Hi there, I am TalksTooMuch (but you can call me TTM!) and I will be recapping Requiem for your reading pleasure. This was recommended by EB on Twitter, who has never steered me wrong, AND stars one of my favourite actors: Brendan Coyle. I’m all in, rolling the first episode after the break!
We open with an elderly (but still foxy) man walking across a field towards a beautiful castle/house, he enters to odd noises and an open trapdoor, leading him to smash all the mirrors in the house. That will take one thousand years, but before he can finish one of the mirrors does something to his head and we see him on the roof.
That was Ewen Dean (Nick Hobbs) and someone we don’t know yet watches him jump to his death.
Creeeeeeepy credits
And then we’re in the totally normal present with Matilda Gray (Lydia Wilson) being woken up by her mum Janice (Joanna Scanlon) who she was supposed to meet. Oh and there’s a dude in Matilda’s kitchen, which seems to confuse her greatly.
Tilda is getting ready for a show, her mum is a nervous wreck! Controversy is good for notice, which is something I’ve never mastered. They’re going to have lunch at the Empress of India the following day, of course we probably won’t have that.
Tilda complains about her one night stand making breakfast (touched all her stuff!) and then starts to play her cello with fellow musician Hal Fine (Joel Fry). They’re both ADORABLE.
WELL HELLO, look at this then!
When was the last time you saw a woman’s shape in the almost-altogether that didn’t look like Tilda’s onscreen? I’ll tell you, it was the first episode of This is Us and I LOVED IT.
Anyway, sorry, sorry, Janice has been listening to her daughter’s music but the CD case just spontaneously broke into pieces and weird noises are raging around her home thanks to her wonky CD player.
Tilda has somefing to tell her mum, she’s going to New York for a year and she’s going to tell her right after the concert.
Have you seen The Strain? It was a Guillermo del Toro’s foray into the teevee and had some super unfortunate worms that crawled into eyeballs. That is the exact same noise all mirrors on this show make, worms crawling into eyeballs.
Now this is odd, Tilda is smoking and preparing for her big gig outside when her mum shows up, makeup askew with a bunch of roses. She apologizes (for…?) then walks away quickly so Tilda will follow.
Tilda follows and follows in her tinfoil dress sans bra, until she’s underground in a very dark parking garage. More creepy worm noises then Janice pulls out a knife and slits her own throat.
WHAT?
Back home, Tilda washes and washes and washes then falls on Hal to cry her heart out.
Police detective DI Alice Benton (Nimmi Harasgama) is at the flat in the morning, Janice has been on anti-depressants for persistent anxiety but other than that no drugs or alcohol were in her system. Tilda cracks a bit at that, Janice slit her own throat because she was anxious?
Tilda wants to know how her mum knew she would be at that stage door, how did she? She goes back and senses a child near her, then dreams of climbing through a dark tunnel to find the child behind a door.
Er
Matilda wakes up with another strange guy in her bed, she doesn’t let this one down easily, just shouting at him to go.
Girl has game, I’ll give her that!
She heads to her mum’s home in the morning, her music comes on suddenly and there are all these mirrors about…She digs into a box on her mum’s bed, it has a bunch of newspaper clippings about a missing girl named Carys Howell and a VHS tape marked “Carys.” There are a few photographs that look to be from surveillance, let’s watch the tape because that looks like the little girl Tilda was imagining.
Carys Howell (Emmie Thompson) was 4 when she disappeared from a park, was Janice Carys’ mum too? Did she take those photographs? The police don’t want to know about it, they don’t think it’s relevant.
Tilda buries her mom, taking a second to pull aside the neckscarf and check out the neck wound? What the? Also, c’mon funeral director, glue that shut! Honestly
Hal doesn’t think Janice or the Howell mum in the surveillance photos have anything to do with Janice’s suicide, and he doesn’t want to sound mercenary but he’s worried about their gigs.
