Welcome back to the spooky Requiem, you best believe I am recapping this in the daylight, yes I am! I am mostly hoping to get a glimpse of Brendan Coyle, but am also enjoying Claire Rushbrook being on my screen again. Rolling S1:E02 The Blue Room after the break.
We open back in the past, which we know because Matilda’s mum Janice (Joanna Scanlan) is still alive, talking about a fight between Matilda (Lydia Wilson) and another girl during a Family Tree project.
Last episode, Janice slit her own throat after acting really weird, all in front of Tilly (Matilda’s nickname).
Janice heads out to deal with young Matilda (BELLA RAMSEY! Miss Lyanna Mormont from Game of Thrones! Also from The Worst Witch – we’re fans!) who’s she’s told a million times not to chew her nails! And why spit at a girl? She called Tilda a liar for putting a lot of fanciful things on her Family Tree: her dad was a soldier fighting terrorists. Janice told Tilda all those things when she was little and never corrected her. Janice now explains that Tilda’s dad was a random club pickup who’s last name Janice never knew. That’s rather a lot to lay on a kid without preamble, Janice.
Tilly sits, remembering, until she’s interrupted by Hal Fine (Joel Fry – who I just found out is in the second series of Ordinary Lies that I’m currently recapping!) shouting up that the police are here. Looks like her mum’s spirit is there too.
Oh it’s Clare Calbraith from Home Fires as policeperson PC Graves! Woot! She’s not believing ANYTHING Tilly or Hal are telling her, there’s no evidence that Carys Howell was held here or that Tilly herself was even here.
PC Graves should have seen Tilly fling open that trapdoor after finding it hidden under a table, that was very exciting for Nick Dean (James Frencheville) and Hal!
I’m really surprised nobody is helping Tilly, she actually thinks she IS Carys Howell and you’d think cops would be all over that, even in Pennywhatsit.
Tilly rushing around knocking over shelves and rapping on walls to find a secret passageway like a modern Nancy Drew doesn’t help her cause.
Nick follows Graves up to her car, is she certain his uncle fell off the roof and wasn’t pushed? He won’t sit on it if old Euan was kidnapping children. Graves is highly skeptical.
Out for a smoke, Tilly sees someone watching her from afar and runs toward them shouting “WHO’S THERE!!??” as I also always greet passersby, a flock of exactly five birds jumping out at once (as they tend to do when they’re sleeping and someone starts shouting “WHO’S THERE???” at passersby nearby) startles her terribly.
She asks Hal if she’s going crazy? Would he tell her if she was? FriendCuddles on the lawn.
Graves reviews the paperwork on Dean’s death, there were weird burns on his face. A junior member interrupts with another call, this time next door to the Dean place where someone is having a panic attack. Did someone shout WHO’S THERE??!!
Hal asks Tilly why she didn’t tell the police about being Carys, it’s because she doesn’t want to betray her mum, who she considers to be Janice. Plus she would sound crazy, as though there was a secret passageway you could find by rapping on walls and pushing over shelves.
There really isn’t anyone to ask about Tilly’s early childhood, Janice didn’t have any family or close friends, all the family pics were conveniently lost in transit. It sounds very suspicious when you lump it all together like that.
Oh my bad, the neighbour had a LAMB attack, not panic attack. Two sheep have been attacked, but not the way you would expect, someone hacked off a leg! A leg! Honestly, that’s not a wild dog, clearly, but who would butcher a live animal out in a field?
Please stop showing me the three-legged lamb with pink wool.
Graves wants to know why the neighbour didn’t see the lamb last night, but it was very cloudy. LIKE IT WAS LAST MONDAY!
I dunno why that was important, but it seemed to bring the hair right up the Graves’ back.
*sinister flute music*
Tilly and Hal head back to the pub, the barmaid is noticeably less friendly than yesterday when Tilly asks if she knows where the Howell dad lives. Trudy (Sian Reese-Williams) isn’t falling for the old “knew my mum” story since everyone in town heard about the young couple annoying Rose Morgan (Claire Rushbrook) at the funeral yesterday.
Sylvia Walsh (Tara Fitzgerald from Game of Thrones!) calls them over from the corner: this is a small town and nobody is going to help you outsiders. She’s a fan of their music! She does have news about Sean Howell, but has been gone from Punnyleneth? Punnyswelthy? since six months after his daughter disappeared. She scribbles some info on a card and then asks how she likes being “back” in Pennywhathjsdbyhvc which freaks Matilda out. Oh just chitchat. An older woman stares hard at Sylvia.
Tilly goes to see Rose, who grudgingly lets her in but doesn’t understand anything about the pictures Janice took, except to call her a vulture like the others that came around after Carys disappearance. Rose rushes Tilly out but keeps the photos of herself. Her young son Davey (Brochan Evans) keeps popping up, he’ll be late for practice!
AHH and Brendan Coyle is finally speaking!
Stephen Kendrick (Brendan Coyle) is dining with PC Graves and holding forth on his theories of why Tilly is here. Some kind of vendetta against the Deans, and I gather he was part of the group looking for Carys back in the day.
