The Sinner

This is one of those shows where every season is a new storyline. There is only one character in both seasons and I can't tell you his name because it's Bill Pullman. Bill is a detective but it becomes clear pretty early that he has a lot of trauma that he's working through. I kind of love this aspect... like we are all dealing with trauma but most of us go on to do normal jobs, have normal lives but it is always affecting us. Also when I say us, my trauma is nowhere near as strong as his... But if I've learned anything from life it's that all our parents traumatize us. Anyway the first season starts off with Jessica Beal murdering someone. I know, that's kind of a spoiler but it's in the first episode so it's not really. But the game is that no one knows why she did it. She seemed so normal and then she snapped. So Detective Pullman has to go through everything in her past and try to see what led to it. And by the end of the season, with all the twists and turns it all makes so much sense! The second season starts with a tiny little teenager who kills his parents. He confesses immediately but he's so small and innocent that it doesn't make sense. So Bill gets brought back to his hometown and it brings back a lot of his secrets. By the end it's obvious that this kid was raised in such a different way from everyone else and he was just really confused by everything. As we unravel the last 3 weeks and then the last 13 years everything starts making so much more sense and once again we understand. I just really love how this show takes all the weird brilliance that is Bill Pullman's character and wraps it into these cases that he's solving. I've seen plenty of other cop shows do this but not to this extent. For example Law and Order SVU, we know that Olivia's mom was raped and that is how Olivia was conceived but it takes us so long to learn the whole story. Well I stopped watching so I still probably don't know the entire story... The way this show is made is beautiful. It just shows us how really complicated the world can be. I hear Matt Bomer is on the show now so I will wait until I can watch a new season but I loved this show.