Hit & Miss starts dramatically, with a slight hooded figure
executing a hit on a rooftop. A moment later we see the shooter's a
woman (Mia, played by Chloe Sevigny), and then, more moments later,
when she's back at her enormous, near-empty warehouse home, we
discover she's transgender. She lives a lonely life, it seems,
living and eating alone in a darkened room and executing people for
a living.
Having been established in the opening minutes, Mia's fairly
bleak existence is very quickly disrupted when she goes to pick up
her bundle of hit-cash from boss Eddie and is given a letter from
her ex, Wendy, who has died. The letter reveals that she has named
Mia the guardian of their eleven-year-old son, Ryan, whom Mia
hadn't known existed. All this is established within the first six
minutes, a very efficient set-up.
(For some reason - probably Chloe Sevigny's involvement - I'd
expected Hit & Miss to be an American series. It's not; set in
Manchester and a remote village in West Yorkshire, the six part
series, which aired on Sky Atlantic earlier this year, was created
by Paul Abbott, perhaps best known as the creator of Shameless. And
the setting really works; the bleak, but beautiful Yorkshire hills
often adding to the sense of isolation and mild forboding.)
The letter from Wendy signals the beginning of Mia's new life,
as she goes to find her son, who is living on a farm in West
Yorkshire with Ryan's three other bereaved siblings, who greet her
with mixed reactions. To her credit (I suspect many people would
turn and run if faced with this unlikely turn of events) Mia takes
on a new role - mother to these four - while secretly keeping up
her job killing people for cash. There's an antagonist of course,
an aggressive landlord who takes a fairly instant like/dislike to
Mia, and there's also a romantic interest, which is nicely
developed. At the centre of it, though, is Mia's blossoming
relationship with her son, Ryan.
I found it refreshingly that the show doesn't hold out for a big
reveal; that the main character is trans is established almost
immediately, not held back or hidden as a 'shocking secret' around
which the entire series will hinge. Instead, it's a show about
family, about taking care of one another and learning to love
ourselves in an imperfect world. It's also about the ways in which
self-destructive - and just generally destructive - impulses are
contained (or not).
Although violent and at times fairly disturbing, it's a really
enjoyable show and beautifully shot. As someone notes in the (very
good) interview extras, it looks more like a feature film than a TV
series. Sevigny is terrific (nice Irish accent!), as are the rest
of the cast, and the story develops in some surprising ways. By the
final episode things have become very dark and the ending is
perfectly tense. I'd like a second series, please.
Hit & Miss is out on DVD now
Buy
it here
