Clean Sweep (2023) User Reviews

Complex Cop Plot

[harperslane · 8/10 · 4 June 2023]

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?

An Irish crime drama with a twist

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 2 August 2023]

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.

Quality is in the detail

[cramondperry-15015 · 8/10 · 3 August 2023]

This drama deserves your attention, because so much of the details on the plot, narrative are done, excellently. The interfaces between the various members of the family, and the subtle nuances of what it is like to feel the friction of family. Life are done absolutely wonderfully...

The main characters, including the husband and wife and the children all play magnificently and deserve to be applauded.

Some of the supporting actors, including the female partner, Cop, the nightmare of the parent teacher Association, and the persistent London. Cop are all a bit overdone, but they cannot take away from the core magnificence of the leads.

It is set an island and has many other things going for it, but really taken as a whole piece, this is a very worthy drama that deserves your time and attention..

Pretty good

[gallagherkellie · 6/10 · 2 July 2023]

This was a decent show, I was entertained and didn't ever feel the need to give up on it. The acting was well done by the main actress and her husband. Some of the others were questionable but not horrible. A few of the characters are so unlikeable both. Ok most of them.

Story wise we didn't really get the whole story, I assume they want a season two, but if there isn't one it still ended somewhat resolved. I actually don't know what the purpose of some of the sub plots were with the kids etc. I guess they wanted us to get to know the whole family?

There wasn't a lot of mystery in this show so the fact that it still kept me interested and gripped is quite a good feat. I'd watch a second season, but I kind of think it should end here.

Worth a look but not credible

[tm-sheehan · 7/10 · 26 September 2023]

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 .

Moderate

[nodge-96282 · 6/10 · 13 August 2023]

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.

Kept me watching

[pawebster · 7/10 · 9 September 2023]

I enjoyed this, partly, I think, because I'd never seen an Irish police thriller before. The main plot was gripping and well acted. I thought the ending was very well executed and certainly doesn't need to imply a second series, as some reviewers have said.

On the negative side, I found the family soap opera a bit tedious. The stories with the three children had nothing to do with the main plot. It's as if there were two competing programme ideas and someone had the not-so-bright idea of putting them both into one.

The English police scenes did not ring true at all and the histrionic outburst near the end was bizarre. Why was the superintendent (?) in charge of the case referred to as the "commissioner". It made no sense. The accents weren't always quite right either.

Excellently acted, slow build but worth it

[emmetjude · 10/10 · 18 May 2023]

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.

Dreadful acting

[davidclarke-398-736043 · 2/10 · 29 May 2023]

Charlene McKenna is the only one who can act in this laughable mess. The awful accents, dialogue and slow plot mean this promising set up falls flat. Can't make up its mind if it's a family drama or a thriller. At one stage the very confusing pathologist character who I think is supposed to be quirky appears amongst the detectives at a briefing. On the plus side there are chips in every second scene. The school scenes are so unrealistic as to be laughable but in fairness very few films/series get that right - does ant director think to talk to teachers or students or visit schools? Avoid at all costs.

Extremely enjoyable

[InnerWisdom1000 · 9/10 · 20 June 2023]

This is an excellent drama series that starts slow and builds. And then builds again. I rarely have any expectations before I watch any new drama series as this can open one to disappointment. So I kept an open mind. And can safely say that I was completely engrossed from start to finish. The acting was on-point throughout with a superb and commanding performance from the lead actress, Charlene McKenna: this is HOW you act! The direction was very clever but please be patient - it is like pieces of a jigsaw that comes together at the end. The script too was extremely well-written and easily passes the test of believability.

But it is the very final scene between the lead actress and her detective husband that brought in equal measure a smile and tear to my eye that copperfastened for me, how a proper drama should be made.

I highly recommend. Enjoy!

Tawdry

[crumpytv · 2/10 · 19 September 2023]

For a drama to succeed the viewer has to be entertained. This drama did not.

BBC4 on a Saturday night is usually a safe bet for international drama, but not this one!

You have to like at least some of the characters, usually the central ones, and there be at least a degree of plausibility to the drama, but, alas, this drama has neither of these attributes.

Do contemporary families really have so little respect for one another, and can family dynamics really exist when the characters are hiding so much? How can they realistically coexist?

The endless profanities throughout were particularly jarring, this contributed greatly to the disliking of many of the characters.

