Things got even uglier last time on Blood, which I didn’t think was possible. You know like the end of Precious when you think, well, it can only get better now and then it got worse? We’re nearing the final act of Blood series one and we’ve just lost a sacrificial lamb. Let’s find out why after the break in the Blood S1:E1.5 recap.
Another day, another gorgeous and covetous gold-covered coffin for Cat Hogan (Carolina Main from Unforgotten!) to mourn over. She surely must be feeling more responsible for the death of her close friend Barry (Cillian O’Gairbhi) after she helped drop a huge emotional bomb on him about his dad’s suicide then didn’t follow up with any aftercare like the support he begged her for.
*Sigh*
It’s probably the co-dependent in me solely blaming Cat for Barry’s death. Barry clearly had quite a few emotional issues of his own, we did hear from Cat’s dad Jim Hogan (Adrian Dunbar) that Barry was suicidal previously, and we now know for sure that Barry’s dad committed suicide around the same age.
We just have had a hard time believing anything Jim says, since Cat’s positive he murdered his wife and Cat’s mother, Mary Hogan (Ingrid Craigie), and is covering his tracks best he can. Up until this last episode, we were all wondering if Jim killed Barry’s dad too, as Cat saw her dad beating up Barry’s dad the day he committed suicide.
So let’s just say: we take everything Jim says with a grain of salt. But Barry’s dad did commit suicide and he left a horrible note including a line about regretting his family; Cat forced Jim’s hand and he gave that terrible note to Barry who then killed himself.
Cat stands alone with Barry’s coffin; of course Jim walks in. There’s a magnetic forcefield pulling these two together at all times. She doesn’t want to leave Barry’s body until someone else can be in the room with him, he wouldn’t want to be left alone.
Jim tells her she shouldn’t blame herself, it wasn’t her fault. But. Anyway. My feelings are clear. They move on to discussing the gun Barry shot himself with, Cat had left it there earlier in the day. She was hiding it from her father, who was hiding it from her to ‘protect’ her from the knowledge that his creepy cousin Frank had indeed been pointing a gun at her. She was pretty sure he was when she decided to run him over with her car.
So Jim showed up after she hit Frank, took and hid the gun, telling her she imagined it (as everyone told her she imagined the violence she witnessed in her youth) which gave it extra weight to her when she found it hidden in his room. Her decision to hide it at Barry’s house was clearly…not well thought out. But then, Cat’s just been focused on herself and her needs/wants, not necessarily those of the people around her.
Cat cannot resist accusing her dad of one more thing, did he put his creepy cousin Frank up to scaring her?
Cat breaks into Barry’s home via a plugged broken window, did we ever find out why he had to replace that window? How it got broken? I don’t believe so. Imagine leaving nothing behind you, Barry’s family line has ended with him, no sisters, parents, brothers, no other family at all.
Half of Barry’s house is shrouded in sheets, that’s where he was living. But the rest is beautiful and sunlit-laden, Cat wanders crying into that area, clutching a photo of her and Barry as children when a sound catches her unaware.
It’s Dez Breen (Sean Duggan) from the police, he was trying to catch her without her dad. We’re pretty sure he’s playing both sides of the fence, so we’re listening but with our skeptical face. He says our parents kill us in the end: their genetics, their diseases, their secrets. INterestING!
Back at the Hogan family residence, Cat’s sister Fiona (Gráinne Keenan) and brother Michael (Diarmuid Noyes) meet without Cat, it’s like watching puppets move without strings. So many of the people on the show only exist to move her story along, it’s kind of nice to see them develop their own arcs.
Jim’s packing, he’s closed his practice and is hitting the road. He sorts through some pictures drawn of him by Cat as a child and the grown Cat defends him in Barry’s house.
Cat first went to Dez to ask him to check into her dad for her mum’s murder, Dez has decided to activate now and is looking at Jim for Barry’s death. Sure his fingerprints are on the gun, but we also saw Barry shoot himself, so Cat doesn’t want to hear it.
Wait. We thought Dez was feeding information to Jim, but now he’s full on gunning for Jim, saying he’d have made detective if not for Jim. He had a bad leg infection that Jim didn’t treat properly, long story short: he’s got a long grudge against Dr. Jim but we don’t know how this plays into his calling Jim late at night after Cat called him. It’s a conundrum. Dez asks Cat to say Jim wasn’t with her the night Barry died.
