Welcome back to my series recap of Black Doves with our Sarah Lancashire, we’re just getting started! Last time we started to set the table, let’s find out what’s actually going on, shall we? Join me for my Black Doves series 1 episode 2 ‘A Little Black Dove‘ recap after the break!

We open in 2014 with (technically) our protagonist Helen Webb (Keira Knightely) running along the river and thinking about her job interview at Weston Montgomery as Daisy Bradshaw. The position is for a translator; the interviewer is open to considering her for the role, even with her ‘patchy’ resume and lack of post secondary education.

That’s rather bold to say during a job interview: hey, you’re all right because you can do the job (Daisy speaks 4 languages) but we’d rather you hadn’t left the country for ten years and instead took an offer from Cambridge. I mean, how dare you, number 1 and number 2: how would this company know about a scholarship offer?

And how would they know she had a stepsister for 3 years by the name of Bonnie Weir? We’ve gone past weird to invasive, this can’t actually be an agency in need of a translator. Bonnie Weir might be still considered a stepsister, if it weren’t for the fact that she murdered the only link between her and Daisy / Helen. Bonnie is still in jail for murdering her dad, who was previously married to Daisy / Helen’s mum, before Daisy / Helen’s mum died.

This whole murdery business coincides with Daisy / Helen leaving the country, given what we know about Helen of these days, I’m wondering if it was she who killed her stepfather, not Bonnie.

The interviewer lets Daisy / Helen know that they don’t hire people with these types of ‘family complications’, which begs the question: if they knew all this, why did they have her in for an interview and waste everyone’s time?

The interviewer lets Daisy / Helen know that no time has been wasted: he gives her a number to call, and tells her to tell Mrs. Reed (Sarah Lancashire!) that he ‘found one.’ ‘A little Black Dove.’

Daisy / Helen steps outside for a cigarette, and Mrs. Reed rolls up.  A spot of delightful banter back and forth:

• ‘Ah yes, those famously conversational Germans.’
• ‘I’ve had some of the best nights of my life in Tehran’ **knowing look**

We do get to it: Mrs. Reed is hiring for spies, not specifically for one country or another (that’s what I’d been wondering, if Helen was placed so high, how could her secrets be any use to anyone in the British government?), just to the highest bidder. Daisy / Helen is an orphan as well, which I didn’t mention earlier, which maybe makes her even more attractive as an agent. Spy. Spying agent.

Not only that, but Mrs. Reed has sensed what most people would not; Daisy is not just a beautiful face, she’s a ‘coiled spring’; ready to protect herself and without even knowing it specifically: ready to be aimed at other people.

Mrs. Reed guessed that Daisy isn’t actually her name, so how would they have known all that about her, oh wait, I guess they do know who she is, so them knowing all this stuff they should never have known about a ‘Daisy’ would be even more disconcerting for Daisy / Helen in that job interview.

I believe the implication is that Daisy / Helen killed her stepfather, but I wouldn’t put money on it.

Throughout the talk, Daisy / Helen can’t not smile at Mrs. Reed, who is deft and canny and hilarious and completely in charge.

Switch to further along, Daisy is now officially Helen, with a reddish ‘do and a pass to hear (future husband) Wallace Webb (Andrew Buchan) speak. He ‘ers’ and ‘ums’ a lot, he isn’t the polished politician we met in the beginning.

She slides up next to him at the bar later that evening and starts what we used to call ‘negging’ in the early 2000s pickup artist community. That’s when you say a bunch of mean stuff so girls will work for your approval, but I think Wallace was already open to Helen saying literally anything at him, so it seems a bit mean for her to pick him apart so thoroughly.

He’s an idealist, she’s a skeptic and somehow they find the middle ground of his hotel room bed. She stares at herself in the mirror after, then digs into his laptop to copy all his files. Off she runs into a car with a shaggy younger Sam Young (Ben Whishaw) that she is meeting for the first time.

Helen is abominably rude while Sam does his best, she’s full of nerves from her first job. Speaking of: oops: Helen left her mum’s lighter in Wallace’s room, so she’ll have to go back.

Wallace is awake, working, and confused about:

1. Why Helen left?
2. Why Helen came back
3. But really, why did she come back?

We switch back to now, with Helen staring in a different mirror, thinking about a different lover. Jason (Andrew Koji) looms large, we just don’t know if he is also the same as Helen: A Spy Who Fell in Love.

Helen pops out to another car manned by now-Sam, who looks almost the same, except he’s not quite as perky.

