Hidden Assets episode 3 review: Old-school espionage approach works just fine
Angeline Ball and Cathy Belton Hidden Assets on RTÉ One.
NEW crime series Hidden Assets is developing into proper, old-school, espionage storytelling and I am good with that. In episode 3 alone, there are clandestine meetings, investigators hiding in bushes and tailing cars waiting to pounce, and top-secret burning documents being frantically rescued for evidence.
Why all the intrigue? Well, another terrorist attack is imminent in which many more could die and suave businessman Fionn Brannigan (Peter Coonan) knows a lot more than he’s letting on.
That’s CAB’s justification for a high-profile church raid on the Brannigan family as they celebrate their daughter’s First Holy Communion, threatening to bring their house of cards tumbling down.
Having written the first two episodes, Peter McKenna passes the baton to screenwriter Morna Regan, who continues to build the puzzle of a terrorist attack in Belgium - and a potential link to a wealthy Irish family.
The storytellers here understand the value of keeping the viewer guessing as to what’s about to unfold. But it’s evident that Fionn Brannigan is deeply involved.
When CAB’s Emer Berry (Angeline Ball) finds firm proof that assassinated criminal Darren Reed contacted Brannigan immediately after learning that Belgian authorities wanted to speak with him, he gets pulled in for questioning as his offices are searched.
With another attack likely, they want to know why the apartment where the bombing took place is owned by his drug dealer and the woman murdered in it is an employee of his sister.
Her counterpart, Antwerp inspector Christian De Jong (Wouter Hendrickx) is getting equally badass with an associate of the suspected terrorist bomber.
But they have their work cut out - Brannigan is accompanied by his solicitor, nicknamed The Dry Cleaner (Mark O’Halloran), such is his penchant for cleaning up dirt for his white-collar clients.
“I don’t have you as a class of terrorist Fionn,” Emer tells him. “I think you laid down with dogs and got up with more than you could handle.” She really puts the heat on him, warning him he is now on the radar of the terrorists in the same way Darren Reed was.
At the plush waterside home he shares with his family, Brannigan’s nerves are starting to unravel. He needs to get out of the country - fast - and for wife Siobhan to destroy some hugely incriminating documents.
He hotfoots it to Antwerp promising to cooperate with the authorities, largely for his own protection. But when they arrive to question him, he has disappeared.
Three episodes in, Hidden Assets is doing a fine job of building story and intrigue without throwing the audience red herrings, aided and abetted by a poker-faced cast.
