Jessie Wallace and Shane Richie reprise their soap roles as Kat and Alfie Moon, lottery-winners who cross the Irish Sea to find the son Kat never knew she had. Landing in Redwater, a postcard-pretty hamlet ruled by the Byrne dynasty, the pair walk straight into a 21-year-old drowning mystery that still has the locals whispering. The six-part serial, shot in Wicklow and Waterford, was billed by RTÉ and BBC as a standalone neo-noir rather than a soap spin-off; the dialogue is softer, the skies heavier, the violence slower to arrive but harder to forget.
Creator Dominic Treadwell-Collins and director Jesper W. Nielsen treat the village like a pressure cooker: every pub greeting hides a ledger of sins, and every cliff road invites a car to slide off it. Fionnula Flanagan’s matriarch Agnes keeps the family secrets locked behind hymn verses, while Ian McElhinney’s recovering alcoholic priest Lance measures damnation in tide marks. The Moons’ search for Luke is answered in episode one, but the revelation only uncorks blackmail, arson and another body on the beach.
Composer Natalie Holt’s strings echo against slate-grey waves, turning fishing boats into props of impending doom. Ratings drifted below a million in the UK and Ireland, and by September 2017 the BBC confirmed no second run; Kat reappeared in Walford that Christmas, Alfie followed months later, and Redwater’s remaining corpses stayed buried where the tide left them.
Production Details
RTÉ One / 1 Season / 6 Episodes / 2017
Writer(s): Julie Dixon, Matthew Graham
Producer(s): Victoria Wharton
Main Cast
Jessie Wallace as Kathleen Moon
Shane Richie as Alfie Moon
Fionnula Flanagan as Agnes Byrne
Ian McElhinney as Lance
Ebony O'Toole-Acheampong as Adeen Kelly
Stephen Hogan as Paidraig Kelly
Mark McKenna as Jimmy
Orla Hannon as Iris Dolan
