© RTE, Screen Ireland, Screen Flanders & Acorn TVThere's a moment in the new series of the Irish, Belgian and US thriller 'Hidden Assets' where there is an assassination bid at night on Simone Kirby's estranged businesswoman Bibi Brannigan in her home.
Shortly afterwards, Nora Jane Noone's Detective Sergeant Claire Wallace of the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau scours the woods surrounding the house for the assassin, her pistol in hand like Jodie Foster's Clarice Starling at the end of 'The Silence of the Lambs'.
As she reacts to sounds, pointing the weapon at wherever they emanate, Claire is placed in the crosshairs of a hitman's rifle creating the perfect cliffhanger.
As the credits roll on the following week's episode, viewers wait with bated breath to see if the trigger is pulled and Claire is mowed down.
© RTE, Screen Ireland, Screen Flanders & Acorn TVWithin seconds it's pretty clear the answer is no.
Aaron Monaghan's Detective Sean Prendergast talks his colleague into going back to Bibi's house and she simply ups and leaves, enabling Bert Kettermans' Aubrey Cline to leg it from the scene of the shooting.
Talk about an anti-climax.
However this sequence really illustrates the problem with 'Hidden Assets'.
© RTE, Screen Ireland, Screen Flanders & Acorn TVTime and again, it goes through all the motions of a thriller, following all beats but then it can't be arsed to execute them properly.
To call the RTE, Screen Ireland, Screen Flanders and Acorn TV co-production a thriller feels like a breach of the Trade Descriptions Act.
Series one was a creaky, low budget drama that was slightly above average which centred around the discovery of diamonds in a raid on a criminal's home in Co Limerick that led to a trail of corruption that exposed dodgy political and business dealings in Antwerp.
It had Angeline Ball's DS Emer Berry teaming up with Wouter Hendrickx's Belgian inspector Christian de Jong 'The Bridge' style and they made for an affable, if not terribly exciting pair.
© RTE, Screen Ireland, Screen Flanders & Acorn TVIn a major coup the show, which also featured Michael Ironside as the Canadian businessman Richard Melnick, landed a coveted Saturday night primetime slot on BBC4 in the UK - a slot normally reserved for classy European thrillers like 'The Bridge,' 'The Killing' and 'Spiral'.
RTE's 'North Sea Connection' and 'Clean Sweep' would go on to emulate 'Hidden Assets' achievement.
But how does Series Two kick the story on?
DS Emer Berry has flown the coop from the Criminal Assets Bureau to take up a post in Madrid after witnessing Christian shoot a terror suspect in Antwerp.
© RTE, Screen Ireland, Screen Flanders & Acorn TVShe has been replaced as the head of her team by Noone's ambitious DS Wallace.
Prendergast, however, is sent to Antwerp at the start of the series to give evidence on behalf of the CAB in an inquiry into whether Christian acted too hastily in the shooting of the terror suspect.
Following the exposure of her dodgy dealings in the port of Antwerp, Bibi Brannigan (formerly Melnick) is now estranged from her husband, Charlie Carrick's James who has custody of their son, Davin McElherron's Arthur.
When Arthur discovers his grandfather lying dead in his bed, Bibi returns from Co Clare to Antwerp but is shut out of the funeral, being told by Karinne Vanasse's new boss of the port, Frances Swann she is not welcome.
© RTE, Screen Ireland, Screen Flanders & Acorn TVReturning to Ireland, there is a bomb attempt made on her life - with those targeting her fearing Bibi could potentially expose Richard's links to a populist, far right politician Steve Geerts' Victor Maes, a terror attack that killed Belgian civilians which was pinned on Islamic terrorists but was nothing of the sort and a dodgy land deal in the port.
The CAB, meanwhile, are recovering from a cyberattack that has penetrated their files.
Still focusing on Bibi and her dodgy links to the Antwerp bomb attack, they team up again with Christian and his detectives who are also intent on getting to the bottom of who was behind the explosion.
After raiding a flat in Charleroi, Christian accompanies Rino Sokol's suspect Carlos Ortiz back to Antwerp.
© RTE, Screen Ireland, Screen Flanders & Acorn TVHowever the police convoy is ambushed and Ortiz is taken out before he can be of any use to the police.
