So here we are, at the penultimate episode of Paranoid season one and we still really don’t know a whole lot about what’s going on in the Biggest Conspiracy Of All Time (according to the Ghost Detective). Let’s see if chasing Dr. Crowley and his drugs trials gets our intrepid detectives anywhere. Rolling S1:E7 after the break!

Nina (Indira Varma) and Alec (Dino Fetscher) are serving a search warrant on Dr. Crowley (Michael Maloney); what are they looking for exactly?? Nina doesn’t take the time to explain, arresting him on the spot for conspiracy to commit murder.

Henry Appley (William Ash) watches from the bushes, I wonder if he’s started that medication the good doctor gave him for his unpronounceable condition?

A surprisingly lucid Bobby (Robert Glenister) is searching for Lucy (Lesley Sharp), he gets worried when he sees Monica’s parting present to Lucy

As Lucy is virulently anti-drugs due to her past troubles with Dr. Crowley, who sounds like an over-prescriber at the very least.

There are showdowns going on across the water too! Felber (Christiane Paul) and Merian (Dominic Tiefenhaler) are leading the charge with their squad and Nick Waingrow (Danny Huston) is ready to meet it.

Felber has a warrant for all information regarding Reuben Locana’s drugs trials, Nick is too happily compliant for there to be any kind of smoking gun left behind.

Nina interviews Dr. Crowley; that’s a LOT of conferences he’s been invited to, isn’t it? Well, sure, but it’s par the course when you’re developing new drugs, no no, he wasn’t involved in any drugs trials, he interjects quickly.

Nina pushes: what about Mainline? He condescends to her while Alec shouts details about poor dead Jacob Appley in the background. Nina switches tack, showing Crowley photos of various pharmaceutical sales reps from Rustin-Wade. He owns up to the first two sales reps but NOT Nick Waingrow; he denies it, getting more and more agitated. That was a fishing expedition, he shuts down when Alec corrects Nina, it was this other bloke they spoke to about him.

Rustin-Wade has buried the Dusseldorf detectives in paperwork, nothing helpful, of course, so Felber arm-twists a little. Since the drugs trials paperwork is all coded, they’ll just have the police do an announcement asking all the participants to contact them. Talk about adverse publicity. He hands over the names: 743 of them.

Nick warns Felber before she leaves:

There will come a point when she’ll know what he means and with that enigmatic pronouncement, he’s gone.

Bobby finds Lucy in the Quaker church group; she almost took a pill but she didn’t and came there instead. Support groups are key.

He apologizes for blowing up at her on the phone (and for slut-shaming her for things she did as a grown adult 15 years before she met him) and explains about his meltdown. She thinks it sounds like Akithisia, which is when, well: look it up there in the link. It’s essentially exactly what Bobby just went through in a super fast curve.

He argues; he went off the deep end because he heard something upsetting, it’s not all the drugs hopping him up and making his legs feel as though they were “fizzing.”

She takes her leave of him, hey, he said he was sorry. Sorry is a nice gesture, Bobby, but if you find yourself saying it a lot, maybe it’s time to make a change, yeah? Take care.

Nina and Alec are cursing the departing Dr. Crowley out in their own ways: Alec with Shakespeare, Nina with bile and scumbags. They tease Bobby about his meltdown, he defends himself: it was a Jesus full of pills. I too wanted to knock it down! They need to connect Dr. Crowley to Nick Waingrow and the Mainline trials, how will they do it?

Nick’s driving his daughter to school, she seems lovely, shame about her dad. She wants to charge her iPad, but there’s something strange on the end of the charge cord. He looks worried, I look confused (in case you were wondering!).

Monica (Polly Walker) is visiting with Dr. Crowley at her house, how did things start with Lucy, since they were messing about before she and him were? And hey, did you set this up so that they were sleeping together again, since he accidentally bumped into her RIGHT after Angela’s death and her son’s assignment to the case?

