Wow, this episode was a whopper! We have new revelations on Sandbrook, "Uncle" Alec's in a bad way, Joe's trial drags on, and the formidable Ellie Miller really starts to shine.
This episode is definitely the best of the season so far. Building on last week's excellent effort, it has minimum melodrama and loads of tantalising, infuriating leads and hints into Sandbrook. Gratefully, Joe's trial takes a backseat again, although it looks like it has no sign of ending, with Nigel's mum doing her level best to pervert the course of justice. But never mind all that - this week we dug deep into Sandbrook and, thanks to Ellie mostly, actually got somewhere. This is a bold, confident episode, coming after last week's strong one, and I'm going to analyse the hell out of it because I've become just a wee bit obsessed with solving the case before the final episode!
Oh, Alec Hardy - the man who makes grim misery into an art form. As soon as the episode opened with the poor man staring out to sea yet again, I knew something bad was on the way. Alec continues to show us exactly what not to do when you're dying of a heart condition: run dramatically across fields, break up fistfights, take long moody walks across town and stay up all night. And always say you're okay when you're on the verge of passing out.
To be honest, I'm horribly afraid Alec is going to die in episode 7 or 8. If it was only his collapse this episode, I'd put it down to the writers trying to scare us, but it happened at the exact same time as we realised that Ellie is determined to solve Sandbrook, and she can possibly even do it without Alec. As long as the story needs Alec to solve Sandbrook, I'm sure he'll live, but if he's no longer crucially necessary there, then I think it's entirely possible that he'll die. I really, really hope I'm wrong. I'll be broken-hearted if he does.
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| Alec's literally drowning in a river of death - it's hard not to see that as a hint. |
This episode really saw the rise of Ellie Miller. Alec and Ellie are really switching roles this episode - all this season she's been the grumpy one, the one in personal crisis, and he's been the steadying influence. And now Ellie's really driving ahead with Sandbrook, picking up the slack for Alec and giving herself a new reason for getting up in the morning. You have to love her. She's utterly indomitable. The unsinkable Ellie Miller, I've dubbed her. When she says she'll solve Sandbrook, we believe her. Olivia Colman just keeps hitting home runs with her consistently honest, resilient, and pitch-perfect performance. The opening scene stood out to me, where Ellie meets with her estranged son in a short, heartbreaking scene - a brave, vulnerable performance without self-pity.
As always, Ellie's prickly but deeply trusting relationship with Alec is the heart of the series, and they get some great scenes this week - some of the best so far. When Alec finds her in the morning in his house, all bright-eyed and holding new evidence, it's gorgeous. I don't ship Alec and Ellie - their relationship isn't that kind - but I couldn't help it for just a moment when I saw the pair walking across the horizon, Alec pushing Fred's stroller, both of them living in the wake of tragedy and betrayed trust, and all they've got is each other, really. They did make an adorable little patchwork family this episode - Uncle Alec, Wee Fred, and the Unsinkable Ellie. Sandbrook is really in focus now. This week we have a new suspect: Kate. Also, have they found Lisa's body? A flashback reveals that Kate and Lee were having an affair. Also, it's pretty clear that Claire and Ricky were having an affair too. Ricky assaults Lee. Ricky still has no alibi for the night of the murder - and neither does Kate.
Elsewhere, the action was relatively quiet. Nigel's mum's attempt to implicate him in Danny's murder seems like a red herring to me. Vicar Paul's self-serving visits to Joe are starting to involve him in the case far more deeply than he'd like. Also, what's the point of Beth's storyline? It seems irritatingly peripheral compared to all the other crucially important stuff that's going on. Unless it's to introduce the theme of paedophilia - something we all hope is irrelevant - but if it's pointing toward something very, very wrong going on between Pippa and either Lee or Ricky, the final revelation could be very dark indeed. Shivers.
Andrew Buchan (Mark Latimer) has been turning in a consistently brilliant performance this season, despite his character being in the background. It's really almost impossible to fault any of the cast, they are so consistently outstanding.
It would be a crime not to mention the cinematography, which is more exquisite than ever this episode. There was a lot of looking through windows and at faces reflected in glass, swimming in and out of focus - an echo of the duplicity, façade, and uncertainty that permeates the show. A standout scene, combined with superb editing, was the scene where Alec, sitting outside his house having a cardiac episode, hallucinates about the murdered Pippa and passes out as Ellie works on the case inside. Billowing white curtains, dripping water, incoming tide, out-of-focus fairy lights, blue sky and sunset, all intercut with the faces of the murdered girls in a sequence that's so beautiful it begs to be re-wound and watched again.
