What is it like without Agatha Christie? The second season of the mini-series Advocate Ardashev’s Murder on the Waters pleased me no less, but almost more than the previous one, and above all the quality of the script, and accordingly, the drama. After all, the whole (!) series was staged not according to the custom script of some scripted “litrab” (Gilyarovskiy wrote a lot about such, only theatrical, samples of the 19th century), but according to full-fledged novels of Ivan Lubenko (Although cases of modern “litrabism” can not be excluded here; it was said that hired “writers” worked on Akunin, and Lubenko’s novels, and the series set on them suspiciously echoed Akunin’s “feathers” business? However, these are only assumptions ...). But only I in the review of the previous season of “Masquerade with Death” said that Agatha Christie herself would envy him, as here she is! In the sense that "Murder on the Waters" is built on its obsessive pattern: there is an investigation, and in the end the detective (Poirot, Marple) convenes a "press conference" where he reveals all the cards and names the "unexpected" perpetrators. In our case, the same thing! Well, why did this template stir up the ashes of a great, but quite commercial old woman? Could it not have been possible to do without him?
In the rest, surprisingly, I had almost nothing to complain about in the second season: excellent production and shooting, exciting, intriguing plot (you can’t take off the screen), colorful characters in the beautiful performance of not the most famous actors (which makes them a special honor!). And immediately it becomes clear that the main villain here is a certain “prince”, and he, in theory, should be punished. Who, for what and how? Look and you'll find out!
On the first view, I did not notice in the background neither the notorious plastic windows, nor gas pipes on houses, nor similar historical “blunders” (next time I will take a closer look). But I was completely struck by the then “training room”, especially its owner, swinging on a certain “machine”. I didn’t understand: what, it was already then, or is it a cunning banter over modern fitness? In both cases, welcome! But what I do not welcome is a scene with a pseudo-Shalyapin concert! Thank goodness they took everything from a distance. But the vocals of the unfortunate opera singer (probably from the Stavropol Theatre?) are as similar to Chaliapin as I am to the gramophone trumpet! Could it not have been possible to run this famous composition by Chaliapin through a computer, clean the sound, as it has been done for a long time, and let it go with plywood?
Actually, that's the end of it. Honestly, I was waiting for the continuation of the first season there, in Stavropol, where the poor, unrequitedly in love with her “barina” Varenka remained. Ahn's out. Maybe we'll see her in season three. You can't leave her like that, not dramatic!