Guuurl how did I not know this was the season finale of Safe? Do you think I would have watched anything else if I had? I hate it when I do that! Let’s not waste any more time, hitting Safe S1:E08 after the break.

So, unbelievably, we’re only on Day Six since the party, the death of Chris Chahal (Freddie Thorp) and the disappearance of Jenny Delaney (Amy James-Kelly). We’re with lovers Detective Sophie Mason (the awesomesauce Amanda Abbington) and Dr. Tom Delaney (Michael C. Hall from Six Feet Under!!), she’s got some ‘splaining to do.

We ended last episode with the revelation that Sophie was part of the gang of teenagers who accidentally set fire to a classroom and one of themselves, all of them have been trying to make up for it ever since. Tom’s wife Rachel (Katy Carmichael) died last year, but she was one of the gang and so was their neighbour Helen who just died in a fire. One who wasn’t making amends of any type was Rachel’s ex-boyfriend Bobby (Milo Twomey) who mostly lurks around and looks creepy.

Ohhh I misunderstood, it was even worse than one of the teenagers getting burned: 8 children died that night as well. Young Craig Pratchett (Joshua Riley) went back in to save people, that’s when he sustained his injuries and subsequently went to live at Jasmine Hall, where Rachel would visit him.

Tom is not being very understanding, he’s not even as angry about the death of 8 innocent children, it’s that Rachel kept it from him. Jeebus wept.

This was a I Know What You Did Last Summer sitch, Tom! Get over yourself!

Sophie says that’s why they stuck around and gave something back to the community, they wanted to make up for what they did. Except Bobby, he thought they were mad and he farked off.

Hmmmm, Tom thinks that’s why Jenny ran away, Rachel had been trying to tell them something before she died but didn’t get it out. Jenny was going through Rachel’s things after her death, maybe there was something in there.

Through one thing and another: Tom thinks Bobby killed Chris and Helen. I hadn’t put that together, but then I was mostly trying to hang on. I may have checked a box (in pencil) next to Eric Pratchett (Ben Onwukwe) as it was his son that was hurt in the fire, but apparently I’ve got the wrong end of the stick. I also lightly traced over the name “Sophie” but that’s only because she was so careful to erase evidence against her son.

Sophie calls Bobby and asks him to meet her, she’ll bring the tape. Jenny overhears herself being referred to as a “problem.”

We see Jenny learn the truth about her mum, starting with Rache’s diaries, then heading to talk to Helen Crowthorne (Karen Bryson) about the past. When Helen warned her away rudely, Jenny stole the CCTV videotape of them being at the school and took it to Chris’s house to watch.

There’s not much to see, except the timestamp putting them at the scene of the fire, which Chris and Jenny find out after a trip to the library. They manage to put names to the rest of the faces in the videotape, Chris is incensed that Sophie is implicated, she just arrested him for possession like a hypocrite!

Jenny talks him down, but he’s slow to calm. He wants to confront her but Jenny begs him not to.

Now were back at that stupid party, Jenny searching everywhere for Chris and getting nowhere. She was the one who took his Vespa to the train station and went to Heaven by herself to find Bobby.

Jenny decided to ignore her dad’s calls and to talk to Helen instead. It’s amazing, you know, the things that end up defining your life. Rachel and everyone else didn’t mean to kill those children, they didn’t know the decision to mess up a classroom would change every one of them, but it haunted Rachel and everyone that lived until the end.

We get a two day montage of Tom searching everywhere for Jenny while she shared many cuppas with Helen. Jenny didn’t even know Chris was dead until Day Four when she overhead the police asking about her.

Helen susses out fairly quickly who would have killed to keep their secret, she called Bobby right away while Jenny was lurking around the memorial for Chris.

Oh. Bobby did kill Helen after all, my bad. She wanted to go public with their secret and apparently doubling down on murder was preferable to losing his swank club Heaven.

We’re back in the present with Sophie and Tom driving to Bobby’s place, she makes him promise to take care of her kids if she doesn’t make it back. Wuuuut

Nobody’s touching a hair on Sophie’s head!

She drops Tom off a little ways away from the apartment building and heads up alone. Bobby accosts her with a gun immediately then puts it down so they can workshop the problem with Jenny.

Tom is listening to everything over Sophie’s phone as he climbs the stairs, making his way up to Bobby’s apartment which is thankfully not covered in CCTV like the back of his pub.

Sophie stalls by asking Jenny about what she knows while Bobby creeps up with a gun, a quick fight with Tom and Bobby is in control again. He’s reluctant to kill Jenny because she is Rachel’s daughter and doesn’t know what to do, how did they get here?

*northing?*

He chooses to shoot himself, which I saw coming about a mile away. There was no other happy ending for Safe.

Tom tells Sophie to not confess, there’s no point in it now. They can blame it all on Bobby and nobody will be any the wiser, how could it help Sophie’s son Henry (Louis Greatorex) or her daughter Ellen (India Fowler) to know that she was one of many involved?

Sophie gives her evidence to detective Emma Castle (Hannah Arterton) and now we finally find out about Chris? Emma, like me, is struggling with the Bobby Killing Everyone theory, does anyone recognise the pendant found in the swimming pool?

Tom does.

It’s Sophie’s.

Sophie killed Chris! Okay, I was 1/3 right, I’ll take $3.33!

Tom confronts Sophie, she need to tell the truth now.

But she didn’t mean to! She was just trying to keep her kids Safe!

We see how it went down, Chris confronting Sophie when she showed up to check on Henry. He even recorded her confessing to the fire, so she took him down efficiently, mirroring what we saw in the first episode, doing a perp walk on her son. Chris almost got away once, but she got him and held him, doubling down on murder just as Bobby did.

Tom loves Sophie, but he can’t live with this, he can’t be a part of any more lies. He calls the police as she cries and that’s it.

We get an excellent montage of watching Sophie “investigating” the murder of Chris Chahal, that was worth the price of admission, truly. She is brought to a cell as Tom walks alone in the dark behind those safe-seeming gates and we’re out for the last time on Safe.

Wow! Okay, Michael C. Hall was excellent in this series (accent notwithstanding), but the last episode belonged entirely to Amanda Abbington. I think a lesser mystery would have stopped about 20 minutes ago, that was a terrific ending, wooooooo. Thanks for reading along, until next time we meet again on a Harlan Coben collaboration with Red Production Company! Cheers!