The Crow Girl; Secret Lives of Gypsy Wives

“It would be easy to mock this show’s ladling of tropes. Yes, they would be ripe for a French and Saunders parody, but the plotting hangs together, deftly combining its key themes of the effects of betrayal, trauma and abuse and with a fine twist at the end of the first chunk of six episodes. No spoilers, but series two, set on the morning after the dramatic events of the series one finale, has just begun streaming on Paramount+. My only complaint is that the banter between the two main coppers, and Kilburn’s slightly tedious domestic scenes, felt like light relief shoehorned into its cold universe. If you are going down a dark road you may as well walk purposefully. But it’s the female characters who carry this show. And it also made a change that the victims aren’t actually young women this time. Small mercies, though. It gets a lot grimmer.”
Ben Dowell, The Times

“Let’s please have a ban on murder dramas that open with a stressed mother trying to get her sulky teens ready for school while burning the toast and helping her husband find his car keys. It’s such a lazy, hackneyed way to introduce the characters, a cheap shorthand to tell us this woman is competent but underappreciated, dedicated but overwhelmed. Before breakfast is done, whether she’s a uniformed copper, a detective, a forensics specialist, even a spy, she’ll have news of a killer to catch. And as she hunts down suspects, we know she’ll be surrounded by colleagues just like her own family — useless older men and needy, immature juniors. I’m so fed up of this formula that, from now on, every time it happens I’ll use a headline about ‘cereal killers’. You have been warned.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Channel 4 must have fallen on Trewley Precious and her family with sobbing gratitude. An articulate, charismatic gift to the camera who is also a member of the segment of the population with which the broadcaster has long been most pruriently fascinated. Jackpot!! I like to think of her standing there, in all her contoured, coiffed, lashed and fillered glory, patting the grovelling film-makers on the head with the satisfaction of knowing that her time has truly come. Trewley Precious, if you have not had what I suspect is soon to be the inescapable pleasure, is an online influencer (nearly a million people follow her on TikTok) and member of the Traveller community who now stars – alongside her four siblings and their magisterial mother Tina – in the new reality series Secret Lives of Gypsy Wives. Trewley describes the clan as “like the Kardashians if they were broke! If the Kardashians were fat and on benefits!” Which is fair comment, but they are also like the Kardashians if Kris’s pod people had a sense of humour, irrepressible energy, charm and an abundance of affection for each other. I cannot imagine Khloé replying to an inquiry from Kim about what she’s done to prepare for their mother’s birthday with a cheery “More than what you’ve done, fatty!” as Trewley does to brother Jamie.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian