Emma Laird plays Shannon in Mint, and the 22-year-old’s life changes the moment she falls in love at first sight across the tracks of a deserted train station. What begins as a romance quickly opens into something stranger and more dangerous, with Shannon fantasising about Arran and armed police jogging silently into her family home in the opening episode.
The series, from Charlotte Regan, who previously made Scrapper, is being described as the most outrageously beautiful television show since Twin Peaks, and it does not wait long to earn the comparison. The opening episode includes a visually stunning masturbation scene, and Laird drives it with a refreshing mix of bolshie swagger and pure-hearted naivety.
That balance matters because Mint is not really a love story for long. Arran is played by Benjamin Coyle-Larner, better known as the musician Loyle Carner, while Shannon’s parents are Dylan, played by Sam Riley, and Cat, played by Laura Fraser. Cat identifies Arran as a member of a rival clan, and the show begins to turn on that warning almost as soon as it is spoken.
Regan, who made Scrapper, once again builds her story around a young woman finding her way through unstable family ties, but Mint pushes further into style and menace. The review frames Shannon’s father as a man who rules a criminal underworld, though no solid information is given about it, and says Dylan has abruptly walked away from his life of crime, including the domestic life he shares with his wife and kids.
That uncertainty is part of the show’s pull. After the opening romantic setup, Mint shifts into a broader story about trauma, power, loyalty and betrayal, using VHS-style footage, surreal daydream sequences and special effects to keep the ground moving under Shannon’s feet. What looks like a story about first love becomes one about what that love is forced to survive.
The question Mint answers is the one it poses from the start: not whether Shannon will fall in love, but what that love costs once the tracks lead back home. By the time the romance gives way to fear, Laird’s Shannon has already become the show’s centre of gravity, and the series has made clear that beauty here is only the surface.
