The Body in Pain in Irish Literature and Culture

Abstract

You try to dignify what you do, but it's just misogyny. Age old male violence against women. (Stella Gibson, The Fall). The Fall is a television crime drama filmed and set in Belfast. The first series premiered in May 2013, giving BBC Two their highest ratings for a drama in eight years; the second series was screened in November and December 2014. It was created and written by Allan Cubitt, whose most significant previous work was the crime drama Prime Suspect 2 (1992), which shares thematic and stylistic correspondences with The Fall. The latter is haunted by two spectres that show uncanny correspondences: Paul Spector's femicide and the legacy of the Troubles. It follows two main narratives: Spector (Jamie Dornan), a serial killer in Belfast, and the Metropolitan Police Officer, DSI Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson), charged with reviewing the investigation into his first murders. Spector's chosen victims are young, professional women, whom he first stalks and then murders, usually by strangulation. His shocking crimes are contrasted with depictions of him as loving husband and father, and working as a grief counsellor. Gibson's public and private roles also alternate and overlap during the drama: while she ceaselessly works to catch Spector she also has sexual intrigue through casual trysts with junior colleagues James Olsen