Michael is probably the other person the most upset by Mary Hogan’s death aside from Cat, he asks his dad why he’s running off so soon after the funeral but Jim’s all done taking care of his grown family. Michael can come see him in the city, get a girlfriend! Michael shouts that he’s gay and wooo! Not the best coming out ever but yay!
Cat is wracked with indecision over staying or going. Should she stay in Westmeath and find out if her dad murdered a whole whack of people or should she go back to Dublin and move on? She doesn’t want revenge for how they treated her when she was little, she wants the truth. Will she lie to get back at her dad? She consults with her mum’s spirit but is brought back by a call from Michael.
She finds him at their mum’s grave, they bond and it’s all very sweet but ends with Cat finding evidence of their mum’s murder on his dating profile.
Quick refresher: Mary Hogan was ill with OND, it’s the reason Jim gave for her collapse and death by the family pond. The pond is surrounded by frog statues, one of which went missing as Cat noticed and we later saw Jim dispose of a chipped frog statue during Mary’s funeral under the guise of being overcome. The dating profile picture shows Michael smiling next to an intact frog statue.
Cat heads to Jim’s medical practice to talk to school friend Sarah (Shereen Martin) who had been banging her dad until recently. Sarah just received a wad of cash from a patient of Jim’s, saying he’d dropped it off in error. She’d had money stolen, but was sure it wasn’t by him. Hm.
Sarah has no interest in helping Cat keep Jim in town any longer than he plans, they broke up when he tried to use her as an alibi and wanted her to run away from her husband and family with him.
Cat heads back to the house to smoke with her brother, he suggests maybe Cat doesn’t accuse their dad of murder again, just for tonight? Leave out the frog statue for now? She wants the truth, he’s had enough drama for now. Fiona finds them talking, she drags Cat into an unwelcome hug but eventually Cat relents.
Fiona drags Michael in next, that’s how Jim finds them, the three siblings in a group hug on his front step.
It’s a lovely, boozy celebration of their family, Jim talks about wooing their mother and how she inspired him to the greatness that is their house. Fiona says they’ll take good care of it while he’s away, erm, so about that…he’s selling the house because of course he is. Why would be keep a giant house in the country for his children? One who lives in Dublin, another with a whole family and house of her own, I can’t see Michael needing a giant house with an Aga cooker.
I don’t know if I would have gone this way with it, exactly, though.
That’s what Jim says about everything untoward that he wants to do, like date his young assistant. Their mother wanted him to be happy!
Jim spreads around some charm and thanks, it even seems sincere so Cat doesn’t want to bring out the bag of bad things she picked up earlier. Her siblings saw the bag, though, so they ask about it until Cat is goaded into bringing it forth.
It’s a frog statue.
Sarah decided to help Cat after all, she calls just then and breaks the tension in the room that’s sprung up between Cat, her dad and Michael. Jim heads to the Flood hotel to talk to Sarah, Cat has 30 minutes!
Cat drives through the Irish countryside as I wonder again why there is only enough space for one vehicle. Are all roads in and around Westmeath one-way? Cat parks outside as Sarah confronts Jim about the money turned over by a patient.
See, Rita had been robbed for an unknown amount of money but somehow Jim knew how much it was and gave her $5000 euros, anonymously. Not anonymous was his doctor’s handwriting, so she dropped it off at the surgery. He is visibly angry, he was just trying to make it right! Why couldn’t she just leave it alone? Why couldn’t they just leave together?? He throws the money at her and leaves.
Cat finds a shaken Sarah on the floor surrounded by money, Sarah just wanted Cat to be wrong.
Cat drives, looking for her dad who hasn’t left yet but hasn’t shown up anywhere either. She drives out to the spot he took her to before, what he called her mother’s sacred place where he dumped the chipped frog statue that probably had something to do with her death.
She finds her dad in that secluded glade. Cat begs her dad to tell her the truth.
He drags up that frog statue out of the water and comes out with it.
And we’re out for this second to last episode of the first season of Blood. I’ll meet you back here for the conclusion of series one next time. Cheers.
