Annika is getting closer to fine, isn’t she, my friends? She has a companion, a shared offspring and all sorts of professional respect. I continue to appreciate that she’s the type of woman who appreciates a literary corollary and will lick ice cream off her jacket because really: who’s wasting ice cream?? Please enjoy my recap of Annika S2:E05 after the break!

DI Annika Strandhed (Nicola Walker) isn’t going bonkers with her dad around, nope, no sir, dishy boyfriend Dr. Jake Stratearn (Paul McGann), she’s doing fine. She just popped into the Marine Homicide Unit to see if her blood pressure bracelet is responding well to a ‘normal’ environment.

He’s off to a conference, she’s torn as to whether she should go on holiday with her dad and her daughter Morgan (Sylvie Furneaux) or do literally anything else, like try to scare up a murder at the MHU.

I shall not try to explain the complexities involved in Annika’s relationship with her father because I haven’t read King Lear, but suffice to say” it’s tricky and there was an unlit gasfield to answer for.

Morgan’s working this summer, actually, she’s at Blane Eco Park. Which is where Annika and her dad Magnus (Sven Henriksen) are heading in a sea plane that probably won’t crash.

Annika is deathly terrified of heights.

Back at the Marine Homicide Unit, there is nary a murder to be seen, but BC Blair Ferguson (Katie Leung) has dug up the release of murderer Gary Nair, so that’s something? She’s helping newest team member DC Harper Weston (Varada Sethu) settle in, but it looks like DCI Diane Oban (Kate Dickie) has already taken a shine to her!

Annika is not excited to find she will be sharing a cabin with her dad and daughter, just like…home.

**I feel exactly like this about camping, which is having to provide the same service to all my gremlins in a smaller space without amenities. Awesome.

Annika is deeply suspicious of her dad’s motives, she thinks maybe Annika’s mom has kicked him out but he says he’s thinking of leaving instead.

I am always Team Annika, so I can only use her analysis. Speaking of, she calls Dr. Jake for help dealing, he suggests building a rock cairn to settle down but instead, she finds a dead body because of course she does.

She calls DS Michael McAndrews (Jamie Sives) at home, where his wife Astrid (Cora Bissett) cheerfully explains that Michael might be delayed after ingesting a child’s Home Ec project from school.

This was really to highlight the awkwardness of Annika knowing that she and Michael share a child together from long ago and his wife does still not know. I mean, Annika only just told Michael.

Harper is at the park and ready to work, I bet extremely pregnant Blair will sit this one out. Oooooooo the victim is Casper MacRay (Dominic Watters), we met him! He’s the builder of the Walk in the Clouds attraction, park manager Louise Keanny (Lesley Harcourt) literally said that Morgan’s first job was to kill that guy!

I mean, I don’t THINK Morgan did, but I don’t know how seriously she takes her work experience either.

We’ve got help from the local police in the form of Remi Lennox (Helen Katamba) who doesn’t hate anyone yet. She thinks Casper had blunt force trauma, I’m just realising: is Annika and the MHU only involved because the body was found in a river? How ridiculous. Wet bodies this way!

Another scene of controlled resentment between Annik and her dad, yaaaay.

Carper’s husband is exactly the opposite of what I would have pictured with our dead lumberjack. Lance Wallace (James Anthony Pearson) is an interior decorator with far too many bright colours crammed into one space. No history of domestic violence, though, yay that. Only one month married, aww.

Annika digs up a possible appointment for our recently deceased cloud walker, someone from the community center!

Also: Louise is the worst. Annika and I do not like her.

Almost as much as Casper’s business partner Nell Dwight (Gabriel Quigley) who is pissssssed that Casper got married and named Lance as his next of kin.

Well. That’s weird. Why would that lead to her smashing out car windows with a golf club? She thinks Lance is a gold-digging bargain bin Andy Warhol.That’s a very emotional response to Lance inheriting half the assets of the business that’s always being sued.

Ah Michael has stopped throwing up long enough to join us by video, hiya! In time for Annika to post pictures of her and the dishy doctor taking selfies together, yay.

I don’t know why she had to take a picture of the name of the person Carper was meeting, just tell us it was Dana Ashraf (Maryam Hamidi).

Annika screams Norwegian profanities across the gorgeous Scottish countryside on the back of Harper’s motorcycle, I’m proud of her for trying! Look, a sea plane, then a motorcycle, what’s next? A helicopter?

Okay, we’ve got Casper’s vehicle in pieces on the side of the road, how did he end up in the river two miles downstream? And he was a passenger? Whose passenger in his own car?

Annika enjoys the next motorcycle ride much more.

Dana Ashraf is hinnnnkkkkyyyy. But she swears she just stole his car and…rammed it off a cliff?

Annika and Morgan’s dinner is interrupted by Louise irritated about an spectacle, which is…Annika’s dad, schwasted and feeding the deer. The deer seemed really into it. He’s trying to decide what to do about his marriage.

Meanwhile, day old oysters lead us to the perpetrator of our crime, it was perky sea plane pilot Geoff McInver (Andrew Watson) who killed Casper for causing the death of his father and that seems King Lear-y enough!

Michael moved to arrest him, but Geoff decides a game of chicken with Annika in a dinghy is a better choice.

Annika wins, but then she has to call her dad for a ride home, so did she?

Okay, she gets some validation on the way home, yay for that.

Michael tells Astrid about Morgan, you can actually see the fear grow. Will this change anything? We’ll find out soon! Until next time! Cheers, you lot.