Ohhhh she’s in danger now. She felt he was acting in a secretive manner, so she followed him, to watch him make a phone call. “You shouldn’t have followed me, Monica” put shivers right down my back, but she’s still fixated on him possibly sleeping with another woman other than his wife or her, so we don’t find out yet.

Since we next see Nick checking HIS phone for bugs, we can safely assume it was he in contact with Dr. Crowley at 4 am. Time zones suck. He searches the rest of his office, finding several more listening devices.

Nina and Alec are checking hotels during the conference time periods, coming up dry. Michael Niles (Neil Stuke) pops their balloons; they can’t prosecute based on Crowley looking like he swallowed a squirrel whole at the sound of Waingrow’s name, they need more. Nina brings up Crowley’s history of predatory sex, but Alec doesn’t want to give up his mum as being a victim and with just Lucy in the mix officially, Niles understandably pushes for more.

Bobby has come to see Lucy, he meant to tell her that he saw her pictures; that’s what tipped him over the edge. They kiss and make up, but that raises a valid point: how did Bobby end up with those shoved under his door? Nick Waingrow as much as admitted to their planting, and since we know they were in Dr. Crowley’s possession previously, could that be the connection Nina and Alec need between Nick and Crowley?

Nick Waingrow’s brought all his found listening devices to the police, they disavow knowledge. Anything they planted illegally would be useless to them. Felber notes how differently Nick is acting, rash and off the cuff without his lawyers. That’s not like him.

Sorry, I have a wee screencrush on Danny Huston and besides, he’s getting all the best lines so far.

Monica’s telling Alec about Crowley; she sounds so rational, but you can’t really make up for a lifetime of histrionics with one recorded conversation, can you? It does reference him having a second phone, though, so just like in Doctor Foster, if they can find the phone, they’ll know everything.

Nick drops off his kiddo for her lesson (NOBODY TALKS LIKE THAT) and deletes all the scared messages from Crowley off his phone, he’s cracking up too, isn’t he? He’s extremely

Bobby and Lucy are all cuddled up in the grass, reviewing what the pictures could mean; she finally comes clean as to who had the pictures. This might be the link

Alec and Nina are sharing an apple during stakeout, she thanks him for being so understanding about the whole Getting Back Together with my BabyDaddy Who Dumped Me In Spectacular Fashion business. He gently points out that Dennis made quite an abrupt turn, didn’t he? They’re distracted by Henry walking into Dr. Crowley’s house, what’s he up to?

Henry’s wife was suspicious of Dr. Crowley’s prescription, so Henry’s come to bring the pills back. It seems she looked up the doctor’s diagnosis (which was shite) but Dr. Crowley knows just how to play this. It’s about the trust between a doctor and his patient! Henry interrupts: why were the police here then? Ooh, softly, softly doctor, if Henry gets a sniff that you set up his family for murder and public condemnation…

Crowley talks faster and faster, justifying the arrest as a result of a vendetta conducted by Alec, is Henry buying it? He is, wants to talk to the police on Crowley’s behalf, which would not be a good thing for Crowley at ALL.

Nick’s waiting in a dark underpass for his tail, who owns up to following him, but he doesn’t know who hired him.

Nina and Alec follow Crowley off looking for his phone when Alec spies Bobby charging across the lawn. Opportunity lost, hopefully they manage to tell each other about this picture connection when Bobby calms down.

Extraneous scene with Megan Waters (Anjili Mohindra) hitting directly on Alec; he demurs, but hey, maybe one day when he’s over Nina.

Is Anjili Mohindra entirely captivating in person or somefing?

Nina has the gall to suggest that they’re working around Bobby’s moods, I mean. Bobby does have an idea, they need to hit the doctor hard with Jacob Appley and go from there.

Nick’s shouting at the higher-ups at Rustin-Wade; who came after him?? He pulls a bottle of pills from his pocket. He kept some from That Trial as insurance, they better keep him safe. Out he stalks, to find Felber and Merian waiting to talk to him. They have narrowed their period of interest down to two months during which no trials were performed by Reuben. What happened in May and June? Information on non-published trials gets destroyed and has she heard that at the end of a long road, there’s a mirror? Nope!

