As long as humans have been trying to work one another out, we’ve queried whether our personalities and behaviours are a question of genetics or circumstances.
It is still somewhat of a mystery, and it provides rich fodder for characters and plotlines. On Spanish drama ANA. All In., recently arrived , down-on-her-luck lawyer Ana Tramel and her recently arrested brother Alejandro, who has been accused of murder, must navigate their relationship through doubts.
And it's a rich theme in new Welsh drama Bang. Catrin Stewart as DS Gina Jenkins won’t surprise Dr. Who fans, who know her for her drama chops playing Jenny Flint, but for those of us who knew her as the darkly funny, defiant Lily in Misfits or the sweetly offbeat Emma in Stella, she’s proven her versatility.
Gina Jenkins has risen through the ranks to police detective in Port Talbot, Wales. It’s a bleak, working-class town of steelworks and wind turbines. We first meet her on the job with her partner DS Luke Lloyd (Jack Parry-Jones). The pair have been called upon to investigate the theft of a fruit machine from a pool hall, but what should be a boring procedural job turns into a murder investigation when they uncover the body of local business identity Stevie Rose in the nearby marina.
Catrin Stewart as DS Gina Jenkins in ‘Bang’. Source: Distributor
Ambitious Gina has her eye on impressing her seniors and getting promoted into CID, but her plans are threatened when her quiet but troubled brother ends up looking after a gun.
Sam Jenkins (Jacob Ifan) is balancing an exhausting work schedule with trying to care for their elderly nan whose failing health makes her highly dependent on him. He’s tired and emotional, a dangerous brew of circumstances when troublesome new neighbours and the gun enter the picture.
Theft, blackmail, illness, sexual liaisons with workmates and thwarted career plans weave a messy cobweb around the siblings and their lives, ultimately drawing them closer together in the most dire landscape of events. Gina must contend with her career progression and the fact that it is, potentially, a result of crimes her brother is involved in. Sam, equally, is realising that the more he tries to make things right, the deeper he is entangling himself in a series of revenge acts and crimes that inevitably have victims.
And then, there is the traumatic event that shaped the personal and professional trajectories of both Jenkins siblings.
Jacob Ifan as Sam Jenkins in ‘Bang’. Source: Distributor
Jacob Ifan and Catrin Stewart. Source: Banijay
As children, Sam witnessed his dad being shot and killed on their drive home from the beach. It is an event that has never been adequately explained nor resolved, rupturing into the painful self-blame and fury both siblings channel into their relationships and identities as adults.
The situation is already volatile by episode 2, and as we discover soon afterwards, the present day mess of crime, murder and mayhem might be tied to the death of Sam and Gina’s father. As much as we want to sympathise with Sam, he is frustratingly self-destructive. In her own way, Gina sabotages herself repeatedly, too.
Though it has been billed as a noir in some reviews, Bang falls somewhere between a Welsh-English family drama and police procedural. Gina and Sam are convincingly flawed. And you will find yourself asking, even subconsciously, how much of who we are is determined by DNA and how much of who we are as adults is the result of how we were raised and what we witnessed? How much does one traumatic event dictate the rest of our lives? Alongside the relationships there's the unfolding investigation of the original murder, and more. Season two moves the story along in time, with a series of murders challenging Gina and her colleagues.
Everyone loves a murder drama (don’t they?) but throw in sibling loyalty, rivalry and haunted memories, plus topical, headline-reflecting issues of trafficking, laundering and organised crime, and you have a truly elevated police procedural-family drama hybrid.
On the team: Carl (Gareth Jewell), Gina (Catrin Stewart), Luke (Jack-Parry Jones) and Layla (Suzanne Packer) in ‘Bang’. Source: Distributor
Sam (Jacob Ifan). Source: Distributor
