We’re back to the four corners (jagged edges?) of the UK with Unforgotten season 6, which is reminding me of season 5…in a good way of course. Let’s find out some more stuff about unforgettable characters after the break in my Unforgotten series 6 episode 2 recap.

We open with our refugee Hassan (Ahmad Sakhi) and his sponsor and (possibly past murderer) Asif Syed ((Elham Ehsas) ; Hassan entered the UK illegally and needs a job. Asif was detained as a result of his refugee status, he feels he was treated like a criminal and this probably is his motive for murder.

Murder of who? Well, that would be the recently recovered body of Gerard Cooper, who was meant to have committed suicide but was found in all sorts of pieces in Whitney Marsh.

DCI Jess James (Sinéad Keenan) briefs DI Sunily ‘Sunny’ Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar!) and the rest of the gang, Gerard Cooper was identified thanks to his DNA being taken after being arrested for Actual Bodily Harm in July 2019. Gerard Cooper was arrested by none other than our Ram Sidhu (Phaldut Sharma), whom Sunny and Jess imprisoned at the end of Unforgotten series 4.

In particular, Sunny and Ram bumped heads, two sides of the coin for two very different East Asian men. It will be interesting if it’s Sunny who does the interview with Ram.

Everyone will be chasing paperwork from at least five years ago, there is a slight chance there might be some CCTV at the Marsh car-park but unless Mr. Cooper was stored in a freezer for most of these past five years…

Juliet Cooper (Victoria Hamilton) is also a suspect, and under fire at work as a professor at a prestigious university for recommending a book with a racialized slur written by a POC, to a person of no colour. Now she’s being called a racist. Because the white person wasn’t prepared to see that slur in writing, okay! But but Juliet was actually supporting a writer of colour, who chose their own name for the book and. Okay.

Her boss Paul (Adrian Rawlins) understands, it’s just the union that doesn’t. And whomever wrote RACIST on her whiteboard in the lecturing hall. The union wants her to take an online course on microagressions, Juliet will not be held in thrall to a bunch of sodding children. She holds the line way past any point of reasonableness, which is a bit odd.

Speaking of, we’ve got Marty Baines (Maximilian Fairley) not helping his sodden mother Dot (Michele Dotrice), because he’s at the psychiatrist appointment he missed the other day. Dr. Renfield (Charles Abomeli) is sort of listening to Marty rant, but he draws the line at Marty’s insistence that he is entitled to a girlfriend. This is apparently a recurrent topic during their sessions, so Dr. Renfield shuts it down and proposes upping Marty’s Zoloft to 100 mg. There is a new autism program coming available, Marty should be able to get an appointment in about a year. Dr. Renfield really doesn’t have enough time to go over anything at all with Marty, let alone stem the tide of his frustration and lack of comprehension of his place in the world.

**That is very similar to Canada’s timelines for medical intervention! I told an American friend once that I was waiting for approximately 3 years for surgery for a broken foot, and he said: at least it won’t take you ten years to pay it off. So I guess it’s a case of picking your poison.

As for the medication, that’s an increase of enough proportion that Dr. Renfield tries to warn Marty of the possible side effects, which are alarming and myriad. Honestly, these meds all terrify me, but I do understand they can save lives.

Melinda Ricci (MyAnna Buring) prays in church about her injured love Patrick (Emmett J Scanlan); a dishy Father Luke Ryan (Damien Molony) asks if she’d like to talk.

Ohhhhhhhhhh. OH! Melinda ‘talks’ with Father Luke by having him slam her up against a brick wall with his bathing suit parts.

Asif helps a non-English speaking person in jail, translating for the police and advising him on what to say. I didn’t say this earlier, but he was a translator for Britain in Afghanistan, and had to leave in the chaotic and terrifying pull out in 2021. He and others were promised jobs, and instead he was jailed. He has not forgotten the shame and anger.

