Hi everyone and welcome back to the final installment in the latest Sarah Lancashire drama Kiri. This is when we find out what happened to Miriam’s young charge and what the Sam Hill is going on with the Warner family. Rolling S1:E04 after the break.
We open with Kiri (Felicia Mukasa) alive in her bedroom, blowing her bloody nose into a sock because she clearly has no idea how hard that is to get out of pink acrylic.
In the present, her adoptive brother Simon (Finn Bennett) wakes up then and heads to first check on his almost-sleeping parents before ? Before what? Where did he go? Kiri’s room?
Hi mum Alice (Lia Williams) isn’t sleeping really, she’s staring at the two condom wrappers on her husband Jim’s (Steven MacIntosh) nightstand, she didn’t want to have sex. She also doesn’t remember having the sex which makes me feel so many things all at once.
Jim has grown to like the feel of a condom, for his sake and Alice’s sake I’m just glad someone is thinking of protection given how many extry partners they have kicking around.
It seems Alice got all frisky after fixing their problem, i.e. identifying Kiri’s dad Nate Akindele (Paapa Essiedu) car in the back alley to the police. DI Vanessa Mercer (Wunmi Mosaku) had just interviewed Alice and Jim about Kiri returning to the area near her home on the day she died, Jim skating but Alice devolving before her very eyes. So Alice returning and pointing out this car she “just” remembered was clearly hinky to DI Mercer but she couldn’t suss why.
It was enough for Alice to get her wine on and swing on her husband’s new found condom fetish, however. Twice.
Jim is still turned on by Alice’s criminal act but Alice just wants to pretend to feel bad by herself. After all, she quite deliberately and with forethought did a terrible thing that she totally meant to do and now she has to live with it.
DI Mercer has brought Nate out of the cells to answer to this new information, there is a period of time where they can’t account for his movements. Nate protests but Mercer is merciless, hammering on his history of violence until he starts repeatedly slamming his head on the table.
Interview over.
Alice and Jim present a new plan: Si is being sent away for school. Immediately. I hope somewhere with shackles? Si makes a joke about rape because Si never says anything that isn’t unsettling and inappropriate unless it’s to social worker Miriam Grayson (Sarah Lancashire) WHOM WE HAVEN’T SEEN YET.
Just saying.
We’re back to the past with Kiri asking her brother for help with clothing choices, she did indeed throw her bloody sock and bunny shirt in his garbage can as so mystified us last episode. It made her look like a little girl. (she is a little girl). They actually seem to have a normal brother-sister relationship, which means that Si wasn’t maybe always so…Si.
We’re with Miriam now, who’s not coping well at all. She’d drinking early in the day, Jesse is still at the vet’s office and one of her clients has popped round for a walk. We met Gabby (Scarlett Brookes) the first episode when Miriam threw up on her kitchen floor. Gabby is very understanding. Gabby also thinks Miriam looks fab, always wearing foundation and stuff!
Gabby wasn’t taking her for just any walk, we’re back to the scene of the vomiting and it’s not empty.There are three people waiting for her.
I’m sorry for laughing.
We have Naughty Paul Allbrook (Adam Ewen), she placed him 20 years ago and Maggie Raynott (Gina Fillingham), who was also placed by Miriam.
Last with us is Richard Pentlow (Jurell Carter) who has gotten big and entirely adorable. They would throw a parade if they could, people can say whatever they want but they know her and they know how good she is.
Ah but Miriam blames herself, she can’t accept their appreciation, she cries heartbreakingly about her negligence causing Kiri’s death and we just know that’s not true.
Tobi Akindele (Lucian Msamati) has come to see his son in the beautiful hospital ward at the police station, Tobi doesn’t know who to believe.
It is time for Miriam’s formal suspension review. Her boss Julie (Claire Rushbrook from Home Fires!) and before the party can really get started, Miriam resigns. Well, she TRIES to resign but Phil (Gary Shelford) won’t let her. He’s got a bunch of stuff to say first.
Miriam does not listen to “Billy Big Bollocks” spout all the changes that have come about because of this case, including Julie getting her pay docked, she shouts blah blah blah but with more f*cks until Julie finally convinces him to skip to the end.
