BEDLAM SEASON TWO

SKY ATLANTIC

SIX PART DRAMA SERIES

FEATURING Jack Roth as Max
      Hugo Speer as Warren Bettany
      Lacey Turner as Ellie
      Gemma Chan as Kiera
      Nikesh Patel as Dan


Season two begins with Bedlam reopening as a block of apartments. It is owned and run by Warren

Bettany and managed by Dan. Max and Mollie are tenants. Keira becomes Warrens girlfriend. Ellie,

played by Lacey Turner of East Enders fame also moves in to Bedlam. She is questioning her own sanity

as she is seeing apparitions and has moved in to Bedlam because she thinks that her visions are

connected with the place. Her belief in ghosts leads to the breakdown of her relationship with her

boyfriend.

Each week a different ghost (or revenant, as Max refers to them) causes havoc for a tenant of the ex

Asylum. Ellie gets flash forwards that show her what is about to happen and she and Jack do their

best to prevent it. They are not always very successful at this which means there is death and

despair in abundance. Meanwhile Warren is also having visions and thinks that someone is trying to

make him lose his mind. To comfort himself he has a relationship with the much younger Keira, a

friend of his daughters, until his paranoia pushes her away. Dan, whose main aim seems to be to sleep

with every woman in the building turns out to be Warrens illegitimate son.

Max, played by Jack Roth, son of Tim, is so pallid looking that you could mistake him for a ghost. He

secretly runs a website about the activities occurring at Bedlam and Dan and Warren are determined to

shut it down due to bad publicity preventing the sale of the remaining flats. As for Ellie, at times

I thought I was watching East Enders as Lacey displays the same whining, moody characteristics that

she did in her previous incarnation. At times her voice felt like a drill in my head and her face,

as they say, was like a wet weekend. I found her character very annoying: she rejects Max's help

every episode, usually with some rudeness and offhandedness and then has to ask for his help later

on. Like a lovesick puppy Max goes running to her every time.

As the series progresses it becomes apparent that there is a powerful "revenant" that is behind it

all and Ellie is determined to find out what it is all about. She keeps seeing the spirit of a young

girl called eve who is afraid of the Bedlam bogey man. It turns out that the little girl was taken by

a former worker at the Asylum called Joseph. In a further twist it turns out that eve is actually

Ellie. What? She was seeing visions of herself as a child and Joseph turns out to be her father. He

kept her caged like an animal and conducted electro-therapy beyond safe levels on patients as well as

other sadistic and murderous acts.

In another twist in the finale it turns out that Warren was the one that saved Eve from her father,

who appears in the final episode and is confronted again by Warren who again saves Ellie/eve. In what

is a hurried and messy ending Joseph kills Max, Dan inherits Bedlam and Ellie decides it is time to

deal with Joseph. The final episode ends with her asking Max if he is coming with her which suggests

there could be a series three. That is, if they can stretch the story for another six episodes

without being too repetitive.

In the final analysis it has to be said that Bedlam is not exactly ground breaking drama, merely a

run of the mill tale of haunting. If another series is forthcoming it will have to offer more scares,

a new angle and a better resolution to the story. If there is no new series it won't be too much of a

loss.