Juliet has a fairly typical relationship with her teenaged daughter Taylor (Pixie Davies), lots of yelling and also affection. They’re settling in for a decent day (Taylor was suspended from school for fighting when someone talked about her dad ‘walking out’), a therapist is in the offing, when Juliet looks out the window and sees the slow approach of DCI Jess and DI Sunny with that bloody backpack.

**I know that backpack is a social media star! I know that! However, every time I see a grown man heft a wholeass backpack onto his shoulder not on his way into the gym, I wince for his shoulder.

Jess and Sunny break the news gently to Juliet, who does not understand how this could happen. The mention of the Marsh brings up our first flashes!

– I got lavender, a knife, some newspapers

Juliet knew Gerard died through violence, she just knew he hadn’t jumped! Because of the money, of course. All of us: what money??

Marty takes a break from listening to the manosphere explaining how women REALLY like it: hint hint, it’s smacking around and taking charge! That’s nature!

– As an actual woman, allow me to suggest you talk to any actual woman you interact with about how she would like to be interacted with. I can also guarantee she doesn’t want you to start by coming out swinging on any occasion.

Back with Juliet; who explains a little bit more. She and Gerry (Gerard) had a number of ongoing investments, including a pub that he ran full time and three different rental properties. When COVID hit, the pub shut, and then all the tenants stopped paying rent. I don’t know about the UK, but here in Canada there was legislation saying that tenants could not be evicted, and it sounds like that happened there as well. Gerry started borrowing money from Albanian gangsters and got in quite a hole.

Now that all the sex is done, Melinda and Father Luke have a drink while Marty and his mum have a visit from home care worker Doreen (Lisa Davina Phillip). I didn’t notice it before, but elderly Dot has a nasty bruise on her eye and it’s quite clear that her son Marty gave it to her. Doreen asks about a proper assessment, but Dot is too afraid of going into a home, so she doesn’t tell on Marty, and he starts chanting and rocking so Doreen sighs and changes the subject.

Juliet doesn’t have much more to offer about the day Gerry was supposed to have died, but she also lies about why Taylor is home, so we all have our ears up. Does she just not want to paint a poorly picture about her daughter?

Jess has picked up that Taylor is at a very nice school and the live in a very nice home, so the hand-to-mouth Juliet described from before Gerry’s death is clearly not any longer. Jess thinks that means life insurance.

Asif picks up an angry Hassan, he was screwed over by the older white man running the farm where he did day labour; Asif makes him go back and apologize. Life isn’t fair, his brother is dead and while it’s not clear how this relates to Hassan and this jackhole, I think we just got Asif’s motive for possibly killing Gerry!

Juliet explains everything to her daughter, Taylor cries. She thought her dad jumped because she wasn’t enough and oof. Kids. This super unfortunate self-centredness is never accurate or avoidable.

Jess is still thinking about the unexpected seabass and hair found on her husband’s coat. She checks his jacket again, and taking a breath, calls her sister Debbie (Gráinne Keenan), with whom her husband cheated on Jess the last time. Debbie is only too happy to agree to a meet, she seems grateful and so perhaps Jess’ husband is cheating further afield this time. I mean, it’s the least he could do, take it off the family tree.

Sunny tells Dr. Leanne Balcombe (Georgia Mackenzie) a funny story about the end of online dating for him, I am much too struck by:

• Are THEY dating? I always saw a little glimmer there
• Are they on a date right now??
• Is Dr. Balcombe single?
• Did Sunny’s ex have the baby??

Juliet comes into the station to finish off the interview with Jess and Sunny; I love watching them play off each other. When Juliet bristles at Jess’s pointed questions about her marriage, Sunny is there to smooth everything over with his kindness and yet inexorable questioning of his own. He slips in questions about life insurance (400k), when they met (2009), married (2009), had Taylor (also 2009) and now we know more than we would have if Jess had asked more of her direct questions. But Sunny wouldn’t have gotten as far as he did without Jess teeing it up, quite lovely all around.

