Murder-Mystery 'The Bridge' Debuts Wednesday
Wednesday night a new television series airs on the cable network FX called "The Bridge." It's a murder-mystery set on the border between El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez in Mexico: the place I call home.
I requested an advanced copy of the series with the intention of writing a short news report ahead of its debut. The DVD package arrived in the next day's mail, but I almost didn't bother watching. I was certain I would be disappointed. Turns out, I was wrong.
The first episode struck a nerve.
The show gets right to the point: Someone has dropped a corpse on the international bridge that separates two cities and two countries. Half the body is in Mexico and the other half in the United States. Two cops show up, one from El Paso and the other from Ciudad Juárez. While the American cop, played by Diane Kruger, initially claims the case, she soon finds out the crime is far more complex.
"Looks like somebody is trying to send a message," her supervisor remarks.
Kruger's character ends up teaming up with her Mexican counterpart, played by Demian Bichir. Viewers are treated to glimpses of life on both sides of the border, including the stark contrast between two neighboring cities and the inevitable, but often ignored, connections they share.
Two days before watching the first episode I spent a full day of reporting in Ciudad Juárez. I'm one of the few American journalists based in El Paso who regularly reported from the other side during the heaviest periods of drug violence. Standing beside the gazebo in the central downtown plaza of Juárez, I noticed a black and white flyer announcing the recent disappearance of a young woman.
I was jolted when I saw one of the flyers in the first episode of "The Bridge." Women constantly go missing in Juárez, and the most high profile and worrisome cases involve young women who go missing downtown. Many of them are students, factory workers and young mothers making an honest effort at a better life. I've visited their homes, sat in their rooms and listened to the cries of their mothers time and time again.
One of the strongest statements made in the first show has to do with the indifference on the American side of the border to the horrific tragedies unfolding on the other side. As a reporter who constantly moves between both cities, I am well aware of this indifference and glad to see it questioned in a TV series.
Near the end of the first show, the killer leaves a cryptic message on a cell phone that the American cop plays out loud: "There are five murders a year in El Paso. In Juárez, thousands. Why?"
This question isn't fiction. In 2010, there were seven murders in El Paso County while in Ciudad Juárez more than 3,000 people died.
"Why" is a question that baffles outsiders, and that people who live here too often ignore.
Thanks to this series, it's now a question that viewers across the country will ponder and I can't wait to see what happens next.
