Clean Sweep

My Review - Clean Sweep Streaming on SBS on Demand

My Rating 7/10

Clean Sweep is an Irish six-part thriller television series created by Gary Tieche and starring Irish actress Charlene McKenna in the role of Shelly Mohan a housewife and mother of three children .

Her apparent life of calm domesticity is turned upside down when her chaotic past and criminality comes home to haunt her.

Shelly makes an irreparable decision and commits a horrific act in fact a murder when Charlie Lynch, a man from her troubled past, contacts her.

Then when her husband Jason who just happens to be the Garda detective assigned to the murder case Shelly has to retrieve incriminating evidence at the crime scene.

Jason Mohan the husband played by Barry Ward is a womaniser who is never at home and romantically involved with his partner Fiona. He thinks if he can crack this case a promotion to Sergeant is guaranteed.

I found the story at times far too improbable to be true but it's a well acted and well produced series .

If you can get past its many credulity-stretching twists and its frequent excursions into the just plain silly area of to many convenient coincidences I think you'll enjoy Clean Sweep.

Created and written by Gary Tieche my main criticism of his otherwise reasonable script is the fact that why would anyone with a past like Shelly Mohan marry a Garda detective in the first place then after committing murder or was it self defence gain access to her incriminating evidence .

I think there is some hometown cringe going on. I thought it was a very good show with a complex plot and complex family relationships .I thought the main character was excellent. We grew to know and love her and her children. We were invited into a real family, doing believable things. I cared for the characters.

Dealing with cystic fibrosis without grandstanding it, just quietly demonstrating the work required was noble and nowhere were issues overstated.

For me not living in Ireland, the scenery and different way of doing things deepens interest. The intertwining of the past and present keep the tension at a fairly high level. At several points when you feel the crime is about to be solved, they wriggle out of it but always in a believable way, easing the tension momentarily but not for long.

Did think it ended without a real resolution but I thought that was because a second series was planned. Is this not so?

Great to see a clever drama set in Ireland. Quality direction and acting. It was slow to start and episode one was probably the worst of the episodes but once the different layers of the drama and the interweaving stories start to reveal it becomes very good television.

I cannot understand the negative reviews of the main Irish newspapers, the critics seem to be looking for Scandinavian noir or an art house production. This is none of those things, it is a detective series with a family drama overlap, it is a difficult thing to marry but for all the occasional incoherences I think it works very effectively.

On the plus side the lead actress was brilliant,a shame that does not apply to the rest of the cast. The two youngest kids were fine but the older son can't act to save his life,also the female detective based in London was portrayed like a cartoon character. I found the plot involving the characters from England to be confusing and there were times i did not know what was going on. Will be interesting to see whether or not there is a second series,but not really sure if it warrrants one. Overall it just about held my interest but there are far better series out there to watch,but if you have nothing better to see it is not a complete waste of time.

Shelly Mohan appears to be an ordinary house wife living in Wicklow. She is married to Jason, a sergeant in the Garda, and has three children; Derek, Caitlin and youngest Naill, who suffers from cystic fibrosis. It soon becomes apparent that she has a past none of her family know about. She is approached by a man in a car park who calls her Maggie. Later she goes to meet him at his hotel. It is clear that they were previously involved in something illegal. He has 'found Jesus' and believes both of them must come clean... she doesn't and shoots him! Life is about to get very complicated as her husband is given the job of finding the killer while she tries to carry on as normal. If that weren't enough there are plenty of ordinary family issues to deal with.

If you enjoy crime dramas and are looking for something a little different you could do a lot worse than this. There may not be a mystery concerning the identity of the killer but there are plenty of intriguing questions; most obviously concerning Shelly's past. Sometimes 'personal problems' can detract from a drama but here their serve to emphasise Shelly's apparently ordinary life... a life she will kill to protect. The cast is solid; most obviously Charlene McKenna who really impresses as Shelly. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to people looking for a new six-part crime drama who want something a little different.