Critics: The Crow Girl

“The Crow Girl is a very well-made, pacy drama whose overall confidence, style and authenticity carry it over the odd clunking line and borderline cringe-making scenes around a patient with a supposed split personality. Having seen the three episodes available for review, it seems poised to maintain its tension while also giving some sense of the evil men can do and the hope that good people can do something about it.”Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“From its very opening scenes, in which someone gouges polystyrene with a knife in an attempt (successful) to set your teeth on edge, The Crow Girl is a nasty piece of work. Ten years ago, that would have been the highest praise. At the peak of Scandi noir fever, nasty was nice. We couldn’t get enough mutilated bodies dumped in misty woods on the outskirts of Malmö, or uncrackable cases being cracked by browbeaten female detectives with troubled home lives wearing statement jumpers. But in 2025, when both TV and detective fiction have moved on, The Crow Girl just feels nasty.”Benji Wilson, The Telegraph

“Fret not. This gripping tale of gruesome killings, a paedophile ring and the exploitation of asylum seekers does not kick off with the riffs to ‘Paradise City’. It instead imports a satisfying Scandi chill to the West Country, as it juggles a torrid sexual abuse storyline with a flinty performance by Eve Myles as a sardonic copper investigating the apparently ritualised deaths of a number of young men.”Ed Power, The Independent

“It’s a feat of incredible prioritising that Milly Thomas’s adaption is never confusing, despite an initial onslaught of multiple plots. When the separate threads start to weave together in the final half of the series, you may be ahead of some revelations, depending on how literate you are in the genre, but the writer’s command of the story remains impressive. Cosy crime it is not, but there is light and shade thanks to some intelligent cinematography by Susanne Salavati.”Julia Raeside, The i