Karen Pirie gives us Scotland with cold air, old guilt and one of those cases that never really died.
I liked Karen immediately because she does not walk into the investigation with grand detective theatre. She is young, sharp, underestimated and constantly having to take up space in rooms where people have already decided how much space she deserves. That always interests me. The crime may be old, but the attitude around her is very present.
There is something very satisfying about watching a woman who is not physically or professionally huge still refuse to shrink. Karen is not trying to become one of the men. She is not trying to impress them by being harder, louder or colder. She simply keeps going. She asks the question. She notices the detail. She does not let the case be tidied away because it is inconvenient.
Scotland gives the drama the right atmosphere: university streets, old friendships, bad memories, class, youth, silence and the horrible feeling that the past has been waiting patiently for someone like Karen to come back and disturb it.
Karen Pirie is a cold-case drama, yes, but it is also about who gets listened to. Who gets dismissed. Who is allowed to be clever. And who quietly solves the thing everyone else left behind.
P.S: One thing I find very interesting in British crime dramas is how many different kinds of women they allow to lead. Not just one version of “strong woman”, polished and untouchable like Diana Taverner( Slow Horses), but many versions of authority.
You have someone like Ellis, powerful, composed, impossible to ignore. And then you have someone like Karen Pirie, smaller, quieter, easier for people to underestimate — until she puts her foot down and refuses to be moved.
That is what makes these characters so interesting. They show how society reacts to women in strong positions. Some women are challenged because they are too visible. Others are dismissed because they are not visible enough. But both still have to enter the room, hold the line, and make people listen.
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