You know, she could just do a DNA test and we’d all be done, right? Surely they have post in Pullinghambythesea?
He’s looking good, yes? Holding up well.
Tilly calls neighbour Kath (Sonia Ritter), can she dig out her birth certificate for her? I’m sure there’s a fax in Paddingtonbear.
Tilly stands in the middle of the road, feeling as though someone is watching her and she’s quite right, there are at least three of us yelling at her to get off the road.
Tilly and Hal go to where Carys was last seen, she thinks Rose lied to her about the photos but she doesn’t know in what way or why.
The clouds blow in so Tilly heads into the darkest part of the woods, alone, she needs to clear her head.
Rose was quite disturbed by Tilly’s second visit, we find her on the edge of a very high cliff looking cold. Get down, ye daft woman!
Tilly watches her maybe-brother play footy, that’s not odd whatsoever.
Oh hm PC Graves looks adorable with her hair down but Eddie (Dyfan Dwyfor) doesn’t look very happy to see her at the pub and neither does Trudy. He watched Euan Dean jump to his death, what time was that, exactly? It’s Trudy that answers, she seems quite protective.
Graves waits until Trudy moves on to ask about the timing, Eddie told her he saw Euan at 9 pm, but no way would he have been able to see anyone around. I mean, we saw it, it was broad daylight. Why did he lie?
Stephen comes round the Morgan residence to talk to Aron (Richard Harrington) about some “secret man’s business”.
Tilly comes back to the house to touch literally everything and stare at paintings until her agent calls, she’s got to do something about her New York gig. Tilly’s mum’s spirit nags her to play music again before she forgets how.
Showering, Tilly hears creepy noises and stops so she can hear really creepy noises and have her shower curtain pulled roughly in the scariest way possible.
Nick and Hal find a dripping Tilly fixated on a locked door, there’s something in there! They all go outside where she chases the shadow into the woods, shouting “HEY YOU!!”
They stop short at a weird rock, she’s just seen this!
Rose stares out the window and then asks Aron what Stephen wanted? Why are they all protecting Rose? She’s more than grown. Plus, isn’t this all about her? Not Aron Come Lately?
The next day they have a locksmith round the big house, what’s in that locked room? Nada. Well. One blocked up fireplace which has been making the moaning noise. More flashbacks for Tilly.
Hal and Tilly aren’t getting along, he’s starting to think she might actually be mad. He’s off to spend the night at the pub.
Tilly walks through the woods and comes across bits of mirror? Hung on the branches?
Nick’s trying to get money again, he needs to deal with his aunt Meredith (Jane Thorne) who is deaf and also the woman glaring at Sylvia Walsh in the pub! She’s not giving Nick and money, she’s the trustee so screw him. Basically that, but in sign language.
Tilly walks in and out again, Meredith stops her and asks her what questions she wants to ask. Meredith was there when Carys went missing, was it Euan? Meredith doesn’t answer that directly, saying only that her brother wasn’t bad, just easily led. She wants to know why Tilly is here and when Tilly asks if she knows who she really is, Meredith dismisses Tilly with a wave. Go home, silly girl, before you ruin everything even more!
Tilly listens, packs up her things and goes back to London to put her mum’s things in order. Just kidding, she creeps over to her brother in the schoolyard so she can sit with him and note that he bites his fingernails just as she did!
Aron spots them and is furious, dragging Davey off by the arm while Tilly shouts.
She goes back to the big house to drag Nick off to the bedroom. That seemed like an abrupt segue but we know she likes her couplings uncomplicated.
Aron tells Rose what happened, she felt that was going to happen when she saw her! Oh and some shouting and Aron gets abusive and that’s the problem with putting women on a Must Be Protected pedestal. Once they fall off, so do the hopes and thus builds the anger.
Tilly is happily sated post coital, she hasn’t shagged a stranger in eons! Like a week or so, now she’s inspired to play her cello while Nick cooks them a snackie by candlelight.
Their happy time is interrupted by a stranger throwing a dead bird at the glass, that’s not on, is it??
Tilly follows out into the woods, lots of scary normal and scary abnormal noises. She pushes further this time, there’s a locket hanging off a tree too. It’s the other half of the one she’s wearing.
A hooded figure comes shows himself, he got the locket when he bought it: half for her, half for him. This is Sean Howell (Sam Hazeldine) but Tilly’s shouting friends drives him to hide deeper in the woods.
The power is on suddenly at the old house, a tape reel plays in the basement and it’s oh so gross. A young Carys pleading to leave but being stopped by an elderly male voice insisting she stay and have “fun.”Creeepy.
Wait: how long has the power been out? I keep rolling back but I can’t find the spot where it happened!
Okay, so. Sean recognises Carys as his daughter and has been trying to entice her into the woods by creepily watching her, pulling on her shower curtain and FLINGING A DEAD BIRD? And I thought Tilly was going to keep the whole I’m Carys thing to herself, what’s the shouting it for the whole town to hear in the schoolyard?
And Hal? Staying at the pub? I figure that’s so Tilly can bounce on Nick but the timing was weird.
Until next time, when we go back to Pennyfarthingbythesea! Cheers!
