Landscapers Review: Episode 1 (Season 1 Episode 1)

HBO’s latest prestige miniseries Landscapers is based on a true story. Or is it?

Near the start of Landscapers Season 1 Episode 1, “Episode 1,” a caption reads, “This is a true story” before fading to just say, “This is a story.”

The show wouldn’t be the first to take liberties with the details of a true crime. However, this disclaimer serves a bigger purpose of setting expectations for its focus on the couple at the center over the crime itself. 

Directed by Will Sharpe (The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, Flowers) and created and written by screenwriter Ed Sinclair, the series takes a very stylized and sometimes surrealist approach to the true crime genre. 

At the center of the show is the couple Chris (David Thewlis) and Susan Edwards (Olivia Colman), whose odd behavior is partially explained by the secret they’ve kept for 15 years about Susan’s murdered parents. Even the weight of that guilt can’t explain all of their oddness.

Susan’s obsession with cinema leads her to escape into fantasy where the events of her life are part of a movie. Chris’ obsession with Susan leads him to indulge her behavior.

Their love story is genuine to them but also toxic with the two co-dependent on one another and keeping secrets to make the other one happy. Their precarious life in Lille, France is a bomb waiting to explode.

Colman does a great job balancing Susan’s supposed “delicate” nature with a more sinister sense of control and manipulation in her scenes with Thewlis. Her talent at seamlessly switching between moods serves her well in the role. 

Thewlis’ Chris seems like a man on the edge but gets slightly less to do on the premiere in terms of revealing his true character. He comforts Susan, but his tears and feeble protest that he’s stronger than he looks belies his persona as the reliable hero Susan thinks of him as. 

These roles are further established by the show’s incorporation of film references. Whether she’s literally watching a film (High Noon on this episode) or imagining her life as one, Susan rarely dips back into reality.

In one scene the couple are lovers meeting at a cafe, another they’re outlaws from a Western. Even with the blurring between film and television that’s occurred in the past decade, the references are obvious as scenes shift to black and white or employ stylized camera movements like a slow pan out.

Part of you wonders if Susan always dreamed of moving to France, the home of so much of the cinema she adores. The murder was just a convenient excuse to do so. 

Landscapers does introduce some “normal” supporting characters in the way of the law enforcement investigating the crime. DC Emma Lancing (Kate O’Flynn) and DC Paul Wilkie (Samuel Anderson) fill a more traditional comedy role and ground the story from floating too far into Susan’s fantasy world. 

They are the audience’s avatar when they comment on the couple’s strangeness and question their actions. It’s the police investigation that provides most of the tension on the first episode, though it seems like there is tension brewing between the couple as well. 

For viewers without the patience for a more artistic approach to the true crime genre, Landscapers is unlikely to be their cup of tea. However, the premiere leaves plenty of questions to be answered if you’re looking to see the mystery out until its end.

What really happened? Did they murder Susan’s parents? Why do they insist they didn’t when the police found the bodies with bullet wounds? 

As the news footage in the end credits suggests, the answers to some of these questions are already out there for audiences to look up. But that just wouldn’t be as fun. 

What did you think of this episode of Landscapers? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Landscapers airs Mondays at 9/8c on HBO.

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