Who’s ready to wrap up Requiem (like a month or two ago)? I’m not, not if I’m honest, I didn’t realise this was the last episode of the season and that means no more recent Brendan Coyle on my screen. HOWEVER, I’m one of the 5.7 people in the world who hasn’t seen Downton Abbey, all my Tumblr and FB pals have convinced me it’s a must-see and off I shall go. Sorry, where was I? Ah yes, rolling the season one finale of Requiem! After the break.

So! Last time things got very exciting (and bouncy) at the end, when Hal Fine (Joel Fry who is indeed Fine as Hal) had found compelling evidence suggesting that his bestie Matilda “Tilly” Gray (Lydia Wilson) was the missing girl Carys Howell and crashed his car rushing to tell her about it.

He DID tell former DCI Stephen Kendrick (Brendan Coyle) right before he crashed, which is why we’re wondering if his adorably dishy bum is involved. We know for sure that solicitor Lloyd Satlow (Simon Kunz) is up to his ears in the child abductions (TWO. Not just Carys) as is creepy Sylvia Walsh (Tara Fitzgerald). We left them overfeeding the kidnapped Carys’ little half-brother Davey Morgan (Brochan Evans) cookies so they can “talk to angels.” It would be easy to write them off as insane or delusional, but they’ve managed to successfully take kids in the area and cover it up for years. I do think choosing to take Davey right now is a pretty stupid mistake but maybe arrogance?

Anyway, let’s find out if Hal’s okay and if Tilly is ever gonna get confirmed to be the missing Carys!

Here we are 23 years ago with Tilly’s mum Janice Gray (Joanna Scanlan) pulling the kidnapped Carys (Emmie Thompson) out of the trunk of her car who doesn’t want sweets, she wants her mummy!

Hal had discovered that Janice was in the area around the time of the disappearance and had assumed this is what had happened. Good job, Hal! I do hope you’re not dead.

Hm the only difference is that Janice seems to be afraid, was she saving Carys from Lloyd and Sylvia and the angel-calling gang?

Tilly’s frantic looking for her phone, which Nick Dean (James Frencheville) has been hiding from her. She has an app that can find her phone, he’s absolutely shite at lying, so after she hears her messages, the other penny drops.

She attacks him and he confesses, he was paid to watch her by Sylvia and the Satlows. A loud noise draws her away, it’s her dad Sean Howell (Sam Hazeldine), almost dead. Kind of by her hand, she woke up covered in blood, but he thinks it was the spirits riding her that caused her to aspire to patricide.

But now it’s time to go! Gooooo!

Trudy Franken (Sian Reese-Williams) gets notification about Hal at the inn while PC Graves (Claire Calbraith) sits Stephen Kendrick down for a talk.

I could watch Brendan Coyle take his glasses off all day. And twice on Sundays.

See, there was a massive drug operation going on in the Dean Castle when Nick’s uncle Ewan died innit and Stephen has been tagged as involved.  Let’s watch him answer everything PC Graves has to ask.

What did Hal want to talk to him about?

Did Hal seem agitated?

What about the Dean house, what’s been going on up there?

*I likes the way he says “bad boys”*

So was Ewan aware of what was going on with the drugs?

And finally brass tacks: was Stephen himself involved in that drug cultivation?

He was not.

Yeah well, she learned that game from him and now she’d had enough. The interesting thing is that Aron Morgan (Richard Harrington), the second husband of the mother of Carys Howell, called Stephen before calling the police that day.

That sort of looked like when some MRAs cut all the women out of Star Wars, didn’t it? I think Clare Calbraith is excellent, it’s just that Brendan was serving the tea.

PC Graves is finally ready to hear Tilly’s side of the story, they’re off to see the Satlows! Verity (Pippa Hayward) answers the door and is no match for Tilly rushing in when she sees Davey. She goes feral when she sees the bracelet, grabbing a…lamp…to fend off Graves, Verity and Sylvia who appears out of nowhere.

Graves arrests Tilly as the Satlows and a smirking Sylvia watch, Tilly should have eased into it a little slower, geez. Graves only just started speaking to her again!

Everyone waits, Trudy and her dad making up and Stephen staring at his son.

Stephen heads to the police station, betting that the busy night will have left PC Graves without time to brief her backup constable. He’s right and after he runs the young lad out on a call, he’s got Tilly right where he wants her, alone during a power outage.

That might be great for him, but loads of other people need that electricity to live, including his son and Carys’ mum Rose Morgan (Claire Rushbrook), who’s been in a coma since trying to take her own life.

Wait, did we know that, though? For sure it was a suicide attempt? I mean, odds are, she was under a great deal of stress and her husband was a first class wanker, but maybe that was Stephen who did that. Hmm. Anyway, she’s alive, yay!

But wait! Stephen’s breaking her OUT of jail to get her help with Davey?

The call out to the constable was a crank, whomever could have done that?

It’s a weird creepy night all around and I have a feeling I should be doing this recap in the daylight. Dean neighbour Royce Evans (Charles Dale) is as weirded out as I am with the loud noises again and his dog is almost frantic, barking like mad in the dark.

