Harry Ambrose of The Sinner is the opposite of every Loose Cannon protagonist cramming the nicotine-stained hallways of detective shows—at least in terms of affect. Affable yet aloof, mumbling and groaning as he’s searching for words, he’s a man barely present. Loose Cannons take on cases either reluctantly or with the self-destructive fixation to match their addictions and trauma. Ambrose on the other hand seems to be the kind of quasi-autist who just needs to work, ducking aspiring sidekicks (or retirement), thankful to garden out of signal.
It’s customary for a modern detective protag to have to do some soul-searching in order to crack the case; it needs to get personal for them before it does for us. But The Sinner saves Ambrose’s unboxing for later each season, sneakily piling up the personal connections and surfacing memories. For the most part, Pullman keeps his character’s damage just on the periphery of our perception, intimating it in his subtly off politeness, the crookedness of his posture, his relaxed yet oddly restive permasmile.
It’s as if he’s been around for three decades instead of three seasons, and the roiling within has settled and crusted over, a panoply of tics and deflections its final form. He’d be morose if it weren’t for the glint in his eye when he finesses a suspect. That’s when he gets to work.
the Budafoki amended 