Hi guys, welcome back to Paranoid! Hmm, can you really welcome someone back to Paranoia? Sure! Let’s roll S1:E6 after the break, we’re almost at the end of this first season, so we’ll probably start figuring stuff out really soon! Like, probably

So last time I was entertaining conspiracy theories in my own head about the culpability of Dr. Fairweather (Kevin Doyle) in the attacks on police and the hoodieman, let’s see if any of that comes to fruition, or if I was just being

We found out last time that Reuben Locana was a big drugs wholesaler, probably with the help and permission of Nick Waingrow (Danny Huston) and Marquita Olivo (Nikol Kollars) from Rustin-Wade pharmaceuticals. Dr. Fairweather murdered his wife and handed over the papers from Dr. Benton.

We open with those pages; the murdered Dr. Angela Benton was horribly afraid but felt she had to do the moral thing: Reuben used to talk while drunk about being scared of something called Mainline.

Nina (Indira Varma) and Alec (Dino Fetscher) Skype with Bobby (Robert Glenister) in Dusseldorf; he’ll have to go back to Rustin-Wade to ask more questions. However, since he went rogue and spied all over the place last time, that might be a tetch harder than the Londoners can be expected to understand. Felber (Christiane Paul) is having to answer for all the cash her hubs found in her freezer; there was a tip-off and it was a clear attempt to warn her off. Walti (Dominik Tiefenhaler) is worried, Bobby calls it war.

The hoodieman is dead; the fast dump in the freezer proving fatal for the hired killer that was ex-Austrian Secret Service. They’re investigating his background and Nina’s pondering his hire rates, but I want to know how he knew to imitate the lone psychopathic schizophrenic in the area.

Dr. Crowley, any clue? Get back to me

One of Felber’s boys hid the money by the garbage bins before the police got there, that seems slightly inadvisable? As does asking the boys to lie for her and not tell anyone about the money. Children lie often but poorly, you can’t rely on it.

Nina’s reviewing the CCTV footage and now it’s time for Alec to be unprofessional and have his mind off the job: yay equality! How are things with Dennis? You know, Nina’s previous boyfriend before Alec that knocked her up (unknowingly) before dumping her cruelly without reason: that guy. Back to the tapes, they’ve tracked down the shooter from the hospital and they connect him to Dr. Crowley (Michael Maloney), shown on tape looking shifty AF.

Felber and Bobby have placed the found money on Nick Waingrow’s car; to what end? To shake him up?

Felber and Bobby have Marquita in for questioning; they ask her to read from Angela Benton’s last pages and what is Mainline anyway? She wants a lawyer!

Bobby and Lucy (Lesley Sharp) are finally connecting by phone again; she wants to tell him about her past and why she cut things off so abruptly the last time they talked. She wants to explain in person, though, but Bobby hasn’t been consistent in taking his anti-anxiety meds and he pushes her: he needs to know now. There are some pictures taken of her fifteen years previously where she was naked and in sexual positions with men, several men. Is that it? I thought there was something really awful and illegal, but that seems manageable, doesn’t it, Bobby? Bobby?

I thought his head was going to come off! He thinks she invited him into her house because he’s nothing but a piece of meat to her! I mean.

Alec and Nina have brought in Dr. Crowley, he’s extraordinarily slick and it seems as though nothing is even registering until they ask about Mainline. He hands over his phone with no problem (meaning it doesn’t have anything useful onnit) and he and Marquita play dumb in parallel interviews. The point about Jacob Appley being mimicked is a hard one to shake.

Outside the police station, Dr. Crowley runs into Henry Appley (William Ash), why are they still asking about Jacob? I dunno, counters the doctor: what are you here for? Oh and thank you for all the care you gave my brother, says Henry, Jacob loved the doctor. Dr. Crowley makes me snort when he answers

I mean, really?? Hahahahaha. He means that people attach! It’s natural.

Nick Waingrow has brought the found money and several lawyers to the police station; sure, they’ll do a full forensic analysis! Perhaps while he’s here they could ask him some questions…

Blah blah Reuben, Bobby’s not even listening to the interview, he’s just vibrating in the corner. Nina and Alec ask Henry about the hoodieman, but he doesn’t know anything. He’s still an outcast in the community, but it’s not about that now: someone who knew Jacob gave that information to the hoodieman.

Monica Wayfield (Polly Walker) has come to see Lucy; she wants to confess to her affair with Dr. Crowley. She thought she had seduced her psychiatrist for attention, but the news that Lucy had come first has brought her up short. Perhaps it was Dr. Crowley who was topping from the bottom after all. Monica tries to face Lucy down with drugs and “it was just sex” but we know better than that, don’t we? Lucy doesn’t so much as touch the meds, wrapping them in Kleenex before dropping them in the garbage.

