25 Days of Crime-mas Day 10: It’s all about Keeping Faith

Acorn TV has an excellent selection of crime dramas. One of those that you need to check out during Crime-mas is Keeping Faith.

If you haven’t started streaming Keeping Faith on Acorn TV, now is the time to start. It’s the 10th selection on our 25 Days of Crime-mas countdown.

The Welsh series has certainly won hearts with its excellent storytelling, real characters, and a dark mystery to solve. It just shows that the people you thought you knew have secrets that they’re willing to take to the grave.

A series of mystery and drama

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Keeping Faith is very different from the other crime dramas we’ve covered up to this point. Rather than a murder mystery, it involves the case of a missing person. Faith Howells finds out that her husband has suddenly disappeared, and she spends the first season figuring out why and where he is.

Originally titled “Un Bore Mercher,” which is Welsh for “One Wednesday Morning,” the first season takes place over the course of a little more than a week. It delivers a gut-wrenching, nail-biting tail as you learn everything that Faith does along the journey.

Keeping Faith originally aired on S4C, a Welsh channel, on Nov. 5, 2017 under the original title. It was filmed in both Welsh and English, with the English version airing on BBC Wales on Feb. 13, 2018. That would be the version that would later air on BBC One in the Uk and on Acorn TV across North America.

S4C continues to keep the Welsh title. However, the English title is used by other networks.

Keeping Faith‘s outstanding cast

Torchwood fans would immediately recognize Eve Myles as Faith Howells. What you may not realize is that Eve’s real husband, Bradley Freegard, took on the role of Evan Howells, Faith’s disappearing husband. Mark Lewis Jones brought the character Steve Baldini to life, who would have us theorizing about from start to finish.

Rounding out the Howells family were: Demi Letherby and Lacey Jones as daughters Alys and Megan Howells, Oscar & Harry Unsworth as the twins to play baby Rhodri Howells, Aneirin Hughes and Rhian Morgan as Evan’s parents, Tom and Marion, and Mali Harries and Matthew Gravel as Evan’s sister and brother-in-law, Bethan and Terry Price.

Hannah Daniel, Eiry Thomas, and Catherine Ayers would take on other important roles throughout the series. In the Welsh version, Betsan Llwyd played Delyth Lloyd, the office administrator at the Howells law firm. Suzanne Packer took on that role in the English version.

What it’s about

The first season of Keeping Faith focuses on the story of Evan disappearing. Faith spends the entire eight-episode season putting together the clues to figure out where her husband has gone. That brings out various secrets within the family, including one that directly relates to Evan’s relationship with his mother.

For the second season, Faith takes on her first murder case. This time, a woman has been accused of murdering her husband, but Faith is sure that isn’t the case. Can she prove the woman innocent or is her faith in this woman wrong?

Why you need to watch

This is one of those mysteries that keeps you guessing until the end. You get clues along the way, figuring out that Evan isn’t quite the family man that he’s always made out to be. On the outside, it looks like he’s just fed up with his marriage, but on the inside, there’s a lot going on with different identities playing a role.

But it’s more than just the story. This is one of those shows that has real characters. Faith isn’t a perfect lawyer, mother, or wife. She’s wholly flawed, whether it’s that she loves to drink too much or she can be so focused on something that she forgets about everything else in her life. The series plays on her imperfections, causing suspicion to fall on her, but as viewers, we get someone that we can relate to.

Which episodes you should watch

This is one of those shows that you need to start from the beginning and work your way through the entire season. There isn’t a “case of the week” element. It’s serialized instead of procedural, and that’s what makes this series work so well.

The show could have worked as just one season, as a miniseries. However, the second season has helped to continue the personal development of Faith, along with the stories of other characters we came to know and love.

There may be a third season, but it’s not entirely clear yet. Michael Hall, the creator, has many other projects on the go, so it’s going to take time to write the third season. He didn’t enjoy the second season of the series as much because it had to be rushed out, and he doesn’t want to make the same mistake with the third season.

What do you think of Keeping Faith? What are you watching in the runup to Christmas? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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