;

𝐚 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭; 𝐚 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠

been thinking about fantasy/scifi rule systems and free will

I always thnk that at the end of season 2 Hardy has pretty much fallen for Ellie, just the look in the last scene when she leaves and only offers him a handshake (and the way he says that) makes me believe that is in love with her even there. But at Graham Norton both Tennant and Colman denied any tendencies toward a relationship or sexual tension which made me a little unsure. Am I right with my feeling here? Sorry if this sounds stupid.

Hardy and Miller are BOTH in love at the end of S2, they’re just not in a place - emotionally, socially, psychologically - where they feel free and safe enough to act on those feelings.

Let’s break it down, because I’m in the mood and feeling passionate.

Throughout the season, Hardy has occupied the empty spaces in Ellie’s life where her husband used to be, including Joe’s side of the bed and Joe’s place in family photos. Ellie reclaimed her house from Joe and got her son back. She repainted her bedroom, which symbolises the reclamation of her sexuality. We watch as Ellie slams the car door shut on Joe and sends him packing from Broadchurch. She has banished Joe from her life, hopefully (but probably not) for good. Her goodbye to Hardy is next, but it doesn’t cut straight to him. The two scenes are interrupted by a shot of the cliffs.

The music swells and we hear the ocean. The transition shot is a pan across the outside of Hardy’s blue house; the colour blue wipes across the screen, with Ellie in her orange jacket as the bright point, the symbol of hope and happiness.

Ocean, cliffs and the colour blue are all intimately associated with sadness, the murders and with Hardy’s personal demons. Orange is hope and happiness and love, and is associated with Ellie. The orange/blue contrast is a common one, best epitomised by sunset shots and ocean/sun.

And of course we may compare scenes where the colourist has exaggerated warm, orange colours and scenes with where they have exaggerated cool, blue colours:

In the first, Ellie is in control and finding new purpose and strength; in the second, we see Maggie and Jocelyn, who represent pure, beautiful love.

Here, Hardy and Ellie interviewing a murderer; and a post-coital scene with Lee and Claire, who represent the antithesis of healthy love.

The establishing shot is wiped on with blue and it’s framed with blue. Hardy is dressed in blue, his house is blue, his whole life is blue, but Ellie is orange. She is our bright spot. This is also voyeur shot. It makes us feel like intruders witnessing something private. It lends an intimacy to the entire exchange. Note also that Hardy drops his height so he doesn’t appear bigger than her, but instead her equal. They stand divided on opposing sides with a negative space between them.

Here, Ellie asks, “what time’s your taxi coming?” He replies, “about half an hour. You don’t have to wait.” She says, “right” and shuffles her feet. But she doesn’t leave.

Cut to mid-shot on Ellie. She shifts, looks miserable, keeps glancing at him and looking away, can’t make eye contact. She’s just been told she’s welcome to leave, but she lingers. She’s framed by blue and by blocks, lines and tackle that evoke thoughts of the ocean, and also remind us that she is a Broadchurch native. The ocean is a part of Broadchurch, and it’s a part of her.

Mid-shot on Hardy. Empty space around him. Shuffling and tapping his hand, leaning awkwardly on the table, glancing at Ellie and glancing away. There’s a pause, then he says, “Miller, I couldn’t have done this without you.” This is a HUGE thing for Hardy to say. He’s saying thank you, I needed you, and I respect you as a detective.

Mid close-up on Ellie, drawing us further in. Now the blue is obscured and a warm light surrounds Ellie like a halo. “No, you couldn’t. And you didn’t.” She tries to make light of it, tries to joke about the situation, but the smile drops away almost immediately.

Hardy, looking sincere and miserable, says, “seriously.” He won’t let her dismiss it or turn it into a joke. He’s really trying to let her know how much she means to him and what she did for him. But his gentle sincerity makes her balk.

“No, no, don’t be nice to me, that’s not how it works.” They’re not friends. They’re just work colleagues who bicker and shout. Ellie can deal with Hardy as her grumpy boss and co-detective, but his attempts at intimacy, his kindness and gentleness, heaven forbid his touch - is too much to bear. She can’t allow herself to entertain feelings for him. Remember that Ellie’s trauma is a particularly insidious one - her husband was nothing but gentle and loving with her, right up to the moment she found out he was Danny’s murderer. Of course she’s going to fear similar gentleness from Hardy. Of course she’s going to deny her feelings for him. Of course she feels safer if Hardy is just her rude asshole boss who isn’t nice to her.

Hardy grunts an ‘alright’ and looks away. Now that Ellie’s explicitly shut him down, he stops trying. He’s always mindful and respectful of the boundaries she puts up.

Ellie, still with shifty eyes, and perhaps sensing that he won’t speak anymore unless prompted, quickly asks, “so where - where are you going to go?”

It’s a shifty, faltering, slightly hopeful question. Implicit within it is, ‘will you stay here?’

Hardy replies, ‘Erm. I dunno. Um. Close to Daisy, I need to be near my daughter.”

The subtext being that Hardy has no home and nowhere to go and no family but Daisy.

Ellie replies, ‘yeah. Quite right, too.’ Yes, of course he should go and be with his daughter. It’s only appropriate. You can see her mentally kicking herself for thinking - hoping - that he might stay in Broadchurch. Knowing that he has to be with Daisy also prevents Ellie from asking him to stay, or offering him a home here, or saying anything about her own feelings. He has to leave. He hates this place and he needs to be close to Daisy. Plus the case is over. Why would he stay? What reason could there be? How could she even think that he might choose to stay for her alone?

