In a cruel lack of closure, even though this open-ended first season gives a potential pathway for Marnie’s story continuing, Channel 4 has opted not to renew “Pure” for Season 2. The show gives the space to let Marnie figure things out in tiny incremental chunks, even when a giant breakthrough might be easier to hang an episode or a season on. Marnie has her momentary breakthroughs, but the show manages to remind her (and everyone watching) that with mental health, fixating on an unequivocal solution is a counterproductive approach. Even if the chance for those conversations are set up by some convenient bits of narrative tidiness, their resulting interactions remain uncontrived.
Watching “Pure” navigate those conversations where two people find strength in each other are just as much heart-to-hearts as they are brain-to-brains. What really matters is what happens when those individual struggles get repressed and communication disappears. If anything, “Pure” emphasizes that everyone in this newly-forming web is wrestling with their own feeling of emptiness or inadequacy or barriers to intimacy. Those sidebars don’t diminish the challenges she faces in approaching her often-fraught relationships with a “clear” mind. The show is best when it’s anchored in Marnie’s perspective, but “Pure” does manage to expand its scope, catching glimpses of the sexual hangups and frustrations faced by Marnie’s potential romantic partners. Balancing so much elsewhere, some of the people at that workplace do feel like thin foils for Marnie, especially when the show does so much economical character work with other people who flit in and out of Marnie’s life. Marnie acting irrationally gives the show some built-in leeway for some of her more drastic courses of action, most of which revolve around the place where she finds her first London job. Not only does she pull it off, but she makes it so that when other characters around her start doing the same, it fits with her infectiousness as a character. It takes a talented performer to make someone stumbling over their own babbling, silence-filling oversharing sound natural. As Marnie quizzes herself over how exactly to reciprocate those feelings - often in a broad spectrum of physical responses - Clive manages to show that inner questioning as she’s sizing up each new interaction. She’s sometimes outgoing to a fault, and it’s not difficult to see how each new character is drawn to some refraction of that energy.
That two-way fascination lines up with Marnie as a protagonist. Even in the most awkward of character situations, there’s an ease in how this cast is able to get across those moments. When they cross paths at a party, you can see how some of these mismatched social puzzle pieces fit together anyway. They dot her introduction to every new person she meets on her arrival in the city, whether it’s chatting up Amber (Niamh Algar), an alluring stranger at the end of the bar, or Amber’s roommate Joe (Anthony Welsh), who also catches Marnie’s eye and subconscious.īut “Pure” also builds on a staggering amount of chemistry among this entire new group of discombobulated Londoners. Yes, those thoughts persist throughout the season, popping in at times that are just as inconvenient for the plot as they are for Marnie. “Pure” maintains a steady pace because it draws its cues from Marnie as a whole person, not just what she perceives as her problem. After a disastrous anniversary for her parents - her erstwhile housemates - she decides to flee to London in an attempt to rid herself of the thoughts that won’t stop interfering with her everyday life. The audience gets dropped in right in from the outset, starting with Marnie (a relatively recent college grad) already midway through an excursion to distance herself from the small Scottish town.
In showing one woman’s tumultuous first few weeks in a new city, “Pure” is a solid case study in how to build a show from scratch.
Regardless of the situation - a family gathering, a crowded Tube car, or alone in her rented walk-in closet - certain thoughts keep winding their way into her consciousness.Įven though “Pure” chooses an effective way to show how Marnie (played by Charly Clive) is beset by her own imagination - subliminal flashes of face-licking, wayward fingers, and strangers in throes - it’s a compelling series just as much for the rest of her story. Throughout “ Pure,” Marnie keeps telling herself there’s something wrong with her.