Tilda does not care about their gigs.
It’s that Janice left the box on her bed when she left, how can it not mean anything? Hal suggests they head out to Penniwirth? Pennewhatsit? In the morning, right after she kicks out her latest conquest.
It looks like a lovely drive with Hal, who is adorable and seems like a great friend.
They arrive in Penarth (?? only one Google suggested that seemed close to whatever they’re saying) and track down Rose Howell/Now Morgan (Claire Rushbrook hai!! From Home Fires and Kiri!) via the town barmaid. Tilly said her mum and Rose were super close, Hal is impressed with her bald-faced lying ability!
They track Rose down to the Dean funeral
Who is not very friendly, especially after Tilly gives her name. She knows it’s about her daughter, now we’ve got her husband Aron Morgan (Richard Harrington) in the mix shouting and pushing Hal to the ground while up the hill a frustrated Nick Dean (James Frencheville) IS TRYING TO BURY HIS UNCLE, FANKS!
I am also frustrated, we saw Stephen Kendrick (Brendan Coyle!! From Spotless and Downtown Abbey!) but no talking yet. Booooo
Tilly and Hal regroup in the pub, Nick wanders over to chat with Tilly while Stephen stares from the bar. Nick asks for a ride, he’s going to the Dean mansion so YEAH! That’s what all Janice’s surveillance pictures are of!
The barmaid told them there was nowhere to stay in town, 10 bucks say they spend the night here.
Tilly is down for a sleepover, her mum kept a picture of the house so she wants to poke around.
What a beautiful old house, show me yer kitchen! I bet there’s an Aga stuck around somewhere!
Nick learns all he can from the solicitor, he’s been gifted his uncle’s entire estate but his Aunt Meredith has to sign off on giving him the cash he’s so clearly interested in.
Tilly checks out the glassless mirrors in her posh room, cutting herself on an errant bit left behind. It’s like she’s fed it blood!
Aron feels terrible that Rose was exposed to the strife at the funeral, it’s his job to block all that.
His job?
And hey, why did she go down there to that woman anyway? Because she was staring! Rose tears up the program from Ewan Dean’s funeral, crying.
Nick and Tilly compare notes about their relatives dying after no signs, she shares her dream about the dark tunnel and asks if they believe the dead can communicate.
Dishy Nick who grinned at Tilly earlier in the day totally believes, sure.
*eye worm noises*
Tilly has the dream again, course, will she look for the tunnel? A loud banging noise draws them all downstairs and suddenly Tilly knows where to look, she’s been here before!
She moves unerringly to the trapdoor that was the source of Ewan’s great distress and steps down into the darkness.
There’s a massive room under the house, yay Tilly finds a light! There’s even a tape recorder / playback machine, which seems to be the source of the creepy noise, who’s been running that?
Tilly finds a black mirror and peering into it sees…her dream? She was in her dream, is she Carys? She thinks she is!
In fact, she’s pretty sure.
Doorknobs rattle and we’re oot.
Well. I’ll be honest, it’s not my usual cuppa. I do like a bit of suspense, but more of the River type of spooky than the paranormal. Is it weird that a child abduction case is more interesting to me than the ghost of a girl come back to haunt her captors? In this case, however, we’ve got all kinds of alive people, including the abducted girl, yay!
If the story isn’t Becoz Ghosts, what do you think it is? Were Ewan and Janice driven to kill themselves out of guilt? Did they conspire to steal Carys/Tilda from her mum Rose? What could have been the trigger for their out-of-nowhere suicidal acts? And if it IS Becoz Ghosts, what’s the deal with the mirrors?
The promo for next week looked awfully…jumpy, if you know what I mean, so I will give it another episode to see how things shake out. Okay, you know it’s so I can get the shape of Brendan Coyle’s role! I have never seen Downtown Abbey, but I thought he was magnificent in Spotless, the one-season series from Canal +.
Until then! Cheers
