‘Motive’ season 2, episode 3 review: A cruise ship catastrophe

Admittedly, we’re pretty new to “Motive” as a series, but a few episodes into this new season, and we like what we’re seeing from the show so far.

Sometimes with other mystery shows, we really hate the episodes where you start off knowing who the killer is, and knowing most of what happened. That takes away almost all of the drama surrounding what is going to happen the rest of the episode. There’s no hook, and you are entirely dependent on some quirky detective character to carry the episode on their own.

The reason “Motive” works is that while giving you the killer and the victim, they really take the detective genre back to its roots and focus on putting the pieces together. The killer and the victim are always distantly-connected enough that there is still an air of mystery, and the show does a good job in having there be little pieces of evidence that must be uncovered that are integral to the case. Also, because of the procedural structure of this, the show is delightfully void of spoilers despite the fact that the episodes aired in Canada many months ago.

Interestingly, we find the case elements of the show sometimes are so strong that it almost makes it hard to have the portions about Angie’s life and relationships rise to the occasion. This was the weaker portion of this story, and to us, there needs to be a littlebit better of a balance here.

We’re not going to sit here and say that “Motive” will change TV forever, but you are bored on a Wednesday night looking for something to watch live, there are few other options that are this consistent. Grade: B.

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Photo: ABC