Joe Miller

Joe Miller is a quiet, ordinary fixture of Broadchurch's small-town life — married to Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller, father to two boys, a fixture at the school gates and the local shop. As the town reels from a child's death, he seems mostly notable for how unremarkable he is: supportive, a little awkward, easy to overlook.

Gravelle plays him with such careful, self-effacing blankness that he barely registers against the town's grief — which is precisely the point. The writing uses his ordinariness as camouflage, and the performance never tips its hand, so the character works less as a showcase role than as a held breath the whole series is built around.