This is the penultimate episode of The Five, part one of a two part finale that aired Friday. I know I just posted E8 yesterday, I wanna know what happens!! Let’s roll!

We left the gang in a storage locker last time; just having found tapes marking Jesse as one of Jakob Marosi’s kills, although I wasn’t sure if there were all three tapes (Acts I, II, and III). He’s been being enabled by Angela Clark and her family, I’m sure we’re going to find out why right skippy!

We open at a school playground, lots of slow-mo as a younger Jakob Marosi hunts. It’s different now, a lone man lurking near a playground watching children is ALWAYS viewed with suspicion, fairly or otherwise. I like to make eye contact and say hi, I’ve yet to have seen a guy hanging around playgrounds that didn’t have a legitimate reason for being there, just like women hanging around! Go figure. But I still like to make eye contact and say hi

Danny is watching the tapes Marosi made of his victims; that’s a thankless terrifying fcuking job. Please don’t show us any of that. Thank you. I understand why Danny is going through all these, theoretically, but could we maybe skip right to Jesse? My head is REALLY good at filling in blanks, unfortunately, especially when it comes to kiddos getting hurt. We develop that imagination when we give birth, get it with the stretchmarks and loss of pelvic floor control.

Danny is taking some air up on the roof; he’s only got one left and that’s Jesse’s tapes. Ally asks if he wants some company? And he does, although she tends to be a little…un-cop-like, so I hope she pulls through okay.

And there’s Jesse on the screen in the Act I tape. So. Does that mean that someone is screwing with them? Of course it does. Now hold on, Marosi thought he killed MARK Wells, does that matter for tape labeling? They put in the Act II “Pain” tape: it’s blank, giving them hope. Onto Act III: “Kill”, also blank. And that was why we had to watch Danny watch parts of the first 4 kiddos being hurt and murdered; so we knew not all the tapes were blank.

They’re back in with Marosi now, throwing the tapes up at him. He didn’t kill Jesse, and they know it for sure, ha! Side note: Ally does not sound sure; she sounds like she’s reaching. Jakob says he will tell them who else was there, but it will cost them. He wants to see the tape of Jesse again. Ally wants to do it, but Danny refuses. Just then, his sister Sarah texts urgently, something to do with their dad, maybe?

Jakob watches Jesse, calling him The One That Got Away, Jesse would have been the next target. Just when Marosi was making his move, someone pulled up, someone he knew, and Jesse was out of his reach. Who was that person? His father.

Danny and Ally speed off to see Alan at Bistro Noir, they need him to come in for questioning about Jesse’s disappearance. Alan doesn’t understand at first, but then it sinks in: they’re arresting him on this new information from Marosi. Well, no, they don’t want to arrest him, as such, just talk to him and that goes about as well as you would expect. He will not go in without being arrested, shouting at the top of his lungs in his somewhat busy restaurant and holding his arms behind his back. Danny has no choice but to arrest Alan and bring him in like that. Oof.

Now: Marosi has been leading them down the garden path the whole time, are they REALLY going to take Alan in on the basis of his word alone?

At the station, Alan is fingerprinted and his DNA is taken and one of these days, we’re gonna get a match to Jesse’s!

Sarah is Skyping with her daughter and I wish to all that is holy she’d snap out of thinking she’s all right and get some help, she’s like a ghost, a wisp of a person, half lucid and slow speaking. She’s so VAGUE.

Alan is being interviewed with Not Mark as his solicitor, he has no alibi or corroboration for his whereabouts when Jesse disappeared. Julie had gone to the shops with a friend, and while he wanted Jesse to stay home and not go with Mark (good call, that), he just puttered and did yard work, never leaving his garden.

Alan’s having a breakdown; why would he kill his child? What would be the motive? He calls himself an unexceptional man, the only thing that sticks out about him is that his son was abducted and he’s so worried about the suspicion again. This scene felt to me like the one with the man in the wheelchair in A Clockwork Orange when he realises who Malcolm McDowell is / was.