To recap where we are in the Now:

– Helen is trying to find out who killed Jason, her lover, (and two other people he knew) and Sam is there to protect her. He’s investigating Jason’s death as well, and found fingerprints on a shell casing from the bullet that most likely killed Jason. The fingerprints belonged to Elmore Fitch (Paapa Essiedu – whom I remember from Kiri! Also with Sarah Lancashire!), a decorated veteran sniper.

Another thing that came up at the end of last episode was an internationally complicated political issue. The Chinese ambassador to the UK died in the UK, and his death was found to be the result of a drug overdose, according the to the UK coroner’s office.

Have I used UK enough in that sentence? Please do let me know below.

However. China does not believe it was an accidental drug overdose, they believe their ambassador was murdered, and on top of that, the ambassador’s daughter Kai-Ming (Isabella Wei) went missing at the same time. Jason, Helen’s lover who was murdered for SURE, called Kai-Ming five times right before he died. A couple of hitwomen who Helen found in Jason’s flat were looking for ‘a young woman.’

Back to Elmore, they’re rolling up on him right now, even though Sam had a bottle of wine and a line of ketamine (we both thought it was cocaine!) at dinner an hour or so ago.

Nobody is home at Elmore’s flat, Helen grows suspicious as Sam recounts how they ended up with Elmore’s name. Would an SAS freelance hitman sniper really leave his fingerprints on a bullet casing? Is this perhaps a shiny trap?

It appears so, they jump out the window into a swimming pool just as the flat blows up. Helen’s shoulder is dislocated after being yanked so firmly off the balcony by Sam, so she…locates it. Sam is impressed – “you should have seen me when I pushed two human beings out of my vagina on the same afternoon” is Helen’s retort.

Then Sam drops her off at home and I swear: people are trying to kill everyone and they’re doing this like a suburban mom carrying on with an internet boyfriend, ducking into the city for a quick jump off a balcony and then home to see the nanny off.

Sam waits until Helen has checked the house and sent an all-clear, then drives off as a Christmas tree does some suspicious stuff and a man creeps in through the back door. There’s no way Helen can really be this out of practice, is there?

There isn’t! She throws a knife as the man comes up behind her in the kitchen, but he gets the drop on her with a gun. He represents people looking for a small pinhole camera recording device, does she have this? She does not. It was last seen with a young woman named Kai-Ming, does Helen know her? She does not. He threatens to kill her family twice in less than 60 seconds, Helen is incensed.

She suggests he not do that again.

She confirms his identity, this is Elmore Fitch and he did indeed kill Jason two nights ago. She tells him he’ll regret that; he says he regrets every kill. So why does he kill? Why does a songbird sing? HAHAHAHA

This particular songbird has not done his homework; he thinks Helen is just a compromised politician’s wife with a dangerous side piece. She gets close enough to get the gun and then much fighting ensues until he is stabbed and at her mercy. She threatens him with a NutriBullet (HAHAHAHA) but he doesn’t know who hired him.

She kills him in the garden shed and cleans the house thoroughly before heading to cuddle with Wallace. She kills him quick at his request, because Jason would have died quickly, without fear or pain, because Elmore the songbird was the best.

It’s the picture of domestic bliss the following morning, save Helen’s blooded fingernails. Wallace has a thing later, for the civil servant who was killed, even if he can’t remember his name. Helen reminds him to get security set up for the house.

Sam is just about to head off to see Mrs. Reed at her request when a trio of women roll up on him. We met Williams (Ella Lily Hyland) earlier when she and her partner Kent were trying to kill Helen, but the other 2 are new to us. Not new to Sam, however, he greets the oldest member of the group, Lenny (Kathryn Hunter) profanely welcomes him back.

I guess Sam owes our tiny titan money, the cockney crime boss (shades of Terrence Stamp! If Terrence Stamp was a 4′ 2′ lady with serious glasses and an asymmetrical bob) isn’t standing for letting bygones be bygones. She invokes the name ‘Hector Newman’; it flashes Sam back to standing in the rain under a tunnel with a gun trained on someone in a stopped vehicle.

He’s not here for Hector Newman! She will not be put off, Hector is still alive, messing about, and ‘everyone knows I’m the prick who sent the prick to kill the prick and you didn’t!’

Sam ehhhhs but Lenny knows about Sam’s ex-boyfriend Michael, and his daughter. Sam tries to play off that threat but looking like he swallowed a grapefruit doesn’t help him sell it. He’s to track down Hector (a slight ginger with a wankery hair pouf) or Williams and her new partner Eleanor (Gabrielle Creevy) will murder Michael.

