The Accident

You might guess that an accident like this would expose corporate malfeasance and government neglect, but in Thorne and his cast’s skilful hands, these events expose smaller-scale traumas, too, none the less devastating.

It promises to be a fittingly thoughtful and wholly absorbing last installment.

It’s a nuanced look at the human need for blame and how people and systems collapse when there are no easy answers. It doesn’t quite come together like its first half promises—some of the courtroom material in the final episode doesn’t ring true to me at all—but it has solid performances throughout, and contains the kind of adult, philosophical questions that we will lose if we lose this kind of dramatic storytelling on television.

Those looking for verisimilitude may find some in “The Accident,” but getting through to the conclusion, it’s still murky what all of that on-screen suffering services.

It was a drama in search of a soul, but what it found ultimately was formula.