Vera (TV Series) Old Wounds (2015) User Reviews

Gritty subject matter, great character play, I enjoyed this one.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 18 October 2018]

Old Wounds is a very strong episode of Vera, it's well written, well acted, and brings to life tension and hatred that was commonplace for many across Britain in the 1980's, the hatred the miners felt for Government and Police alike. A very strong start, George Costigan's character Bill Telling is very convincing in the role, he adds a venom and a hatred particularly well, even Vera's behaviour is different, less blunt, walking on eggshells, Blethyn's acting is fantastic once again. There is a real element of mystery here too, plenty of suspects, but which had the real motive.

Very impressed by the character of Aiden, Blethyn and Doughty combine so well, the chemistry between the pair is fantastic, they produce plenty of amusement.

the first comment is fascinating and well worth reading

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 12 December 2015]

Vera: Old Wounds has to do with the body of a young woman who disappeared 30 years earlier.

The skeleton of Carrie Telling is found by bikers. She disappeared during the time miners were on strike, which was a time of great unrest.

Vera and her associate go about digging up old friends and also attempt to retrace her steps. One of her friends is Michael Tennant, a member of Parliament. A credit card went missing from his and Carrie's boss, and Vera thinks it might have been to fund an abortion.

Vera locates Carrie's mother, who is no longer with Carrie's father. She points Vera to a boy Carrie liked, Terry Manttan, who has been in and out of trouble.

When there is another murder, Vera realizes that the murders occurred because someone is trying to hide something Carrie perhaps knew.

I'm American, and I do not have the background to discuss this episode as the other commenter does. He says the episode suffers from revisionist history -- leftist revisionism, he calls it, where the miners wore the white hats and the police the black.

I suppose it depends on who you talk to, but I'm well aware of conflicts taken out of their time that suddenly are seen from a different point of view.

Vera has a lighter personality this season, as I have noted before, and with her old partner gone, she is trying to get her new one in line. He has time issues, showing up late, and sometimes speaking out of turn and getting the fish eye from her.

Nevertheless, they work together well, and you can tell she likes him. When he doesn't act surprised that a former investigator made passes at everyone but her, she says, "I didn't always look like this." He responds, "You were much too intelligent for him. You saw through his game." He's right - I can't imagine anyone trying to mess around with Vera.

Good episode, and not an easy one for Vera to work out.

Better than your a-Vera-ge show

[xmasdaybaby1966 · 9/10 · 18 January 2021]

Back to its best after a weak opener to the series. Well written and acted, highlighting the police-community difficulties from the 1980s and the entrenched feelings that still remain. I have seen this episode 3 times over the years now and still struggle to remember the perpetrator. The great writing and acting blind you from the facts. The show generally uses unknown actors but I guess I spend this 89 minutes wondering what else I have seen the cast in as several of them are well known. A great watch time and Tyne again.

Sad

[hazangel-89910 · 8/10 · 20 January 2024]

This was an interesting case. It was a little easy to speculate who may have been the killer. Vera 's comments about her looks really took me by surprise. I believe she said to Aiden, "I haven't always looked like this". That statement was very sad. Vera is a very attractive older lady and I'm sure she was a knock out when she first joined the CID (in an imaginary world). I wish women didn't have to worry about not finding a mate based on their looks. Aiden was probably right when he said she was too smart and would probably intimidate a man.

Anyways, the victim's father was a good character and really embodied how people probably felt about the police back in the day.

The plot just doesn't make sense.

[sbeesley-99451 · 5/10 · 15 July 2020]

There seem to be a couple of glaring logical errors in the plot. If a man was "head of CID" during the miners' strike, and had gone under cover, for whatever reason, then why would he be in uniform on the picket line? If he kills to protect what he's done, why doesn't he take the camera, or at least the film, from the person who identified him? It just doesn't make sense. This story does feel like it was written as political propaganda, rather than as a murder mystery.