The episode ends on a surprisingly grisly note. Have we found Lisa's remains? I've assumed up until now that she's still alive. Maybe that's wrong. But this episode shows us just how far we have to go in three more episodes to solve Sandbrook, unless someone comes forward and confesses.
So where to from here? This episode left me with so many questions and competing theories I thought my brain would burst!
Who killed Pippa? I have no idea any more, but I think it's entirely possible that it was an accident. We know Ricky has a temper, and most likely something to hide. Maybe Pippa discovered about one of his numerous affairs - caught him in the act, even - and he got angry and killed her by accident.
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| "Don't worry, Lee, I'm sure our harmless fling won't end in double murder and a TV show." |
What if Kate's guilty - or at least involved - and Alec overlooked it because his MO is to protect women? Last season, Alec would have solved the case sooner if he'd believed the psychic - but his concept of reality wouldn't allow that. What if a different kind of brain block is preventing him seeing the solution to Sandbrook, and it comes from his consistent behavioural pattern of instinctively protecting women, even when they don't deserve it? First he took the fall for his wife, on his daughter's behalf; (as a child he probably protected his mother, if you read between the lines a bit); now he's looking out for Ellie; he's been sheltering Claire and made the mistake of having an affair with her; and what about Kate? Has he avoided looking too closely at her because she's the bereaved mother? It's an interesting theory.
Ah, Ricky, the unfaithful husband who likes the odd fistfight and who doesn't want his daughter's murder investigated. We know Ricky has a temper. What if he found out that Lee and Kate were having an affair - caught them in the house - Kate has no alibi, remember - and lost the plot, tried to beat up Kate and accidentally killed Pippa instead? We also know that Ricky likes to sleep around and that he's not above drugging a woman to get her to cooperate - did he do that to Lisa? I really hope not - that would be very grim indeed. But the question that bothers me most is, why would Ricky let Kate see him flirting with Claire? Is Kate lying, or was Ricky flirting with Claire to distract Kate from something worse he was doing?
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| "Alec Hardy's not the only one who can stare broodingly at the horizon, you know." |
This might be really far-fetched, but what if Lee and Ricky are accomplices? The thought struck me early on in the episode, before we saw Ricky beating up Lee. When Lee saw Ricky walking across the fields toward him, why didn't he just run away? And he's taller than Ricky and in great physical shape, how did Ricky beat him up so badly? What if Lee and Ricky are protecting each other because they both have dirt on each other, but each one will frame the other if they get the chance?
As an aside, judging by the number of affairs that are potentially going on between the Gillespies, the Ashworths, and Lisa, I'm guessing that one or both deaths were crimes of passion, not premeditated. It's also possible that the extent to which any of the parties are guilty by law may be minimal. In Season 1, Joe's confession was somehow unsatisfactory, because the colossal damage he'd caused could never be summed up in one murder charge. He has caused untold suffering and distress to so many people - things that the justice system can never address. He's violated innocence - shattered a family - broken his wife's heart - and above all, broken people's beliefs that the world is a relatively safe place and that people can be trusted. Whatever the legal outcome of Sandbrook, I'm guessing that the conclusion will still leave us somehow unsatisfied, just like Season 1 did.
I'm not done with the questions. Here are a few peripheral ones:
-What is Sharon's son in jail for? Is it connected to Sandbrook?
-What if there's more than one killer?
-How is Alec and Claire's affair going to affect the outcome of Sandbrook?
-How is Joe's trial connected with the outcome of Sandbrook? Does this lie with Lucy, Ellie's sister? What is Lucy hiding? Was she involved with Ricky at some point, and if so, what does she know?
-What's the significance of the Willow Man sculpture that Alec looks at when he and Ellie are driving along the M5 to Sandbrook?
-Where is the post-mortem on Pippa's body? Surely that can give us some hints?
And of course there's the big question that keeps being raised about Joe's trial - did Joe actually do it after all? I'm absolutely convinced he did, only because to change the story would require us to believe that the visual account of Danny's murder that we saw in Season 1 was a lie. That is far too big for me to swallow and I hope, and assume, that the writers think so as well.
Well, that's all until next time. I can't wait.
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"Come
on, Uncle Alec, just one go on the teacups."
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