# The Woman in the Wall (2023)

> A Magdalene Laundry survivor wakes beside a corpse and must determine whether her sleepwalking made her a killer.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/131598

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 6
- Episode runtime: 58 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: crime, drama, mystery
- Created by: Joe Murtagh
- Network: BBC One
- Cast: Ruth Wilson, Daryl McCormack, Abby Fitz, Mark Huberman, Hilda Fay, Simon Delaney, Phillipa Dunne, Frances Tomelty
- TMDB rating: 7.2/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21822590/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: melancholic, harrowing, claustrophobic, dread-filled, haunting

## What critics say

Audiences rate the miniseries positively, praising its gothic atmosphere and Ruth Wilson's lead performance in a dark mystery about Ireland's Magdalene Laundries.

## Synopsis

The Woman in the Wall (2023) is a British-Irish limited series created by Joe Murtagh for BBC One, a six-episode gothic thriller that runs as one continuing story across a single season of roughly 58-minute installments. Ruth Wilson stars as Lorna Brady, a survivor of one of Ireland's Magdalene Laundries who wakes to find a corpse in her house and cannot tell whether she is responsible, because she has long suffered from severe sleepwalking. Her quest to uncover the truth puts her at odds with Detective Colman Akande (Daryl McCormack), who investigates the death while Lorna confronts fragments of her own buried past. Young Lorna (Abby Fitz) appears in the memory strands that thread through the present-day investigation, and Sister Eileen (Frances Tomelty) embodies the institutional silence that protects old secrets. Each episode peels back another layer of a community's complicity, building a claustrophobic, rain-soaked dread around a house that feels like a prison. The tone is melancholic and harrowing, with a slow, haunted pacing and a mystery that turns on memory as much as on evidence. Fans of The Magdalene Sisters, The Haunting of Hill House and Broadchurch will find resonance in its blend of institutional trauma, psychological suspense and a small-town secret that refuses to stay buried.

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