Siobhán Cullen delivers a powerful performance in Obituary as a young journalist obsessed with death. Combining crime with black humour, Obituary tells the story of Elvira Clancy (Siobhán Cullen, The Long Call ).
Elvira is a bright but morbid and emotionless young woman living a hopeless existence in Kilraven, a small town in Ireland. She has a job at a local newspaper, but despite her talent, she has to make do with writing obituaries. After a round of budget cuts, the editor-in-chief now only pays her per obituary. Since deaths are rare in a small town, Elvira decides to give nature a helping hand and starts killing people she thinks deserve it. This way, her income is guaranteed.
Outside of work, Elvira struggles to maintain normal social relationships. Her only friend, Mallory (Danielle Galligan, Game of Thrones), even runs off with the very young man Elvira fancies. Emerson Stafford (Ronan Raftery, The Rook) is a new employee at the newspaper who gets his teeth into the five-year-old unsolved murder of a German woman named Maria Riedle.
The humor is dry, the acting perfect and the plots inventive. Obituary is a pitch-black comedy in which Elvira deals with death and murder in an almost loving way, without guilt or remorse. Elvira justifies her actions because she believes the people she kills are evil. The series is reminiscent of Dexter in a Wednesday Addams jacket. But Elvira is not as calculating as Dexter; she carries out her plans impulsively and without much thought, which often makes things turn out differently than expected. This only makes her character more sympathetic.
The investigation into the murder of Maria Riedle is the common thread in the season, and you quickly sense that Elvira is involved in some way. However, the denouement in the final minutes contains a solid surprise. The series has now been renewed for a second season.
About the writer, Karzal
Mike (1995) has been a member of MySeries since 2016 and is mainly active on the English version of the site. Since 2018, he has been actively translating news articles, columns, reviews and basically everything that ends up on the Dutch site. The original articles, columns and reviews were actually written by others. During the week Mike can be found at IKEA, where he is a national systems specialist and occasionally also in the classroom to teach an English lesson. In addition, Mike logically enjoys watching series and has actually been spoon-fed this from an early age. The genre doesn't matter, there is a place for everything in the otherwise busy life.
