Hiya, let’s watch Nicola Walker work her magic in Annika, shall we? After you! No, I insist, after you! Okay, after the break, we’ll roll into my recap of Annika S2:E03 Jeckyl & Hyde together.
We open with our DI Annika Stranhead (our darling Nicola Walker) awkwardly attempting to open a sunchair with one hand while holding an ice cream cone in the other, it’s not going well. She’s interrupted by the advance of DS Michael McAndrews (Jamie Sives) which is even MORE awkward, given she just told him last time for the first time that he fathered her teenage daughter.
He took a couple of weeks off work but came back because he’s having a hard time being at home and that absolutely makes sense. Did he tell his wife? His other daughters?
We don’t know because just then Annika gets a call, they have a case. He’ll come, but he’ll drive himself, thankyouverymuch. Annika licks ice cream off her jacket and they are away!
Annika pulls up in front of a mansion, telling us about the duality of man, via Robert Louis Stevenson and his Jekyl & Hyde.
There’s a dead millionaire in his own basement shark tank, DC Tyrone Clarke (Ukweli Roach) and DS Blair Ferguson (Katie Leung) are already perusing the ultimate mancave of Fabian Hyde (OF COURSE HIS LAST NAME IS HYDE), why haven’t the sharks eaten him? They’re cruising around looking peckish and we can see where Fabian was bleeding at some point.
There’s a fancy clock in the water, what’s up with that? Was Fabian’s time up?
I will see myself out.
The deceased left behind a daughter that knew before the media, they’re off to interview her right after Michael gets some things off his chest with Annika. He wants to know: has she told her daughter Morgan (Sylvie Furneaux)? Not quite yet.
Blair and Tyrone interview the as-yet-unnamed housekeeper, who is standing just to the left of a massive AGA stove that I can’t see all of because there’s a stupid island in the way! C’mon!!
Something about the CCTV being shut down and an angry Greg Connolly (Russ Bain) popping round just before it glitched out.
Fabian’s daughter Katherine Hyde (Jessica Hardwick) is lovely and composed, her daughter Grace Hyde (Layla Cook) deaf and forthcoming. It also appears that our GreenTech zillionaire walked the walk as well as reaping the cash, he was sending his granddaughter to an environmental conference and was impatient for the rest of the world to catch up with him, environmentally speaking.
The daughter slips her alibi into casual conversation, that raised all our ears, none more than Annika. Grace’s friend Dylan McQuade (Tiger Mitchell) has something to share, but not in front of Katherine, apparently. Something with an alibi…
Annika thought they were getting a media person to handle press conferences, why isn’t DCI Diane Oban (Kate Dickie) doing it? She doesn’t have ice cream on her jacket! Diane swaps jackets, on you go, Annika!
Michael has had quite enough of seeing Annika in front of a microphone, FANKS, he switches it off and goes over leads with Blair and Tyrone. Blair’s managed to find out what happened with the CCTV, it was switched off manually from within the house. Right after that Greg Connolly stopped by for some pushy-shovey.
Blair’s dug up a video of Greg airing his grievance against Fabian, whom Greg blames for his company failing. Michael and Tyrone head off to that workplace to check it out and immediately are attacked by disgruntled workers who’re trying to murder their boss Greg with an excavator.
Michael and Tyrone save him and get the usual sort of story: blah blah blah, bloke was alive when I left, I’ve got a family to think of, etc etc. He’ll be providing DNA anyway.
Annika walks through a graveyard, contemplating aloud to us what her life would have looked like on an alternate path, another her. She’d have a small cake shoppe on the side of a fjord and would have told Michael right away that he was the father. She wouldn’t be the monster Michael now believes she is.
A call interrupts this fruitless enterprise, it’s Michael wanting to fight some more. He asks: does Morgan want to know who her dad is? Annika made a deal with Morgan, whenever she wanted to know, she would ask her mum and Annika would tell her. That could be years, what is Michael supposed to do until then? He feels like he’s lying all the time. He hangs up.
Annika wonders if she deliberately placed herself here, in this town, in this unit with Michael, to bring things to a head. Like returning to the scene of the crime.
Morgan herself is more concerned with planning a party for her friend Femi’s (Taylor Goodwin) birthday at Morgan’s house, presumably when Annika is away and someone named Erin is available.
Okay what. Annika leads the briefing the next morning, turns out Fabian wasn’t just some impatient GreenTech zillionaire, he was your average day to day slumlord putting up rents and planning FRACKING. How…is that green, again?
