Dark and brutal, Penance sets itself up as a true crime story covered by a journalist. On the night of the Brexit vote, a teenage girl was horrifically murdered by her classmates in their small Leave-voting northern town. Our journalist vows that they want to give the locals a chance to tell their side of the story, and that they’ll handle the tale with compassion and respect. But as we follow their investigation, and the lives of the three girls who committed the murder, the waters become muddied by class prejudice, true-crime celebrity, and the question of whether you’d ever care about this town if there hadn’t been a death there.
"But the tone of all this – all this “local character” stuff – took a turn when the donkey stranglings started."