They have found her grossly negligent. Miriam is done.
Ah her anger and her anguish.
Bizarrely, Julie stops her as she’s leaving.
Miriam heads right to her mother Celia (Sue Johnston), she’ll cut right to the point. She’s broke and won’t be able to keep her there any longer, so she’ll have to come home with her. Celia is skeptical.
But she would love to come home with Miriam!
Nate is discharged from the hospital and charged immediately with the death of his daughter, his only reply is to thank her for using Kiri’s last name.
Si scares his mum just walking in the room, she canea wait for him to be gone. He terrifies her. There’s also this weird sexual vibe that I am not parsing. She takes a moment to explain that she’s arranged for someone else to take the blame for Kiri’s murder and he takes a minute to understand.
I hate this family. Everyone is weird and scary and nobody says what they think.
The press are all gathered outside Tobi’s house with DI Mercer pops round, it’s not to “roleplay a better relationship with your dead relative” but rather to encourage him to provide a good defense for Nate. She wouldn’t have charged him with that evidence but they did and she wants to Tobi to step up and take care of his boy. She keeps calling Nate a boy and Tobi the man but they’re both adults so Tobi and I don’t understand.
Si goes to the park to meet Miriam, does she believe in the truth? That people need to know the truth? So much for not saying anything inappropriate and unsettling around Miriam, we lead right into a hypothetical question about an incredibly unfortunate youngster in care. At what age do they inform the child of sexual abuse? This segues into asking about his mum following Miriam the day of Kiri’s visit, so now he knows that Alice saw the car.
Miriam never told Kiri the truth about how she was found, so maybe the truth isn’t always best. Miriam is haunted by the loss of Kiri, whom she met right after her son died.
Alice and Jim watch the news of Nate’s arrest, time to go talk to the reporters and pass out pictures of Kiri, saying “remember her” to one and all. She walks, throwing the pictures behind her like confetti as Jim watches and almost cries.
Man I dislike everyone named Warner.
Jim heads upstairs to shave and be questioned for shaving by his son, seriously. He has to explain why he’s shaving his face and I may have been tangentially related to Si’s character. Si doesn’t care about his dad at all, but he does suggest that he killed Kiri.
He has a whole theory as to why and how Jim killed Kiri, he thinks his dad was at home and cleaned up anything that looked like evidence, including the bloody sock in Si’s wastebin.
I should have known it was the one guy with a good alibi who did it.
Si threatens to tell Alice unless his dad comes clean with him and so…Jim does. Kiri was planning to go stay with her dad after all, packing a suitcase and wanting to stop the adoption. His Divorce Baby was making a run for it.
We already know how much of a problem Jim has with anger and lashing out.
Jim gives the worst explanation ever, leaving out the part where he strangled her to death which takes several minutes if TV is to be believed. Jeebus wept.
Oh wait, now we know that Jim let his wife believe their son murdered their almost-daughter and then capitalized on it sexually.
Tobi and Rochelle (Andi Osho) have decided to hire Ade (Nathaniel Martello-White) after all, he’s fighting for his son.
And Jesse is okay, yay! He’s not dying after all, says the dishy vet Paul (Brendan Patricks). She might be in love with him!
Look how adorable she looks there!
Ade has put together a demonstration at the police station, Nate smiles when he hears “I’m Black and I’m Proud!”
Alice drives Si to his new school, will he tell his mum? Nope, just mess with her head a bit more, they’re certainly making a case for boarding schools on this show. Jim sits at home waiting.
We’re out.
What the.
No truth for Kiri, for Nate for Alice to know what she’s dealing with. No nothing but Simon keeping his secret to himself and Miriam still on the hook for gross negligence? So Nate is now finally being advocated for by his father and Miriam has her mother living with her so it all balances out? What the Sam Hill did I just watch?
Some excellent work in this series, which I ultimately found too short but also felt as though I had spent far too long with That Family, you know what I mean? Sarah Lancashire shone as she always does, just brilliant, other standouts were Wunmi Mosaku as DI Mercer and Lucian Msamati as Tobi Akindele. Cheers!
