Irish beach. However, no one has ever been prosecuted for the war crime of her disappearance.
