Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You set a new precedent for unpacking trauma on the small screen. In her landmark pandemic-era drama, we see a horrifying blow-by-blow account of the minutes and seconds leading up to the moment one woman experiences sexual assault. Presenting the minutiae of one particular experience doesn’t sound like it should have been a groundbreaking idea, but nothing had ever felt so authentic. Coldwater, ITV’s murderous new thriller, is less grounded in reality, but explores a similarly compelling story about trauma.
After experiencing a violent crime near his home in London, John (Andrew Lincoln), his wife Fiona (Indira Varma) and their two children move to the fictional village of Coldwater in the Scottish Highlands. On one hand, they get the peaceful life in nature they’d been craving, but he’s plagued by nightmarish visions of witnessing the attack.
