‘Say Nothing’ is the political thriller to watch in 2024

IIn 1972, at the bloody height of the Troubles, home invaders abducted a widowed mother of 10 named Jean McConville from her flat in Belfast. Her children never saw her alive again. The family spent decades demanding answers from the Irish Republican Army, which was known to have “disappeared” other Catholics at the time, about what had become of McConville and why – a quest that drives Patrick Radden Keefe’s acclaimed 2018 book , Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Remembrance in Northern Ireland. Now the bestseller has been adapted into an exceptional nine-episode FX miniseries, also titled Say nothingthat resonates not only as a gripping true-crime drama, but also as an urgently topical work of political art.

While the mystery of McConville’s disappearance provides the narrative shape, Keefe (an executive producer) and creator Joshua Zetumer weave several related stories into a deep meditation on radicalism, regret and the complicated legacy of the Troubles. In the distance we see the rise of Gerry Adams, who would become the long-time leader of the Irish Republican Party, Sinn Fein. Although an on-screen disclaimer dutifully notes that he has always denied being a member of the IRA or taking part in its attacks, the show’s version of a cruel young Gerry (Josh Finan) masterminds bombings and orders the deaths of compromised comrades.

But the core of Say nothingwhich will stream in full on Hulu starting November 14, is the story of Dolours Price, portrayed as a young woman by Belfast native Lola Petticrew and in middle age by Maxine Peake, in a pair of indelible performances. Raised by Catholics who had been imprisoned and mutilated for the republican cause, brilliant zealots Dolours and her quieter but, as it turns out, more militant sister Marian (Hazel Doupe), briefly explore non-violence in the 60s; the strategy earns only beatings from Protestant officers. The Price girls soon volunteer for the Belfast branch of the IRA, rejecting their mother’s generation of helper duties in favor of frontline action. In a crazy sequence, early in the series, they hold up a bank disguised as nuns.

A less glamorous aspect of Dolours’ IRA career involves driving traitors and other locals deemed liabilities over the border into Ireland proper, where she knows her confederates will execute them. Too perceptive, perhaps, for her own good, she remains conflicted about this particular kind of violence. “I just didn’t think my contribution to this war would be to kill Catholics,” she says. Barely out of her teenage years, Dolours harbors a burning desire to attack London and instill the same fear she and her family have always felt in Northern Ireland’s English overlords.

A disputed border. A generational conflict layered in country, identity and faith. The oppressed population, on the one hand, resists the military occupation of the richer overlord, but endures the brunt of the carnage. Questions about war vs. rebellion, freedom fighter vs. terrorist, the ethics of both sides making civilians collateral damage for what they see as justice. The problems seem more than a little relevant to the tragedy now unfolding in Gaza; earlier this year Ireland recognized a Palestinian state and Irish artists such as Nicola Coughlan and Sally Rooney have criticized the Israeli government. Without sacrificing the specificity of Dolours’ story, Say nothing captures the moral, ideological and emotional complexity of such struggles, past and present.

In a moment where extreme positions rule, some may resent the grace the show bestows on its protagonist. An episode that has the frenetic intensity of an espionage thriller places her as the sly but nervous leader of a group of teenagers who plant car bombs. But then it progresses through the next four decades of history, structured by the elderly Dolours’ candid interviews for a confidential Belfast oral-history project. And as her story becomes more and more intertwined with McConville’s search for the truth about Jean and with Gerry’s use of force to escape responsibility, the series leaves the impression that life is long. Regardless of the merit of their cause, a young revolutionary with a conscience will grow up to be a person haunted by the very worst things they have done in its service.