The Bridge's Second Season Offers Lots Of Reasons To Jump Off

The hook of The Bridge -- the aspect that's supposed to make it different from the billion other crime procedurals on TV -- was supposed to be the unique professional relationship between cops on either side of the U.S./Mexico border. But, along with the storylines of the original source material on which The Bridge was based, the centrality of the cops' partnership seems to have been abandoned for Season 2; with that gone, we could be watching just about anything, so whoooooooo cares.

To be honest, I wasn't gaga over Sonya and Marco in Season 1, due almost entirely to the wildly miscast Diane Kruger -- and while we're on the subject, introducing her mother and having her speak with something other than a German accent was a bad call because, for real, why does Sonya talk like that. As for Marco: as I wrote in this space at the end of the first season, for one season-long revenge plot to be followed by another was not a thrilling prospect; little did I know Season 2 would be not one revenge plot, but three! And that Sonya and Marco would be going about their business mostly completely apart from each other, or so it felt.

Earlier this week, my esteemed colleague Dave cited The Bridge as one of the shows on TV doing the worst job of making its setting feel like a character, and I really agree. I mean, the show's established Juarez as the kind of place one might not want to visit on a family vacation, but again, the premise of the show is that law enforcement works differently in Juarez and El Paso but that it's worth bringing both jurisdictions together to fight crime, and barely feels like that has happened. Other than the bank manager's suicide and the massacre at the model home, El Paso feels largely untouched by the activities of the Galvan cartel. I guess it all comes together when the finale finally spells out the CIA's involvement in propping up the cartel, but by then the plot was such a snarl of mostly generic crimes and motivations that I just wanted things to ennnnnnnnnd.

The biggest missed opportunity is in the character of Eleanor Nacht. Here is a rape survivor turned ruthless cartel muscle, covering her body in tattoos she keeps completely hidden under her dowdy clothes, turning her cold rage against her father against all men she meets, like a misandrist lullaby come to life. Answering violence with violence is never the right solution in life, but since we're dealing in fiction, it's hard to get too exercised about punishing a rapist of children by castrating him and turning him feral. But this is exactly the kind of bonkers-ness that Bron would have luxuriated in, but here all we got was one hand-fed acorn and a final confrontation cut short. I'm not saying we necessarily had to see Eleanor murder her father for this plotline to have come to a satisfying end, but again, I'm not sure what position the show takes on revenge, and on the toll it takes on the party seeking redress through any means necessary. I mean, Sonya says that she's different from Eleanor, and she is -- she was more curious about her sister's murderer than anything else, desperate to understand him rather than mete out justice against him herself -- but are we to conclude that only those who aren't neurotypical have the capacity to transcend such grubby human impulses?

In the end, the only storyline I found really effective was the quest -- and developing relationship -- between Eva and Linder. That their path through the justice system has been seeded with IEDs isn't really surprising, and that Linder would direct his skills toward avenging her once she gave up on the authorities' ability to help her. Her slow-dawning appreciation for Linder and his decorous respect for her boundaries both felt very true, and by the time the season ended, I realized that their reunion was the only moment I really cared to see.

As of this writing, FX still hasn't renewed the show, which is certainly fine with me and probably fine for the series. Jim Dobbs is dead; Galvan is in custody; and a decent prosecutor is actually going after Robles: this feels like a good enough place for the show to stop, and if FX disagrees, I think I've had enough. Though I might at least give a hypothetical Season 3 premiere a look if I hear that they've finally burned THAT JACKET.