Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Responder’ Season 2 On BritBox, Where Martin Freeman Is A Night Patrol Cop Trying To Get His Head Right

God bless Martin Freeman. No matter what role he’s in, whether it’s in a drama or comedy, he is able to communicate his character’s aggrieved nature through many facial gestures and tics. We saw that skill come to the fore two years ago in the first season of the cop thriller The Responder. The show is back for a second season, and while Freeman’s character, Liverpool night cop Chris Carson, is trying to get better, you can tell that his emotional pot is still on a not-so-slow boil.

THE RESPONDER SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Chris Carson (Martin Freeman) is sitting in a group therapy session at a church. When the vicar leading the group asks him to speak, Chris turns him down; the vicar does appreciate the fact that Chris sought out the group to begin with.

The Gist: A few months after almost losing it while working as a patrol officer on a quick-response night squad in Liverpool, Chris Carson is trying to get his mind in the right place. Even though he’s separated from his wife Kate (MyAnna Buring), he’s trying hard to spend as much time as possible with his daughter Tilly (Romi Hyland-Rylands). He is also looking to get off the night patrol and go for any sort of day job in the department he can find.

However, Kate tells him that she’s in the running for a new job that will take her and Tilly to London. Of course, Chris is apoplectic at the notion, and tries to dissuade Kate from pursuing the position by telling her he got a day-shift job, even though he doesn’t have one yet. When he does give his application to the inspector who had the opening, though, the inspector tells him flat out that he won’t get the job due to his reputation in the department.

Chris has been on patrol without a partner since he almost cost his previous partner, Rachel Hargreaves (Adelayo Adedayo), her job. But they do encounter each other during responder calls, like a man who threatens to throw a pile of dog shit at them, and Rachel isn’t exactly enamored with the more “normal” partner she’s with.

Chris is sent on a bit of a wild goose chase by DI Deborah Barnes (Amaka Okafor), who is following a car that she thinks is part of a drug deal while she’s off-duty. After that goes south, she wants Chris to go illegally find evidence in one of the dealer’s homes. When he’s adamant he won’t do her dirty work again, she dangles the day job he’s been wanting.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Responder is a classic “cop who’s about to crack” series that the British are great at. The main example of this genre is Prime Suspect.

Our Take: The story in Season 2 of The Responder is a bit more disjointed than what we saw in Season 1. Casey (Emily Fairn), whom Chris risked his career and sanity to save in Season 1, is doing some small-time dealing and is trying to get her baby’s father Marco (Josh Finan), more involved in their lives. DI Ray Mullen (Warren Brown) is now involved with Kate and is still trying to nail Chris for his various ethical indiscretions. And then there’s the idea that Rachel has to start trusting Chris again after she’s partnered with him following an accident with her patrol car.

But with Freeman as the show’s star, writer Tony Schumacher can explore these disjointed stories with the other characters as long as he goes back to Chris Carson barely holding it together. Freeman takes his signature “man about to lose it” tics to another level in the second season, especially when he’s called to the house of his estranged father. When he gets a text from Barnes, he briefly bends over in mental pain, automatically communicating the phrase, “Jesus H. Christ, not now” without saying a word.

It’s not like Chris doesn’t explode; he soon levels his father with epithets. But for the most part he keeps a lid on his anger. But that lid is certainly rattling on the boiling pot that is Chris’ mind. As long as Schumacher concentrates on Chris, who seems to be getting more deeply involved in whatever Barnes has set him up for, and his quest to normalize his life, the more compelling the show will be.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode.

Parting Shot: Chris finds a gun at the home that Barnes wanted him to search. He didn’t expect that; he thought there’d be weed there. He and Rachel drive away at first, but then he goes back and gets the gun. The thing is, he’s being watched.

Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Amaka Okafor as DI Barnes, whom Chris calls “Debs.” She plays the worst kind of dirty cop, one that seems competent on the surface.

Most Pilot-y Line: “Everyone thinks you’re a nobbit,” the inspector with the day job position tells Chris. At least that’s what we think he said.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Responder continues to be a compelling watch, mainly because Martin Freeman is so good at barely containing Chris Carson’s rage.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.