The Split Season 2: Get Caught Up in This Absorbing UK Family Legal Drama

When British TV productions need an actress to play a seemingly affably confident woman who is actually riddled with anxiety about secrets in her life but holds it together well, they have been calling Nicola Walker. Walker, who played this type with aplomb both in Last Tango in Halifax and Unforgotten, takes it to a new high art In The Split. The family legal drama, a co-production between the BBC and Sundance TV, runs an economical six episodes in each of its seasons, but it is filled with such a flood of emotions that you may find a little of Walker’s performance in yourself, sitting on the couch trying to hold it together while tears break forth.

The Split isn’t a depressing series, though; much of its drama is found in the joy among the close-knit family at its center, among whom secrets don’t stay secret for long. The Defoe women are mostly lawyers, starting with mother Ruth (Deborah Findlay), who founded a firm when family law was not as fashionable as it would later become. Hannah (Walker) is at the center of the story, though, in a Good Wife-esque plot through these two seasons that involves choosing between her seemingly upstanding husband Nathan (Stephen Mangan) who later gets caught up in an escort service hack, and their college best friend—and Hannah’s former boyfriend—the suave Christie (Barry Atsma).

Both Nathan and Christie are lawyers, with Christie working at Ruth and Hannah’s firm, where they’re also joined by her younger sister Nina (Annabel Scholey), a sharp-edged mess who is also, yes, a lawyer. The odd man (or woman) out in this case is the baby of the family, Rose (Fiona Button), who is struggling to find out what she wants in her life and career.

The overarching storyline in both series is about each of these women learning to be brave enough to forge a unique life for themselves, and that “family” can mean many different things. You might have husband and no baby, a baby and no husband, or you might have it all and then lose it all. The result is that Abi Morgan’s series is compelling, surprising, engrossing, and one that you genuinely get swept up in—even when it wobbles.

In Season 2, The Split’s wider scope continues to pursue questions of personal and client ethics, and navigating tricky legal cases through messy personal problems. The big case this time is between a star presenter (played, somewhat winkingly, by UK presenter Donna Air) and her controlling music-producer husband (Ben Bailey Smith). There are a few other small cases here and there, and frankly, The Split could probably benefit from more of them to help break up some of the unrelenting chaos of its leads’ personal lives. (Especially because Hannah’s raison d’être as a lawyer is to protect women and make sure they get what they are owed in their divorces.) And yet, there is something very satisfying about that neverending drama that, naturally, just makes for good TV.