We’re back in the land of Traces with a second explosion rocking our Scottish Casbah, what’s going on now? Let’s find out in my Traces S2:E02 Black Pill recap after the break!
Also: can I just say how amazing the credit song is? ‘Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’ by Valerie Broussard is haunting and beautiful at the same time.
A quick recap of last episode: a bomb went off in a community space during a churchy type meeting, but turns out Daylight Savings Time may have instead thwarted someone’s homicidal urges towards a Pilates student. At the same time we’re living through the prosecution that was a result of series 1 of Traces, where a young woman (Emma Hedges (Molly Windsor)) fell in love with (and is pregnant by! Mazel tov!) Daniel MacAfee (Martin Compston), the son of the man who killed her mum. Emma sorted this all out while working at a crime lab.
We open at the scene of the second bombing with DCI Neil McKinven (Michael Nardone) and Professor Sarah Gordon (Laura Fraser) discussing witness statements amidst rubble; Sarah gets a couple of ideas of the second bomb’s materials. The two bombs are very different, but it would be odd to have two bombers running around at the same time, wouldn’t it?
We switch to the trial of Phil MacAfee (Vincent Regan), Daniel’s dad, where a newly pregnant Emma is giving evidence about..having coffee with Phil? Keith Farr QC (Douglas Rankine), Phil’s legal defender implies she was stalking Phil, and flat out calls her a liar when she denies it. The weirdest questioning follows, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to European trials, or even Canadian, for that matters, where barristers can just say whatever they like and imply sexual coercion and nobody says boo. The barrister asks if Emma had come back into town to solve her mother’s murder and duh. That is apparently a gotcha?
Now we’re onto Professor Kathy Torrance (Jennifer Spence) giving evidence in her stocking feet (weird socks, separated big toe), I could weep for her clear eyed gaze and definite answers. Phil MacAfee watches as his solicitor does his level best to break Kathy’s certainty without any success.
Two people died in the second bombing at Nail Space salon, one woman and one man. Sarah’s already found enough evidence to suggest a specific type of bomb, involving sugar, acid, a condom and another inflammatory substance. The good news there is that type of bomb is fiddly and dangerous, they would have had to be close right before.
Is Scotland as covered in CCTV as much as England is reported to be?
Back to the first bombing; we’re in an interview with DS Safi Khurana (Ro Kumar) and Ryan Fairlie (Chris Donald) the reportedly violent ex-boyfriend of a Pilates student, who defends his death threats as ‘banter’. He’s all menace, but he’s also right in that his ex-girlfriend is alive, even after leaving him, so. That’s…quite the low bar we’ve got there.
Safi calls Neil to go over Ryan as a suspect, but as he was literally sitting in Reception waiting to talk to Safi when the second bomb went off, it’s going to be a tricky job to pin this spree on him.
Professor Kathy had some trouble last episode with some students who were saying she was mean and hurting…dead…pigs? But on social media. So when she’s back at school, she hands out exams with a little speech about how the students should be conducting themselves on social media and how her dead pigs are ethically harvested. Her teaching assistant Erika (Krysten Peck) thinks it’s AWESOME.
It’s very quiet over at the MacAfee residence, Daniel is angry because Emma lied on stand about how she found his dad in that coffee shop, but she defends it: she had to lie. Daniel had to say a bunch of stuff he didn’t want to because it was true, he’s not happy with her doing the opposite.
They fight until bedtime, where she lies awake until getting up to…leave? Finding blood on her pants, she stops. She crawls into bed, Daniel washes the sheets and makes her a cuppa.
**I have to point out that literally any American show would have a trip to the hospital in there instead of this cozy scene, but then: socialized healthcare.
So. One more day of trial, and then no reason to be together any more, which seems like a really fast 180.
On to the next day, back to the lab for Emma and Sarah, who has found a tiny piece of the condom used in the bomb. Also a black pill, which she refers to The Matrix but was there a black pill? Emma has to hustle off to the trial, so it’s Sarah who opens up the pill and finds…?
Neil gets ready to leave for the day, bemoaning the pressure he and his department are under to his wife, Azra McKinven (Laila Rouass), who just waits for him to stop whinging so she can make a smart remark about Sarah.