They release Alan, to find Mark waiting for him trying to figure out what’s going on. Alan throws the “I never should have left Jesse with you” at him for good measure and he’s gone. And honestly, I know things were different back then, but that was a bad call all around.

Mark shouts at Danny, why didn’t he call Mark?? And bringing his dad in on the word of Jakob Marosi?? Danny calms him down by telling him about the tapes, that they indicate Jesse may be still alive, and he’s trying to find him for Mark.

Sarah rings, she can’t handle this: Ray is naked and erect and ain’t nobody need to see their aged dad like that. On the way home, Ray sort of apologizes and then tries to run them off the road, prompting Danny to yell that Sarah doesn’t want him! Ray looks straight at the side of his head and says “I don’t want YOU” very slowly and deliberately and I felt that from HERE. “Too bad. I’m all you’ve got” answers Danny.

Slade is all over Pru at the shelter (has she quit her other job, then? At the private clinic, which they’ve made to symbolise affluence and greed and Not Pru?), has she told Mark she luuurrrvvvves him yet? No, and does he think she should do it like in the movies? Cuz his life is like the movies, isn’t it?

Jennifer arrives home to see Ray there and you can see allllll the life be sucked right out of her in that moment. She won’t do this, she can’t, and surely Danny must see that it’s time to call a home now? She walks away.

Ken calls Danny; he’s done some cross-matching and found out that Alan’s DNA does not match up with Jesse’s: meaning Alan is not Jesse’s dad. Extremely professional Danny immediately tells Mark, who asks if HE’S Alan’s son, and that’s not answerable without a DNA test, so let’s get that done. Orrrr Danny wants to talk to Julie; which makes sense. Unless Jesse was adopted or Julie was a practitioner of Free Love 35 year late, she probably has a good idea with regards to who IS Jesse’s father.

Julie is pretty straightforward, the father of Jesse is Frank, Frank Lipton who Mark used to ride to school with, along with his two little girls that were killed in a car crash. That’s the graves that Danny used to visit when he was upset, in fact, the day Danny disappeared, that’s where he was.

Frank didn’t die in the car crash, though, but he did move out of town a year or two after Jesse’s disappearance. She calls it nothing, compassion that spilled over, and sure. Then we have a talk about what makes a dad and that conversation exhausts me. There are as many types dads as there are flowers and since I never had one, people fighting over what makes one makes me weary.

This is their first new lead; they’re off to find Frank Lipton!

Mark and Pru are meeting at a post place for lunch, gee, I sure hope she stares at the table, mumbles and is vague! She bursts out with it right off the hop; he’s eating bread and she loves him. She always has and she has a feeling and feelings are feelings and he still hasn’t said anything, because he has a mouth full of bread and she has an itchy nose. He doesn’t do the expected, though, falling at her feet and strings playing and the like; he just stares at her and says “whoa” which isn’t exactly rejection…

His phone rings, it’s Danny and he has to answer, Pru. Sorry. Oh and he has to go, Danny is insisting he go to the station; they’re very close.

Two years after Jesse’s disappearance, Frank disappeared too. Nothing online, no real profile, just a forwarding address that is out in the wilds of farming country; fancy a drive?

Pru’s decided to not take this lying down; she’s at the police station looking for Mark when Ally walks up. Ally promises to take her up, but first needs to have a word with Karl, who’s making eyes at her. He wants to take her out on a proper date, to see that magic smile and I can’t tell if he’s a bad actor or if he’s supposed to come off as half-assed menacing just then.

Mark is flashing back to Julie talking to Frank Lipton when he was a child, it all seemed so normal! In fact, FRANK seemed so normal, nothing astray.