Bobby has gone right off the rails, brushing off the Dusseldorf detectives to follow Nick on the bus (LIKE THE EXTERNAL AFFAIRS MANAGER OF A MASSIVE MULTI-NATIONAL COMPANY TAKES THE BUS) which makes me wonder if he’s being herded. I’m quite concerned that Bobby’s popping rather too many of those pills, he’s a sweaty mess and loses Nick as soon as he’s spotted. Honestly.

Bobby returns to his hotel, dejected until he spots Nick sitting at the bar with two martinis.

Bobby berates Nick for taking the piss out of a cop following him…and…isn’t it the cop’s job to not get noticed following someone? Like, really? Nick gently suggests that Bobby might not be quite up to things right now…he sleeps well at night, does Bobby? Bobby throws Mainline in his face to have his personal life thrown right back. Bobby’s been single for 12 years and while that sounds like an aberration to Nick, it sounds sort of heavenly, really.

Megan (Anjili Mohinda) and Alec are finally having a date! I bet Nina will totally take this not personally at all. It’s still fairly awkward between those two

Lucy’s come to pay her respects at Jacob’s funeral, I kind of ALSO wish the police hadn’t told Henry they suspect someone local in informing on Jacob and leading to his death, it’s making him

Lucy hopes that isn’t the case, she loves the town. She moves over to tell Nina of her conversation with Monica, she thinks the elder Wayfield knows something about the creepy doctor. Nina asks about Bobby, nobody’s heard from him. Lucy doesn’t know anything, of course.

I am having a hard time believing that Bobby is that freaked out about a bunch of pictures; who DOESN’T have dirty pictures from one particularly photogenic time period? Don’t answer that; purely rhetorical and I find it’s the kind of thing people love to soapbox about. It comes down to slutshaming and I will not have it.

They’re searching Reuben’s place for references to Mainline; wow, the late drugs wholesaler had even more computers than I do! Four laptops, 3 iPads and 2 Macs; one laptop solely for porn. That’s just good compartmentalization!

Felber lectures Bobby about his pills; he seems much more stressed out the more pills he takes. She wants him to go home, she doesn’t want to work with him while he’s vibrating sweatily in the corner. He blames it on the bad news and now I must rant fully.

How can something your almost-girlfriend did 15 years before she met you be bad news for YOU? Honestly; she wasn’t sacrificing animals to the gods of war by the light of a gibbous moon, she was partaking in consensual sexual activities with other consenting adults. Get.over.it

It does seem as though we’ve got a walking case study re: psychotropic drugs in Bobby right now.

Monica’s been shopping while high again, oh to have those kind of funds at my disposal. Even the sequins aren’t cheering her up, though.

Henry’s missing his brother and feeling that phantom brother as limb pain, which Dr. Crowley diagnoses as disinhibited social engagement disorder and I’m not looking that up, it sound like straight up shite. Well the disorder might be real, but what Henry’s struggling with is that someone he knows gave out personal information about his brother and it led to his death. That’s a real thing, not easily soothed by over-medicating. However

Nina’s come to see Monica, who’s standing on her roof in her new sparklies. She offers to come in and talk instead of calling the police, Monica takes it. This isn’t the first time, either, and most likely not the last.Alec found her up there one time, when he was 17 and that explains a lot.

Before leaving, Nina asks about Dr. Crowley and we find out that the creepy doctor has another phone (JUST LIKE ON RIVER!). Dr. Crowley told her she was delusional, but Monica checked: he would go in and talk on the phone at 4 am, which means he’s probably talking to someone in another time zone.

Walti and Felber have tracked an expert at the university to translate all the medical jargon; let’s see what translates out!

Meanwhile, Alec goes barging into Nina’s house to find dad-to-be Dennis (Jason Done) LIVING there; he’s found the connection between Dr. Crowley and Reuben Locana! There are lavish conferences put on by Big Pharma and Dr. Crowley has been attending them for more than a decade.

Nina and Alec are distracted by Dennis’s unexpected solicitousness, what’s up with him?? Has he been reading her diary?

Bobby’s staked out in front of Rustin-Wade, and he he doesn’t want to know from Linda Felber right now, fanks. Oh boy, he’s gone lone wolf in a jurisdiction that doesn’t recognise his authority, this will not end well. Felber and Walti have cracked it! It’s drug trials!

Bobby’s gotten a present anyway, it’s the pictures of Lucy in various stages of undress; she looks great! High fives all around. He does not appreciate.

Lucy herself is having a hard time staying present in her Quaker meeting, she absconds and we’re back with a vibrating sweaty Bobby in the Rustin-Wade lobby praying to the Big Pharma Jesus while Nick Waingrow watches.

Felber watches the police drive him away as Lucy retrieves Monica’s drugs from the trash; will she partake? And we’re out.

So. It seems the good doctor is innit up to his creepy eyeballs; but what is the nature of the drug that is causing so many problems? It’s got a touch of The Ring about it, let’s see where the path lies. Until next time!