Revisionist claptrap undermines Vera as a drama

[HillstreetBunz · 12 April 2015]

This episode while brilliantly acted, and well plotted, suffers from a recurrent theme of leftist revisionism of recent history, in particular The Miners Strike. I.e Miners= 'fighting for their lives'. Police = Thatchers attack dogs. Unfortunately it makes for boring viewing because the essentials of a whodunnit are that we can't guess just by the profession of the character. It also fails to chime with Vera's usual character that she is the mouthpiece for this inaccurate and incomplete retelling of the conflict. I wonder if the writer is even old enough to have any direct experience, even memory of the actual events, not because that is needed to tell the story, but because I note the tone and it fits with the reductive view of the 1980s, Thatcher, Britain and British politics, popular with people under 40, I.e. That the decade was all about greed and selfishness. Such is and has been the power of the leftist view in media and entertainment. It's dull.

Keep your study guide handy.

[winopaul · 13 October 2016]

A good solid issue. The Season 5 cast is delightfully diverse. Not that I care about race as much as being to tell the characters apart. Here we have that Cush girl, a sort of non-threatening paleface replacement for the irreplaceable Holley from Season 1. Billy the CSI guy is now Marcus, a black guy who is not yet sporting a 4-day growth like Vera's old sidekick. The new sidekick is suitably nondescript, pretty much a fluff-boy, only he does not have that babe wife with the great personality like the first sidekick. Delightfully, they have a little person as the Garcia cyber-sleuth type. She is in a wheelchair and easy to tell from all the nondescript old white guys (NOWGs). There are even some people of color with non-speaking parts so Northumberton is looking a little less like Northern Idaho.

The plot is relativity straightforward and now they are doing a straight Law & Order intro, instead of showing 5 completely unrelated things they can tease us with until they so neatly tie things together like Law & Order Criminal Intent did.

This one has way too many characters as usual, and a healthy smattering of nondescript old white guys. Turn on closed-captioning. Do have your 12-year-old daughter keeping track of things on a 4'x8' whiteboard rolled up next to your recliner. To get her started, here is the Vera episode study guide, which will require all 8 colors in her dry-erase marker set:

Aiden-- new sidekick. Marcus-- CSI guy clean shaven. Helen-- cybergirl Hardison type, little person. Carrie-- dead girl. Kenny-- Vera employee, original nondescript old white guy (NOWG#1). William Bill Telling-- dad of dead girl (NOWG#2). Beryl Doyle-- William Bill's estranged wife. {Half-caste means mixed-race.} Claire-- dead girl's pal went to London but really Carlyle, Shyamalan: really Aisha Sharma Indian girl daughter of Banerjee. Stan Convile, Male#1-- neighbor and friend of dead girl's dad (NOWG#3). Bethany– Vera employee, surrogate Holly. John Warrick-- old cop boss (NOWG#4). Jimmy-- original detective on case, unseen. Charlotte-- John's wife, long goodbye. Arjun Banerjee -- Indian coat maker factory owner. Michael Tennant-- Banerjee employee, now politician, crush on dead girl (NOWG#5). Alan Dawson-- Beryl's affair, Shyamalan: its John, old cop boss. Terry Manttan-- boy dead girl liked, convict in Carlyle, now carnival worker (NOWG#6).

So there are 2 Shyamalan twists, but they are only Schedule 3 Shyamalans, so you don't feel like hunting down the writer and clubbing him like a baby seal. Speaking of which, unlike many episodes there is no bat-shiat crazy woman causing all the trouble.

Like every episode, Vera can carry the whole thing-- she is the greatest. Highly recommended, especially if you spend time thinking on the story instead of inventing some Leftist slant subtext, which is not really here. Like always they like to confuse things by referring to people sometimes by their first name, sometimes by their last, and this episode has two characters under multiple names. Bonus points for getting a couple Indians in this episode, but I doubt we will ever see a real Asian from China or Vietnam.