‘Nocturne’ review: Stephen Graham’s sadistic serial killer is the key piece in a very complex puzzle

Though he’s locked beneath six feet of concrete in a high-security psychiatric hospital, serial killer Jurek Walter (Stephen Graham) doesn’t seem constrained. In the opening scene of this 10-episode crime thriller, we see him persuading a fellow patient to take his own life – no mean feat given that the two men can only communicate through the pipes linking the basins in their respective cells. Graham’s deeply creepy, admirably restrained performance will keep you intrigued as Nocturne slowly rolls out its intricate narrative.

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Adapted from a Nordic noir novel by “Lars Kepler” – actually a pseudonym for Swedish husband-and-wife duo Alexander Ahndoril and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril – Nocturne is nimble, knotty and not entirely original.

It’s easy to imagine that the elevator pitch was basically “Mare Of Easttown meets Silence Of The Lambs with shades of Prison Break” – because naturally, a character as smart and Machiavellian as Walter has to be plotting his escape. Creator Rowan Joffé, who directed the 2010 film adaptation of Brighton Rock, has even relocated the story from Stockholm to small-town Pennsylvania – the same neck of the woods that Kate Winslet patrolled as Mare.

When a young boy who went missing several years earlier shows up unexpectedly on the highway, traumatised and temporarily blind after being chained up in darkness, Sheriff Ellison (Bill Camp) presumes Walter has something to do with it. More pressingly, time is of the essence because the boy’s sister Felicia, who disappeared at the same time, is still missing and almost certainly in danger. So, to crack the code of what Walter has been up to, and how he seems to be pulling the strings from inside his lonely cell, grizzled former homicide detective Jonah Lynn (Liev Schreiber) comes out of retirement.

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Is his approach strictly by the book? Of course not, but Lynn is back because he and Walter have unfinished business. Against the cop’s better judgement, gutsy FBI Agent Saga Bauer (Zazie Beetz), the daughter of Lynn’s former policing partner, decides to go undercover at the hospital so she can glean intel from the nurses whom Walter has turned into messengers. During the first episode, naive newbie Karl (Rory Culkin) certainly seems to be falling under Walter’s spell as he administers his daily shot.

Nocturne‘s clever but convoluted plotting results in some sluggish patches, especially in the first two episodes, and the characterisation can feel clichéd. High-flying FBO boss Quinn (Poorna Jagannathan) is so wedded to her career that she’s lost custody of her son, while Schreiber’s ex-detective hasn’t fully processed the death of his wife and daughter. At times, the plot twists are so shameless that Nocturne feels like a standard potboiler souped up with prestige TV production values.

But as the series progresses, it manages to transcend its hackneyed elements thanks to some captivating performances – Chrissy Metz adds depth as the missing girl’s mother – and the writers’ patient faith in the puzzle they’re constructing. Along the way, Nocturne‘s title becomes increasingly apt – there’s something of the night about Graham’s baddie, and you’ll want to find out what it is.