We’ve got another suspect entering the fray near the midpoint, I shall assume that Russ Kincaid (Andrew Still) is a red herring even though he assaulted Fabian a few months ago and is close with the family who said naught about him.
Tyrone and Blair take off for the chippy to find out what was making Dylan’s face go sideways, leaving Annika and Michael to approach Russ at his hardware shoppe.
After Michael ascertains when Morgan was conceived, that is. It was a training weekend, there was a nature theatre, and a boat. The boat seems the likely suspect given both faces when it’s mentioned.
Oh well, here we go. Our red herring Russ is Katherine’s partner and Grace’s dad, you really would think he would have come up. Not that he’s allowed in any of Fabian’s spaces, including Katherine’s house as Fabian owned that too.
We get a monologue about people judging the suitability of fathers from Russ while we all try not to stare at the side of Annika’s head.
The chippy shoppe is fine, no problem with the alibis of Dylan’s parents after all, just an opportunity for Blair to ask Tyrone whether or not he’s going to take the promotion he applied for and just was offered.
I wonder if that will be an escape hatch for Michael…
Oh. Someone has made a deepfake video of Annika spouting off a lot of unlikely things, now isn’t that interesting? Who is she getting close to that would spur that kind of action?
Not Russ, he’s not even a red herring, he’s merely a plot device. Katherine? I mean, maybe, but she didn’t seem very…employed or skilled. Diane and I are confused. We know Annika would never pooh-pooh her usual investigations in favour of billionaires, at least not in public.
There was the housekeeper who was super techy but I never got her name so I don’t know. Oh! It’s January Deacon (Shereen Cutkelvin), because that’s a name, thank you, Tyrone! Why was Fabian’s bank account making random deposits to her account?
They track the deepfake video maker to an abandoned funhouse / bowling alley, why would anyone go to such a place? To catch Senga McAuley (Seylan Baxter) who considers an arrest a badge of honour because someone has their priorities seriously out of whack.
Morgan thinks it’s super cool to have your own deepfake video, so perhaps it’s my priorities out of line with the world. I think it’s super cool she asks her mum about throwing the party instead of sneaking it, yay!
Robert Louis Stevenson had 12 rules for life (I heard about these on Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast!), one of which was to not dwell on imaginary things as they can be harder to bear than real things but Annika thinks that’s all fine and dandy for someone who doesn’t have a video of themselves acting like a c-word that doesn’t moo online for the world to see.
The interview with the videomaker is a waste of time, Senga has nothing to add to our investigation. Zero pieces of salted Dutch licorice for you.
Blair found a hate letter in Fabian’s safe, how odd is it that it’s from his daughter? That she wrote it, that he kept it. Annika speaks to Katherine about it but Katherine’s lies are debunked quickly and thoroughly by Grace, who is angry at her mum for accepting an allowance and house and cutting her dad out of her life. There was a water bottle at the scene and we watch Grace stomp off with one, could she have killed her controlling grandad?
We’re meant to think about Annika gatekeeping what kind of contact Morgan could have with her dad just then.
Tyrone and Michael drew the exciting straw, tracking January to a ferry about to leave, we haven’t seen Tyrone run all episode so perhaps he’ll get to stretch his legs a bit. January looks pretty spry!
The words were barely out of my brain and we became embroiled in a foot chase. At one point, January punches a man inexplicably dressed in a shark onesie but she doesn’t get much further than that.
January cops to stealing from Fabian but swears he was alive when she left.
They literally all say that!
Morgan has the party for Femi’s birthday, without Erin, so. Sigh.
Annika and Morgan talking about permission tweaks Annika’s radar, off she goes with Tyrone to arrest Grace or Dylan or both.
Tyrone gets to run AGAIN!
He chases the young couple to a cliff where Grace admits to throwing a clock at her grandad’s head out of frustration for his controlling ways.
A quick wrap up at the scene and the phone rings; a distraught Morgan took Annika’s (police?) boat out for a ride and didn’t drop an anchor as such. Tyrone has left so it’s Michael who drives Annika to the scene of the crime.
They paddle out to the police boat and finally Annika can explain why she did what she did. She was trying to protect Morgan, and most likely to some extent: Michael. She didn’t think he loved her.
Annika grounds Morgan with Michael’s support, will they be okay? They’ll be something. Annika swears that if they had her now, of course he would be the first to know. They weren’t those people then. Michael says” Shame” and our heads explode. He wishes they were like that?? What does that MEAN!!??
Ahhhhhhhhhhh. Until next time, lovelies. Cheers.