**Sarah and Neil had a period of intense staring cum flirtation last series, unbeknownst to up: he was married the whole time, and nothing happened anyway.
It’s Neil’s turn to give evidence and Phil’s defense counsel Keith Farr QC only has 3 questions, that end with mocking how many cold cases he’s done: 1. This one. And we’re done.
The Judge calls Phil up to the stand, where Phil pretends he can barely stand, the piece of shite. I mean, we’ve seen the flashbacks so we have the advantage of knowing he for sure did the murder he’s on trial for, but he initially came into our radar for causing the deaths of a people in a night club fire after scrimping on materials and bullying anyone who asked about it, including his son Daniel. Shiiiiiite.
Phil’s testimony about the time of Marie Monroe’s death (that’s Emma’s mum) is extremely self-serving; he turns his wife’s cancer into something he was too immature to deal with and so escaped to the dangerous arms of Marie’s friends, who were into the big bad heroin. As a primer for anyone who didn’t watch the first series, Phil was a monster to Marie’s friends, and Marie herself. He wasn’t escaping, he was rutting. And cruel. And violent.
But to hear him on the stand, he was a slightly immature single dad out of his depth, being corrupted by Marie’s gang and her death had nothing to do with him.
No offense to the procurator fiscal Joseph Mann (John Mackay) but he’s basically completely outclassed by Phil, who rolls right over all the physical evidence carefully curated by Sarah’s lab, essentially with a shrug. How could he explain his DNA inside the boots buried at Marie’s grave? *shrug* Nothing to do with him. It’s resonating much more with the jury than Joseph’s protestations.
We can see how this trial will end, and it’s not going to be okay for Daniel and especially Emma once his dad’s out.
In the lab, Sarah was able to determine that the mysterious black pill is a common antidepressant, and that the condom would disintegrate in 7 minutes, giving Neil and his team a firm timeline.
Neil spitballs with Superintendent Gavin Blair (Peter Forbes), was the priest really the target of the first bomb after all? They thought it may have been the Pilates class due to the timer, but if the bomber set the time taking Daylight Savings Time into account, that could leave them back where they started. Examining the life of an African priest targeted for his views on wanting the clergy to be able to hump (with adults! And consent!) as possible.
Safi is able to find a still shot of a food delivery driver near the Nail Salon attacked by the second bomb, they’re getting closer! They’ve also identified the black pill as being associated with the incel community, interesting.
Daniel and Emma wait for the verdict on pins and needles; it is Not Proven by majority. Phil is released and Emma is in trouble.
I cannot help but wish Daniel and Emma break up finally for good and never speak again. They have great chemistry and their relationship initially created the safety for Emma to really come to terms with her mother’s death but they are so jagged with distrust and pain now that I can’t see them ever being okay again.
Phil shows up at Daniel’s mum’s house (you know, the one he was messing around on while she had cancer, that one), looking for ‘the lyin’ b*tch’, but Daniel doesn’t want to talk to him. And he’s not sending Emma out to deal with him.
Daniel packs as fast as he can and heads to the lab to get Emma, where Sarah is explaining the significance of the black pill to Neil on FaceTime. It’s supposed to represent a more nihilistic set of views held by the incel community (they keep calling it an American thing, which I think is hilarious. There are absolutely global incels). Suddenly, a break, someone from the far right has sent a letter to the media claiming responsibility for both bombs.
Daniel tries to convince Emma to run away with him, but she’s not having it. She loves him, but she hates him too. She hates his dad, and she hates what happened today. Daniel says he believes his dad did it, and that’s enough for Emma. She agrees to leave with him and we are out.
Well. I can’t pretend that I’m happy with any of what went down from a plot perspective. Of course Daniel and Emma will keep humping on top of this dead horse, sorry, that’s awful. They do have amazing chemistry but it’s so clearly doomed that all I can hear is a ticking clock. And how likely is it that the procurator fiscal would be that clearly incompetent to present evidence directly to Phil to refute? It’s just…not great. But here we are. At least we have Kathy Torrance and Sarah Gordon kicking arse.
Until next time, everyone. Cheers. Thanks for reading.