Ally’s figured out that Danny and Mark aren’t about OR answering their phones as Pru lurks near the murder board; Pru has focused in on a plaster that was found I think at Selena Callaway’s crime scene; that’s where Jesse’s blood came from. Pru and Ally spitball as to where it could have been from, Pru suggesting a mobile blood collection service? That wasn’t checked out, says Ally’s face sans Magic Smile. I’m a little confused that she’s implying they take blood through the thumb? Is that just to check blood type?

Danny and Mark are at the farmhouse in the middle of nowhere and

oh hey! That’s a motive! That’s a motive for sure! If Frank found out / thought Jesse was his kiddo, and since he lost his two daughters, decided to keep him, that would make a kind of sense. When exactly does he turn into Ken, then, hmmm, TTM, you may be asking, and let’s wait and see! Any moment, I’m sure. I also threw JokeyStraight Karl in there, too, so…doubling my chances of being completely wrong!

They let themselves in to find…a mess, like someone leaving quickly. They hear noises from the upstairs and approach carefully, to find a very old furry, friendly man standing there, whiskey bottle in hand. He calls himself a kind of maintenance man, and lives next door. He uses this place as a getaway from the wife, three children and crazy mother-in-law and I could not understand more, if you switched some pronouns around.

Pru and Ally have found a mobile blood donation clinic that may have been close to some CCTV, yay!

The maintenance man says there was a family that used to live there; Ron and Bev and their wee lad. Just then pops in wife Carol with an air rifle, threatening to blow their heads off. She’s told him to stay out of the house, he with his baby oil and wank mags and that sounds very prepared. Nobody likes a chafed chappie.

Carol has the current address of the owners on file; Hackett, Harnett, if she’s sending them a Christmas card every year, why doesn’t she know the name?

Just then, Danny’s mobile rings (you know, the one Ally couldn’t get through to earlier), it’s his kiddo and the house is on fire! CALL 999!!! NOT YOUR DAD!! I’m sure Ray set the fire with his cigarettes, and Jennifer’s stuck trying to get him out while Danny’s kiddo is freaking out. Off Danny races (60 miles away) instead of calling 999, leaving Mark at the farmhouse to get the current update and hopefully a ride to town. Good thing Danny fully checked out Carol and her doting hubs with the smooth willy!

Danny hears from Jen, she’s okay, they all are, but Danny sees Ray manhandling Jennifer as he used to hit Danny’s mother all those years ago and he is enraged. He charges Ray, who entreats Danny to hit him, but then he stops himself, hugging Ray and then running to his family.

Later, when it’s calm, Danny asks if Jennifer can help him, he doesn’t want to be like his dad, always working and hitting and just can she help? She will

Mark calls Slade for a ride as Ally and Pru go through CCTV footage of the mobile blood donation clinic, they think they’re wasting their time, but I bet they aren’t…How will they know when they see Jesse? That’s a good point, I’m just waiting for Karl or Ken to show up onscreen. They do see something that makes them very excited!

Ah HA!! It WAS Karl; Karl is Jesse! And his dad is the fella at the hospice, which is where Mark and Slade find “Frank Lipton”. There we go. One of the jokey twins who got to handle DNA files.

And just to be sure, smiley-faced-backpack is indeed at the blood collection booth: Karl is absolutely Jesse. What a wanker. I mean, yay! And that’s it, we’re out! I can’t take 100% high fives for figuring out who Jesse was, since I split it between Karl and Ken. I couldn’t tell them apart the whole first episode!

This mystery is one of the bottleneck variety, all the problems (Ray, identification, Jakob lying, blood showing up wherever, Danny’s anger, confusion about who / what / where Jesse went) are pushed down into the bottom of a bottle; nothing really pops out until the very end when EVERYTHING is revealed and spews all over the place. These loose ends are coming together, and that is what drives the force of the end of the story. I couldn’t say it’s my favourite type of mystery, but I do very much want to see all those loose ends tied up in a bow! It’s the OCD in me. I will finish the next tomorrow, cheers all!