What’s more interesting to me is the interplay between Williams and Sam; that will be a death match for sure.

Cut to Hector Newman (Luther Ford), who is listening to a newscast about none other than the missing Kai-Ming, whom he recognises. In fact, Hector has young Kai-Ming being held somewhere while being videoed. He’s on his way to see her.

About Kai-Ming’s dad, the Chinese ambassador that supposedly died of a drug overdose, we go to the River Thames where Wallace Webb and political advisor Bill (Ken Nwosu) are discussing the latest. The Chinese think their ambassador was killed by the Americans, and the English are helping to cover it up. Wallace thinks this is the worst news possible – wait until he finds out that his wife’s lover was implicated and he’s been married to a spy for 10 solid years!

Sam meets with Helen and Mrs. Reed in a gloomy, empty parking lot; Helen updating the team with the news about Elmore Fitch. They don’t know who sent him, but they do now know what the enemy is looking for: a video. They also know that Kai-Ming is connected to everything. We do remember that Philip sent Jason a text about a ‘sy’ on a video as well, so they were looking for it as well.

Back when we first met everyone, Jason (Helen’s lover) was on the phone with two people that died right around the same time as him. They are Maggie and Phillip; Mrs. Reed has identified that Maggie went to school with Kai-Ming and Phillip wrote 12 articles about Kai-Ming’s party lifestyle. There’s nothing connecting Kai-Ming and Jason, however, except for him calling her 5 times right before he died.

Helen doesn’t like the implication Mrs. Reed makes that she told Jason something she shouldn’t have, she storms off after suggesting everyone find Kai-Ming. Mrs. Reed reminds Sam how badly it would reflect on him if Helen was murdered, pip pip, cheerio, off you go to save her. Also, someone should pick up Elmore Fitch’s body from Helen’s garden shed. Clean up is Mrs. Reed’s job.

Helen slaps on a fedora (yes, a fedora!) and sunglasses and stops in for Jason’s funeral, with spies I feel like you never know if they are actually dead dead. Then her husband Wallace shows up and Helen hides so she can hear what he’s saying, which is the smallest of talk. But she wasn’t just there to pay her respects to her dead boyfriend, she’s dropped off a flower with a listening device.

She leaves without being spotted and records Wallace talking to Stephen Yarrick (Sam Troughton), another political advisor, about the Chinese ambassador. And about how Phillip, the journalist mentioned above spouting about a video he had, contacted Wallace saying he had a video of Stephen. Stephen is sy? I guess those are his initials!

Wallace goes as far as to ask Stephen if he had anything to do with Phillip’s death because of that potential video, but Stephen is adamant that there was no crime and no reason at all for him to be anywhere near Phillip.

That really puts paid to any kind of idea that Jason wasn’t aware of exactly who Helen was. She said they were together for love; and while it looks like Jason did love Helen, he was probably working her.

Helen’s been listening to all of this on her flower bug; she leaves that area and goes to the bench where Jason died. She thinks back to one of their naked meetings, where she did indeed tell him things she should not have, such like she is a Black Dove. Just like Mrs. Reed asked and Helen hotly denied.

‘I’m a story that I tell people.’ is how Helen describes herself.

Sam pops round to see how Michael and daughter are doing, to be met by Williams and Eleanor. Make no mistake, they’ll try to kill the lot of them, and Williams just because Sam killed her previous partner Kent.

Not much time to get to Hector, how lovely that he’ll get the bonus of Kai-Ming once he gets there!

Sam walks into Hector’s drug den, finding it littered with dead bodies and a lack of Hector. Is Lenny setting him up? Don’t sit on the bare mattress with a camera pointed at it, Sam! Cooties!!!! But he knows how to work this camera, and rolls it back to see Kai-Ming dragged off a bed by two men after Hector walks in.

So. Does Hector still have Kai-Ming? Or was he attacked as well? Hector shouted something about ‘the Clarks’, who are they? Are they a rival gang? They can’t likely be a politically-affiliated organization. Hm.

And that’s it! We’re out! That’s it for the second episode of Black Doves, how are you finding it? I am here for Sarah Lancashire, of course, her bright blue eyes and prim bob are as delightful as always. I am really enjoying messy Sam, too, although finding Helen a slightly tougher nut to enjoy. What a marvelous presence was Paapa Essiedu, I wish his time wasn’t so short.

Until next time, everyone! Cheers