There’s something not quite right about Juliet and her story; in checking, the team finds that she never did ask for the file to be re-opened after the investigating officer was jailed for corruption as she said she did.

Jess debriefs the team and hands out assignments, everyone has something to look into:

• DS Murray Boulting (Jordan Long) will be checking into alllll the tenants from 2021 in the Cooper holdings
• DS Fran Lingely (Carolina Main) is on CCTV duty
• DC Karen “Kaz” Willetts (Pippa Nixon) will be investigating possible auto thefts in the area of the Whitney Mash carpark

And oh, Sunny will be meeting with Ram Sidhu in jail today.

Fran and Murray exchange a look.

Sunny and Ram verbally joust a bit before getting down to it; Ram swears he followed up leads, just not the right ones.

**What a scene for Sunny! I don’t know where Sanjeev Bhaskar pulls the menace from, what with all the geniality, but here we are. Phaldut Sharma with the mocking self slap on the wrist with a grimace. Glorious!

At the same time, Jess meets with the reported Albanian gangster Markaj (Nokolaos Brahimllari) who swears he’s an honest businessman. With a cousin in jail for drugs and a father who died in jail after being imprisoned for GBH.

Ram thought the marriage was hinky, just as Jess and Sunny have been wondering. Ram also questioned the Albanian gangster angle; both he and Markaj say ‘Dead men don’t pay debts’, in separate interviews but at the same time. Juliet kept pushing and pushing it, which Markaj also knew, which seems…dangerous. Also, Gerry was able to pay that money back, which is surprising. From where?

Ram mentions a suspect brought up by a former pub worker; another worker who had threatened Gerry a year before his death. Markaj thinks Gerry’s side piece would be a decent place to start, so all sorts of leads to follow!

We’re almost done this episode, so we swing by our local right-wing TV studio to watch Melinda skewer climate change in her daily address, even as we watched her argue against the position with her producer Gabriel (Oliver Lansley) earlier. The public doesn’t want her opinion, or his opinion, they want their own opinion reflected back to them, so they feel cozy and warm and safe.

Melinda isn’t feeling any of that since finding out earlier that day that her (official) love is not likely to have any insurance to cover any costs, thanks to his having half a pint before driving and being hit by a drunk driver. While he was under the legal limit, there is a clause in his insurance policy that negates coverage should any alcohol be involved.

She gets drunk and calls her mother, who isn’t what you would call..motherly. She does recognise Gerry from the paper, though, Melinda hadn’t yet seen that his murder had been reported yet, and she sobers up immediately on hearing that. Apparently wee Melinda used to hang out in Whitney Marsh all the time as a kiddo, now where did she know Gerry from? Was she the girlfriend? She must have been if she introduced him to her mother.

Okkkkkkkaaaay and then she calls Juliet and threatens her if she dares mention her to anyone. What is going on. She can’t really be a side girlfriend if the wife knows and has the discretion to tell or not tell? And how does the hot priest fit into any of this???

It’s 3 am and Marty can’t sleep, so he takes more medicine and heads back into the incel chatroom. That is one of the side effects of Zoloft, and we know it’s a troubling one, based on the fact that it’s the sole counseling given by his psychiatrist.

And that’s it! We’re out for tonight, just as things are starting to unfurl fully…

It’s tricky, series four with the arrest of policeman Ram Sidhu was DCI Cassie Stuart (Nicola Walker)‘s last series on this show and it was a very emotional time. I’m quite proud of the fact that I managed to not mention it until now, because the truth is: the show is still excellent. I will always love Nicola Walker for her fantastic work on Last Tango in Halifax, River, Annika and too many more shows to list. It happens, people leave shows all the time, and while I miss her Cassie, they’ve done a fabulous job of keeping the standard where it should be. Sanjeev Bhaskar is a huge part of that, of course, even with that bloody backpack, and Sinéad Keenan definitely holds her own.

Until next time, everyone! Cheers.