FX's The Bridge Is A Fresh Take On a Generic Plot

Alex Zauderer ’17 / Emertainment Monthly Writer
This series is a crime-drama about a detective forced by unusual circumstances to team up with someone she’d rather not have to work with. Sound familiar?  Well, FX’s The Bridge offers a fresh take on something we’ve all seen before.
The show is set around the U.S.-Mexican border by El Paso, where a body turns up in the middle of an international bridge. Detectives from both sides of the border want to handle the case, which results in the uneasy partnership between Sonya Cross (Diane Kruger), from El Paso, and Marco Ruiz (Demián Bichir), from the Mexican state, Chihuahua.  The two of them are an interesting combination.
Sonya (who has Asperger’s) unyieldingly abides by the rules and regulations of the law and her department, and won’t accept anything other than the absolute truth for an answer. This trait has already started to cause problems for Marco back in Mexico; although he’s likely among the most honest detectives in Mexico, his superiors are essentially pawns of a drug cartel. In a place where asking too many questions could get you killed, Sonya’s already caught the attention of Marco’s superiors with her complete intolerance for lies. Marco, on the other hand, is willing to bend and break the rules when the situation calls for it. It’ll be interesting to see how he and Sonya work together, and how Sonya handles the corruption in his department.
We don’t know a lot about the series’ main antagonist at this point (he’s a serial killer), but it seems his motive is political. In a message left on a reporter’s cell phone, he asked, “Why is one dead white woman more important than so many dead just across the bridge? How long can El Paso look away?” He’s sickened by the perceived apathy on the U.S. side of the border towards murders happening on the Mexican side, and he’s using the media coverage of his killings to get his message out.
“You know what they say. Everyone gets their comeuppance,” Detective Marco’s wife says to him at one point. It’s a safe bet the serial killer will get his before all is said and done, and maybe a corrupt law enforcement agent or two will get theirs along the way. The setting provides a lot of territory to explore, and the show is doing it remarkably well from the points of view of people on different sides of the border, and the law.
Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5 stars
The Bridge airs at 10pm on FX.
Watch the series trailer below:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j7ZaFr9jdE&w=560&h=315]