Critic Reviews

The plot becomes rapidly and pleasingly complicated without losing any sense of narrative.

Grace and Branson’s race to find Michael made for truly nail-biting TV and there were great performances, with Simm as watchable as ever as the shrewd yet vulnerable Grace.

Grace grows into something a cut above the average detective drama. That’s mainly thanks to its pacing, which plaits two time frames towards a tight, only intermittently preposterous climax.

Grace is one of those dramas in which you shouldn’t think too hard about plot points. Such as: would two ruthless killers really leave their main victim alive? And it’s one in which the lead detective works things out inordinately quickly, and immediately tells the suspects that he suspects them. But these aren’t major problems. If ITV can find room in the schedules, another Grace instalment would go down nicely.

With complex protagonists, hateful crooks and plausible stooges, Grace may not have been quite amazing, but has earned its coveted spot among ITV’s crime perennials.

The loosest of loose threads that has stitched the standalone stories of Grace together, at last we got fleeting glimpses of the elusive Sandy (Clare Calbraith, soon to be seen in A Very Royal Scandal, Amazon’s spin on the Prince Andrew interview) as she hovered in the background with an anguished look on her face. What’s she up to, that’s the burning question. Until that lid is lifted, I’m hooked.

Yes, the script is, at times, a smidge on the lazy side (at one point, Frank says, “You just don’t get it, do you!” a phrase which appears so often on the screen that it really needs to be banned). But the tension stays high, and Brighton is as salty a backdrop as one might hope. With three more episodes to come, Sunday night is in safe hands.

John Simm is the main reason why Grace is such a watchable show. The mysteries are sufficiently engaging to keep the show from dragging, but Simm is the real attraction here.

For some, the messy contradictions of this series will be its appeal, making it stand out from the crowd. For me, I kind of wish it would just pick a lane and either go full paranormal weirdness, grim-dark slasher or conventional detective drama. It's when it falls into the latter camp that Grace is at its strongest, proving that sometimes less really is more.

If you weren't depressed before you will have been by 10pm, unless of course snuff porn is your thing. I think this is our new Vera. The weirdest thing of all is that it wasn't totally terrible. This was mainly down to John Simm playing Roy Grace. ... The other positive thing about it was the character of DS Norman Potting, played by Craig Parkinson. ... Thanks also to Richie Campbell and Amit Shah there was enough to keep watching. Although I wish I hadn't.