Say Nothing, the story of those ‘disappeared’ by the IRA, is a sensational and devastating account of the brutal and chaotic early years of the Troubles.
It’s a brilliant but also troublesome representation of the inner workings of the Provos when its day-to-day operations were run by people in their late teens and early twenties.
Challenging because there is subtlety here rather than a comforting binary view of good and evil. Troubling because the self-styled IRA volunteers are, for the most part, presented as well-intentioned people who believe they are fighting for their community and in the cause of Irish freedom.
Read more: Horrendous, cruel, hurtful: Say Nothing portrayal of Jean McConville not ‘entertainment’ says son
Brendan ‘The Dark’ Hughes, for instance, is a rumbustious, gregarious leader who cares deeply about “his men”.
Dolours and Marian Price, heavily influenced by their republican father, are highly intelligent young women who sacrifice their futures.
Gerry Adams has a dark presence but is physically brave, determined, strategic, dedicated and has an impish sense of humour.
In a situation other than Northern Ireland in the 1970s, their lives would have been entirely different.
But Say Nothing gradually demonstrates to the viewer one of life’s deep truths - that ordinary people can do the most heinous things.
It opens in the Divis flat of Jean McConville, a mother of 10 who brought the wrath of the IRA upon her family when she comforted a dying British soldier.
In a sea of horrible tragedies, the destruction brought upon the McConvilles stands as a leitmotif of the Troubles.
Read more: Who are Marian and Dolours Price? IRA sisters at centre of Disney Plus and Hulu series Say Nothing
A widowed mother-of-10 is abducted by her neighbours for a minor transgression and driven over the border where she is murdered and secretly buried.
Her children are taken into care and divided, while lies are told about their mother’s disappearance. Her body was not returned to them for 31 years.
It’s deeply embarrassing for the republican movement and denied vigorously, including at the end of every episode of Say Nothing, that Gerry Adams had any involvement in it.
The drama surges back and forth over decades but routinely returns to the sickening evil of that Divis flat in 1972.
The four main characters are expertly written and superbly acted. Josh Finan (The Responder) is outstanding as the young Adams.
West Belfast native Anthony Boyle (Masters of the Air) is quickly becoming one of those actors that you never see a bad performance from. He embodies Brendan Hughes in Say Nothing and possesses the most impressive TV moustache since Magnum P.I. Hat tip also to Tom Vaughan Taylor for a perfect older Hughes.
There are also highly impressive and convincing performances from Lola Petticrew (also originally from west Belfast) as dynamic Dolours Price and Hazel Doupe as her more reserved sister Marian.
The action is seen in flashback as Dolours and Hughes tell their life stories to Anthony McIntyre, a former republican prisoner and researcher for the Boston College project.
Price, Hughes and others gave their interviews unvarnished on the belief that the recordings would not be released until after their deaths. This was true for some, but court judgments meant it wasn’t for others.
We see the main characters move from collecting material for riots, to planning robberies and gun and bomb attacks.
Even before they decide to take their death and destruction to Britain, they cross the Rubicon of killing their own.
Read more: Say Nothing reviews as critics react to Disney Plus and Hulu series with 93% on Rotten Tomatoes
IRA member Joe Lynskey was taken across the border, murdered and secretly buried for shooting another IRA man while having an affair with his wife.
In the same year as Jean McConville and Lynskey, Seamus Wright and 17-year-old Kevin McKee suffered the same fate for providing information to the British.
Their deaths are amongst the most crushingly violent scenes without the display of a single drop of blood.
Say Nothing is simply unmissable.
