The Poison Tree

This was a good and tense thriller.

Centred around Karen Clarke, who finds herself being stalked and blackmailed after the return of her husband, Rex, from a 12 year prison sentence. From the start there a good amount of mystery and intrigue around the reason Rex was in prison and also for the secret that they can't tell their daughter Alice. From this was see Karen struggling to hid the stalking from Rex and protect Alice from the truth.

The mysterious is revealed through flashbacks to 1999 where a 19 year old Karen meets art student Biba and later moves in with her and her brother Rex. We see how the three grew close and then when Biba and Rex's estranged father tried to sell the house and started to throw out their belongings, it was Biba who accidentally pushed their father over the balcony and then shot Lenny in order to stop him calling the police, instead of Rex. I thought that this was built up well and the reveal was done in a very good way to leave a question of who shot Lenny at the end of the first episode.

The secret emerges that Alice, was the daughter of Biba and Lenny, not Karen and Rex, who was left with Karen after Biba's apparent suicide. This aspect was well written and handled, with it being seen from Karen's perspective. The use of the flashbacks works well to build up tension and allowed me to connection with Karen and see how she was pushed into being part of the cover up and taking care of Alice. When the second mystery stalker is revealed, it was aurprise and the action that Karen takes was very shocking.

MyAnna Buring, Matthew Goode and Ophelia Lovibond all gave great performances as the three central characters, while newcomer Hebe Johnson gave a strong performance as Alice.