“Say nothing» begins in a state of knotted tension: an introductory voiceover from Dolors Price, the resolute Lola Petticrew, lets us know that we are entering a fight between the British and the Irish, “the same old s**te”, it lasted 800 years.

Shortly after this cold open, we cut to the beginning when an anonymous interviewer (Seamus O’Hara) is sitting across from Dolors (Maxine Peake). The man is working on compiling an oral history of the Troubles for Boston College’s Belfast Project. Dolores, a former Provisional Irish Republican Army activist, is visibly nervous. At this point in her story, she’s the wife of a movie star, long past her days of planting bombs in the name of wrestling.

She also knows what happens to old soldiers with loose lips.

Her interlocutor tries to reassure her. “The questions I’m going to ask you about are ancient history,” he said.

“Not theirs,” said Dolors. Seen from his perch in the age of surveillance, his reluctance is understandable. We also understand the pain that results from refusing to shine a light on the dark history.

Don’t say anything (FX)

Dolors Price is just one person. Perhaps she is also a stand-in for a nation perpetually haunted by the Troubles, the violent escalation between Northern Ireland’s Catholics and Protestant loyalists through which “Say Nothing” travels. As young adults, Dolors (Petticrew) and Marian Price (Hazel Doupe) become drawn into a movement that caught fire in the late 1960s and tore through the ’70s, ’80s and most of the ’90s.

At first, Dolours, older and wiser, is disillusioned by the futility of so much bloodshed and reflects on what it means to have so many spent matches stinging from inside her pockets.

Peake’s poised, knowing portrayal contrasts and complements that of Petticrew, whose resolute demeanor oscillates between flinty swagger and genuine anguish. Petticrew guides us through Dolors’ youth through his and Marian’s heartbreaking imprisonment. In scenes showing Dolors’ commitment to the mission clashing with her affection for her friends, the actor’s stoic expressiveness is heartbreaking.

Television exploits our memory lapses, intentionally or unintentionally, by producing period action dramas centered on history’s giant conflicts, most relating to World War II. Unlike this constantly commodified conflict, these chapters of Irish history do not appear in most history lessons. Those who learn more do so through family or community traditions.

Don’t say anything (FX)

This silence, evoked by the title, describes the organizational omerta in which the IRA operated and the tacit agreement between its agents and the people among whom they lived. In one scene, a little boy sits near an IRA soldier and watches British officers calmly drive by in vehicles and doesn’t flinch when the man runs away and bullets whiz past his head. When you have lived your whole life under this order, seeing nothing and saying nothing becomes a survival plan.

“Say Nothing” is a historical limited series about a war fought on the neighborhood streets and at the gates, in a country that the rest of the world believes to be at peace. As Patrick Radden Keefe’The 2018 book presents an inside look at this era, using the disappearance of Jean McConville (Judith Roddy) in 1972 to represent the collateral damage caused by the IRA’s actions.

Members of the paramilitary forces insist their cause is a righteous continuation of resistance to British rule that dates back to the Norman invasion in the 12th century. McConville, a widow taken from her home before the eyes of her 10 helpless crying children, embodies what happens when the battlefield extends to civilian neighborhoods. The innocent inevitably become bycatch.

Since “Say Nothing” unfolds primarily through Dolors’ perception, the question of whether McConville is an informant looms over these nine episodes. We see a widow struggling to raise her children in West Belfast’s Divis Flats, a social housing complex. But the Price sisters trust their fellow Unknowns, notably Brendan Hughes (Anthony Boyle), known as “The Dark”, and Gerry Adams (Josh Finan), the leader who runs the show behind the scenes.

One can certainly discuss this limited series separately from other critically acclaimed shows, but it’s more interesting to think of it as part of a continuum that speaks to our present, whether thematically or parabolicly.

FX’s highest-profile and most acclaimed limited series before “Say Nothing” was “Shogun”, a reimagining of a Reagan-era bestseller told from the Japanese perspective. This useful fix avoided its his predecessor’s white savior trapand it also appealed to the public into supporting an isolationist authoritarian.

We might, then, think of “Say Nothing” as a bitter clarification of an entertainment landscape that romanticizes imperialism as corseted spectacles a la “”The Bridgerton Chronicles” And “Mary and George» – or, through modern dramas like “The Crown“this style of colonialist domination as heavy and defined by duty and despair.

The Ireland of Sorrows and Marian’s youth in “Say Nothing” is a difficult place where circumstances have led them to be raised on a diet of war stories. Fighting with the IRA is in their blood. Their father, Albert (Stuart Graham), has retired, as has their mother, Chrissie (Kerri Quinn), although she still hides guns in her gardening soil.

Raised on a steady diet of war stories and with a chain-smoking aunt who gave her eyesight and both arms to the cause, the couple joined the IRA with the intention of doing more than just work. secretariat. They are therefore entrusted with a secret organization called The Unknowns, under the banner of which they rob banks and smuggle explosives through border checkpoints, finally carrying out a larger-scale bomb attack which earns them the status of forefront in the organization’s “brothers in arms” culture.

“Girls of Derry» Director Mike Lennox breathes necessary vivacity into a dark story that connects to current concerns in more than just thematic ways. The content recorded on the Belfast Project tapes was intended to be a historical record of a story intentionally left secret, guaranteeing the anonymity of its participants, who were assured that they would only be released after the death of the last respondent.

Don’t say anything (FX)

A major thread of the story involves Gerry Adams, still alive, who became leader of the Sinn Féin political party in 1983, as the man who ordered the kidnapping of Jean McConville as a high-ranking IRA leader . But as the disclaimer attached to each episode tells us, and as the fictionalized versions of Adams played by Finan and, later, Michael Colgan insist, all allegations that he was part of the IRA are fake.

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Clearly, the adaptation’s creator, Joshua Zetumer, and Keefe, an executive producer, side with the side that insists he played a key role in the IRA. Moreover, the script transforms him, thanks to Finan’s effective performance, from an awkward, bespectacled nerd putting on airs to an unctuous political predator.

“Say Nothing” is a program to watch closely, and it remains to be seen whether American viewers will be in the mood to delve into a long history of resistance so soon after an election won by a government force intent on bringing down not millions of his supporters. compatriots, whether economically or by force.

But captivating performances from Peake, Petticrew, Doupe and a spirited Boyle carry us through the darkness of days and years captured in its nine installments. Modern life in the West is a growing set of consequences resulting from pretending to be done with history, only to discover that its unreconciled chapters do not allow us to be done.

Erasing people’s stories diminishes their humanity. Intensely thoughtful adaptations like this restore it, opening our eyes to corners of recent history that we would otherwise miss and benefit from knowledge.

All nine episodes of “Say Nothing” debut Thursday, November 14 on Hulu.