When she says “Quite right” she looks away, and that’s when Hardy steals this glance (and fuck David Tennant’s face for being so expressive, you can just SEE the heartbreak and the longing and all the thousand things he wants to say to her) and there’s a sense that he’s thinking “oh, she must want me to leave.”

Ellie’s basically been hanging around the whole scene on the off chance he might decide to stay, but she has her answer: he’s definitely leaving, he has to be with Daisy. As is right and proper. She says “Well. Okay, thanks for everything.”

Ellie stands up and crosses into Hardy’s half of the frame. Remember, Hardy has always been the one trying to touch her, and she has rejected him all season. Now she physically crosses that empty space and for the first time invites him to touch her. She says “thanks for everything,” which tells us - and Hardy - how much she needed him. He was there for her when no-one else was, and by getting her to work on Sandbrook he gave her purpose and drive and energy. There’s so much hanging behind those words - so much energy and gratitude and love.

Hardy asks, “Handshake?” in disappointed tones. After all this and all we’ve been through, will we really leave on a handshake?

“Yeah. Not hugging you,’ Ellie says, unable to look at him. And why would she hug him? Friends hug. Lovers hug. But she and Hardy just work together, right? Nothing more. She’s aware that Hardy wants more, aware of how willing he is to touch her and hold her, but she keeps that distance between them. He’s about to leave. She’s trying to make the separation less painful, but she can’t leave without touching him. It’s just a handshake, just something that work colleagues do, but she still has to touch him.

Hardy stands up straight, draws himself up to his full height, treats this gesture with respect, and is determined to make the most of it.

Close-up on the hands, just to get the sheer impact of this gesture across. The shot is perfectly balanced, perfectly symmetrical. Hardy is blue and Ellie is orange. Their two halves make a perfect whole in the centre.

Hardy says, “look after yourself, Miller.” Ellie can’t look at him. She starts crying, though she tries to hold it back. Touching him makes her cry. Hearing him say goodbye like this, so sweetly and so gently, makes her cry.

Hardy forces a smile; he can’t keep it up and as it fades he dips his head so she won’t see. Both of them are holding back their emotions and doing a terrible job. Note that touching Ellie has pulled Hardy into a much warmer, cosier world.

Ellie nods. She glances at him, her eyes really starting to shine with tears, and moves towards the door. Hardy suddenly remembers - “what about Joe?”

Ellie looks at him, a forced smile on her face and replies, choked up, barely able to speak but trying to reassure him, ‘um. It’s been dealt with.”

Close on Ellie’s face, just to make sure you can see the tears and her anguish. She leaves. But we don’t see her leave.

The camera stays trained on Hardy. This is one of the closest shots in the sequence, dedicated to capturing his reaction as Ellie departs. His eyes don’t leave her. There is SO MUCH love and concern and unspoken misery and longing there. He loves her and he’s afraid for her and he wonders if she’s really safe from Joe and he wants to stay with her, he wants to stay so badly.

There is no music in this entire sequence. There is barely any noise beyond the actors’ lines. There is a tension and an awkwardness to this entire scene and you know they’re leaving so much unspoken.

Joe wanted to stay in Broadchurch but Ellie and the others banished him; in this sequence we watch as Hardy banishes himself, even though Ellie wants him to stay.

From here it transitions to a shot of the ocean and the music starts up again - a specially composed piece called “Not Alone.” The Latimers lay flowers for Danny, then Fred, Ellie and Tom come up and the two families merge. From this shot of Ellie with her friends and family, the people she’d fought all season to regain, we go straight to Hardy alone. Again, Joe was banished by all the people of Broadchurch, but Hardy banishes himself. The overwhelming sense Chibnall leaves us with is that he should be with Ellie and the Latimers right now. He belongs with them. The taxi driver asks, “where to then, sir?” which perfectly encapsulates his dilemma. Where will he go? We know he belongs with Ellie and her family and friends, but is that what he’ll choose?

Since all of S3 is being predicated on the question of whether Hardy’s going to stay in Broadchurch to be with Ellie, of course the actors and the writer and the producers are going to deny the possibility of a relationship between them. They’re going to laugh and joke and deflect questions, but they’re just making sure S3 won’t be spoiled before it’s even filmed. Chibnall has been veeery subtle in the way he’s built up their relationship this season, just to make sure a romance seems like a faint possibility rather than a foregone conclusion. Several scenes were also cut and hidden away from us:

(gifs taken from this post, credit to mizgnomer)

These scenes are highly suggestive of romantic entanglement. Everything about them is warm and green and alive, and with wee Fred in the mix it genuinely looks like they’re a family. The full scenes with dialogue are not available anywhere, and I think it’s because, whatever happened, they were too suggestive even to be included in deleted scenes.

So: the final scene is an expression of muted romantic longing. Ellie tries to keep her distance but can barely hold back her tears when he touches her and says goodbye. The contrasts between Joe and Hardy and Ellie not alone vs Hardy alone are deliberately set up to make us think that Hardy belongs with Ellie, specifically in the space that Joe used to occupy. Chibnall predicates S3 on the question, “where to then, sir?” and on Hardy’s desire to be with Ellie. The cast have nothing to gain and everything to lose by being honest about what will happen in S3 and would never deliberately spoil the season. And Chibnall has apparently cut and stashed away a number of romantic-looking scenes, probably to keep the idea of a relationship between them subtle. Basically Nonny, you’re not stupid and come S3 all will be put right.

It’s not just Rose. It’s nine million people.

I’m never recovering from how soft the Doctor is being, especially with Donna 😭 (also the new Tardis is gorgeous, I needed to draw it)

Now available as a print