JFC what?? Hal’s out pulling out sheep’s entrails and eating them in the field????

Not a mark on him, either! He was just in a massive car accident! See above. Also: you can’t eat lamb like that, Hal, you just can’t. I need another synonym for creepy or this is going to get repetitious.

Stephen has a theory as to why Janice stole Tilly those many years before; she thought Rose was in on the angel-calling and snatched her away to save her.

*booooo too dark to over-gif this scene*

Tilly still doesn’t know if she can trust Stephen and neither do we. Off they head into the dark.

Graves has got the bit between her teeth now and she’s not giving up without nailing Kendrick to something uncomfortable. She’s off to see Aron Morgan to see if he’ll give Stephen up on the drug cultivation charge, but that’s not why he was there the night Ewan died.

Stephen was cleaning up all right, but it was the broken glass from Ewan breaking all the mirrors. That music was playing too, once he shut it off he calmed right down.

The music plays as Stephen leads Tilly back to the Dean Castle. She balks at the door, but he invokes his retirement watch at her, doesn’t she want closure as he does? Inside, the Satlows and…Janice are waiting? (Janice is dead, she committed suicide and kicked this whole set of shenanigans off) Janice explains that she loved Tilly, even though she shook her that one time, did Tilly love her back? But it’s an apparition and there is no resolution to be had today.

Stephen gets Tilly back on track: time to go into the basement. He leads her down to the blue room, where Sylvia is waiting. Stephen brought the gun for that purpose.

That was the problem the last time, see, she didn’t come of her own will. This time she did because she was trying to help Davey, so willing AND pure of heart. But she’s not coming of her own will if you LIE to her, arseholes! See also: Sexual Coercion and Collateral S1:E02

Sylvia explains: after they murdered that little boy with too many sedatives, they had to steal her instead. They need her to do incredible things; help Stephen’s son’s pain go away, etc etc.

Tilly is technically free to leave, but if she does, she’ll be sectioned and she won’t know what really happened. Tilly just has to crawl back into that creepy tunnel she keeps dreaming of and everything will be known.

In she goes while everyone else gathers around and the door is closed behind her.

She ends up at the bottom of a well?

Where she can feel the spirits, and then they talk, then one inhabits her the hard way?

Then everything gets shaky, before she becomes airborne.

Sylvia explains: an archangel has inhabited Tilly since she was abducted as Carys 23 years previously, now they’re released it; there are many more rituals to complete. Now the archangel is in control?

Now they’re asking questions like “could something else have crossed over?” BIT LATE, INNIT?

Stephen goes to check it out and is jumped in the hallway, I hope that was Hal taking him down but Tilly had just woke up, so.

It’s very dark and Verity is scurred.

Not when they were bringing an archangel to the surface or anything, but in the dark.

Tilly’s up and about and not interested in Nick’s lame denials of trust betrayals. I hope her first act as an archangel is to eat his face.

Hal shows up all bloody and naked at Trudy’s room, it’s too late for Matilda! Um. Where are your clothes, Hal? Did a whole day without food warrant raiding the local sheep farm? Where’d the knife come from, naked man??!!

The police are bells and whistles at the Dean Castle, all two of ’em, so who got Stephen? Was it wee Tilly in the hall with a candlestick?

Graves finds Tilly in the room with Davey, who has been over-drugged by Verity. She thinks he needs to see a doctor.

Tilly’s off to see her dad Sean at the hospital, he lived! And so did Rose, so that’s her next stop. For the first time, Rose is actually happy to see her!

PC Graves is waiting outside after and would like to know what happened to all the cult members, please. The Satlows, Nick, Stephen, everyone is missing but their cars are still at the Dean house so.

Tilly wanders into the bathroom to have a sharpish remembrance of ecstatically stabbing someone, then her eyes go completely black.

We switch to the view of 5 badly buried bodies (one wearing that watch that Stephen used to lure Tilly into the Dean Castle) out in the woods as Tilly fixes her eyes and cleans her fingernails, ignoring Trudy’s call and smiling.

We’re out.

Well. That was a fine kettle of fish, wasn’t it? Tilly IS Carys Howell, which we pretty much knew, but she’s also an avenging angel handy with the stabby end? I am very sad to think that there will be no more Stephen Kendrick around to moon over, but I do like the symmetry of Tilly cleaning up after everyone’s mistakes 23 years previous.

From a production standpoint, it was very slick, typically great cinematography. It was mostly just too dark this last episode, and the effects were not well wrought.

The casting was good, Lydia Walsh as Tilly was fully committed but the Satlows…not quite as much. Maybe it was the writing. Some of the best shots were followed up with complete shite for explanation (Hal being all heyyyy, yeah I’m naked and covered in blood but it’s that I’m scurred, not that I’ve turned into a sheep-eating demon), so it could be a little uneven but overall I give it 3.5 Brendan Coyles out of 5.

I haven’t heard anything about renewal yet, so until next time! Cheers!