A pattern is quickly set where every time Christian and his team appear to be getting somewhere in their investigation, Frances Swann and her criminal goons are two steps ahead of them, eliminating any prospects of them finding anything.
Frances, like Richard Mellnick before her, has a mole within the Belgian police helping her keep tabs on the progress of Christian's investigation and the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau.
When toxicology results from Canada reveal Richard Mellnick was poisoned, it sets the Belgian and Irish teams into digging further into the links of him and his associates to the Antwerp bombing and political corruption.
© RTE, Screen Ireland, Screen Flanders & Acorn TVWill Claire and Christian make any headway in their investigation into Richard?
Will they also make the connection to the Antwerp bombing to Frances?
Will they realise Frances has a mole with Christian's team who is feeding her information?
And will Christian ever crack a smile during the show?
© RTE, Screen Ireland, Screen Flanders & Acorn TVRather than building on an interesting, if unspectacular first series, Series Two of 'Hidden Assets' squanders that opportunity.
With veteran Irish film and television director Thaddeus O'Sullivan and Belgian filmmaker Kadir Ferati Balci back on board, they are forced to work again within the confines of a low budget and it shows.
Action sequences that promise much amount to very little.
A 'Heat' style gun battle on the streets of Antwerp actually turns out to be quite tepid.
© RTE, Screen Ireland, Screen Flanders & Acorn TVShowrunner Peter McKenna and his fellow writers Mary Fox, Marty Thornton, Sinead Collopy and Susan E Connolly deliver lacklustre scripts that are as flat as a glass of Coke left overnight.
There's nothing really in each episode to get hot and bothered about and so the cast just work their way through uninspired dialogue, trying and mostly failing to find a spark.
Rather oddly for a bilingual drama, we have Belgian characters who speak Flemish to each other and others who only seem to speak English to each other.
Even when some of the Belgian cast are speaking English, the dialogue is so dull and the delivery is so stiff you're tempted to call in the undertakers.
© RTE, Screen Ireland, Screen Flanders & Acorn TVNoone is an adequate replacement for Ball but is saddled with a dot to dot script lacking imagination.
Hendrickx delivers arguably the best performance in the show but even his role feels by the book.
Among the CAB investigators, Aaron Monaghan as Prendergast, Cathy Belton as resident white board starer and office mum Norah Dillon and Kawku Fortune as IT expert Josh Ola wade through some sludgy dialogue.
Gilles de Schryver and Maya Albert as Vince Thys and Mila Albert fare little better in the Antwerp headquarters of the Belgian police.
© RTE, Screen Ireland, Screen Flanders & Acorn TVSimone Kirby's undoubted talents as an actress are just wasted with a role that sees her reduced to occasionally jumping out of harm's way or exhibiting passive aggression a lot of the time.
Charlie Carrick is handed a really wan role as her ex, while Karine Vanasse, Bert Kettermans and Steve Geerts spend their time snarling and flouncing around the screen as villains but lacking real menace.
Valentijn Dhaenens trots out the role of a cocky, shady businessman who starts to get twitchy when Christian's team puts pressure on him.
Eva Kamanda does her best with a stock role of an investigative reporter hounding Christian but annoying Frances.
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© RTE, Screen Ireland, Screen Flanders & Acorn TVIf, as you might expect, Series Two of 'Hidden Assets' does make it onto the schedules of BBC4 again, you really ought to let out a huge sigh.
It's a mystery to me how this show and lesser RTE fare have found their way onto the schedules of British terrestrial TV channels while two series of the best Irish show by a considerable distance, 'Kin' have not.
Listen up schedulers on BBCs 1-4, ITV, Channel 4 or Channel 5, give British TV viewers some proper, top quality Irish drama.
As for the commissioners at RTE, it's probably time to put this pale imitation of 'The Bridge' to bed.
© RTE, Screen Ireland, Screen Flanders & Acorn TV'Hidden Assets' has nothing new or exciting to offer audiences.
It's po faced, slow and devoid of any thrills.
It's just another weary trudge through European cop show cliches and who really has the time for that?
('Hidden Assets' was broadcast in Ireland on RTE1 between September 3-October 8, 2023)
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