I find it irritating when writers decide to take short cuts rather than conform to reality.

This lazy writing can lead to some obvious faux pas, like stating "this address is not on his passport". UK passports do not have addresses on them.

The autopsy scene had nothing to do with anything and was totally gratuitous. Was the pathologist supposed to be a comedic character? There are not many laughs in a morgue.

Also, establishing a character in early episodes then have them behave contrary to this persona later on so as to fit in with the plot, is just an insult to the viewer.

Is it me or was the character Charlie Lynch wearing eyeliner. Even on the mortuary slab!

I find Charlene McKenna a bit one dimensional, and she was just the same as in Holding, earlier in the year. In fact this drama was very similar; an ensemble of uninteresting characters, plenty of diversity/inclusion/tokenism and potty mouthed females, so I guess everyone was happy.

All that was missing was a decent drama.

Very good Irish drama

[sue-06239 · 9/10 · 12 August 2023]

I really enjoyed this drama series set in the West of Ireland, with Charlene McKenna excellent as Shelley, a harassed but loving Mum and Stepmum to three children. The fact that she isn't who she seems to be is gradually set out in flashback and when her husband, a Garda detective played really well by Barry Ward, is tasked with investigating a murder that he has no idea his wife is involved in, the story gets really interesting.

Alongside that drama, the young actors playing the children are all very good and believable as a family unit.

As the clues pointing to Shelley's guilt keep coming, the pressure builds nicely.

Scrambled eggs, with cup-cakes

[aethomson · 8/10 · 25 October 2023]

Without first clearing it with my physician, I watched all six episodes in one sitting. The creator, Gary Tieche, piles in a plethora of ingredients, and they all cook up together, sort of. But if you're not prepared to cut him some slack and put some effort into snatching up the tasty bits, you might be advised to pass on "Clean Sweep", and select some more conventional cuisine. And if you're planning a life of crime in the Emerald Isle, don't count on the Garda to let so many interesting bits slip through their fingers. Why didn't they get the prints off that book already? And the cops discovered they had a brothel in town full of illegal immigrants - only by accident? "Case solved!" - uh-uh, not convincingly. They oughta promote that gorgeous (and smart) Detective Uba (Jeanne Nicole Ni Aisle), not Sgt. Mohan (Barry Ward).

For an international audience, the Irish accents would benefit from higher quality sound recording. Shelley (Charlene McKenna) cleans compulsively (yes, you'll find out why), and her husband turns out to have a kitchen-glove fetish. A marriage made in Freud-land? You won't solve crimes in your colleague's bed, detective, you'll just give yourself the guilts, and those guilts will prevent you from... The more he learns, the less he wants to see.

Each relationship (family or otherwise) brings its own sub-plot (here there are too many). Niall (Aidan McCann) is a great kid, but marked out for an early death. For Caitlin (Katelyn Rose Downey) puberty arrives too soon, and too embarrassingly. And Derek (Rhys Mannion) finds that love rejected hurts a lot more than falling off a skateboard.

Charlie Lynch (Adam Fergus) used to be a nasty piece of work, but now he's soul-saving for Jesus. If anyone wants to tell you that it's God's Plan for you to volunteer to spend the rest of your life in jail, it's OK to bring a gun with you. Although I say shooting's too good for 'em.

"Clean Sweep" is far from perfect, but parts of it are excellent.

Solid Performance from Ms McKenna

[kristhebass · 8/10 · 14 August 2023]

Text: The best thing in this series is Charlene McKenna who acts everyone else off the screen, the boy playing her son is close second. I first became aware of her in Ripper Street, I know she had done before that, when I genuinely thought she was from East London. Top actor.

The wake producers have managed to tick all the boxes, 1. P O C female detective, double click 2. Gay detective, click 3. Disabled child super click.

Interesting plot, I wasn't expecting her to shoot the guy but if you take a gun to a meeting that's probably what's going to happen.

Her husband is a bit of a wet blanket, I wouldn't promote him, if he solves the case he'll be out of a job not promoted or reduced to directing traffic.

I'm interested to see how it plays out, I read in a previous review that a second series is planned, don't know if that's true or not. It could be a completely different set of characters under the same heading, like Fargo.

A previous reviewer said that the school scenes were unrealistic and laughable. Well, I wouldn't know it's been a long time since I was at school myself or had a child in one, so who cares!

Enjoyable series, recommended.