Lucy is meeting Dr. Crowley at the park, she knows he gave her pictures to a man in Germany. She suggest he give himself up before the guilt gets to him: she’ll forgive him! He snaps (he’s under quite a lot of pressure), he didn’t know what was going to happen to Jacob! He didn’t know, they wouldn’t tell him! Lucy looks devastated.

I hope they got THAT on tape.

Felber and Merian have tracked down some of the people that left the trials at the same time as Angela Benton; two went back to England. They are Jeremy Pemberley and Catelyn Graece, Nina and Alec will check them out. Felber asks after Bobby, they love him!

Dennis (Jason Done) has surprised her at work with an engagement ring, awww. But they haven’t even discussed the basics: she wants to be a stay at home mom (GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!) and he expects her to go back to work. Has this never come up? Also, no way would Nina be content staying at home, she gets antsy when bored. She gives him back the ring, she doesn’t think he likes her very much. He calls her crazy, she’s deep into it. He really has nothing but contempt for her; masquerading as concern for her wellbeing. She breaks it off, good job lady!

Felber and Merian are going through the drugs trials information, she’s staring at a picture of a man and starting to think that Waingrow was right: maybe she doesn’t want to know what happened. Well I still do, so chop chop, Linda

Bobby, Nina and Alec are trying to interview Henry, but he’s twitchy and still believes in Dr. Crowley, lashing out at Alec for persecuting the psychiatrist.

Nina comforts Alec in the hallway, never mind that sodding Dr. Crowley, everyone knows that’s shite. And she and Dennis are split because he thinks she’s crazy. Does he think she’s crazy? Nah. Anyway, she doesn’t want to be with someone who thinks she’s crazy. It takes him a second

Megan Computer-Repeater tells them excitedly that Catelyn Graece lives in Doncaster, Nina’s on the case while Megan glowers at Alec for choosing Nina AGAIN.

Henry’s scoping out Dr. Crowley now, seeing where he hides his second phone in a tree. He goes to get the phone while someone closes in on him; I don’t think I follow. Henry has the phone (locked, natch), but I have no idea where the other person came from OR went.

Bobby’s not dealing; he’s stuck in the bathroom trying to decide whether to take his prescribed meds or not. He throws them in the garbage but we’ll see.

Nina tracks down Catelyn Graece (Rebecca Callard – hey! I just met her on Ordinary Lies!) in a swimming pool giving lessons, her affect is strangely stilted. Catelyn goes to change into street clothes and gives Nina the slip and we have our first daylight footrace of the season! Catelyn hurts her leg climbing a fence and Nina catches up.

Catelyn cries. She thought… she thought if she paid enough they’d never come after her, she’d be okay. She was a nurse during the drugs trials, she gave everyone the meds, in their hands, their mouths. They couldn’t have known what would happen. There was a coverup, of course, nobody knew that the man driving the school bus full of children was under their medical care. He drove the kids off a cliff.

Dr. Crowly wakes up in the middle of the night to find Henry sitting and watching him, get out of bed and get your clothes on. He found your phone, Doctor.

Felber is remembering it all now, she was on the scene of that bus crash with all the dead and injured children.

There’s a party in Dr. Crowley’s house tonight, honestly. Henry’s come and grabbed him, the stranger lurking in the garden is wandering around and now Bobby’s walked in. Is Bobby in danger again? And we’re oot.

So. We have a massive conglomerate trying to cover up the fact that their medication may have been responsible for a terrible tragedy involving dead schoolchildren. They’ve enlisted a local psychiatrist as their boots on the ground and if they hadn’t have tried to get fancy, they may have even gotten away with it. Using Jacob Appley as a sacrificial scapegoat didn’t really work for anyone, did it? Let alone using a doctor who was so clearly compromised in his own practice. Who’s the second stalker in Dr. Crowley’s home? He must be from Rustin-Wade, but it looks very much as though they are setting up Crowley as a red herring, so I’m not sure. Until next time!