Once upon a time, I recapped a show called Traces, which was connected to Val McDermid, an author of whom I am a huge fan and who would probably hate that grammar. Honestly, it had so many awesome people, it was a gem of a show and I was so excited when I realised it made a second series! So that’s what we’re doing, in between Black Doves, we’re into the second series of Traces, now showing on BritBox in Canada! Please enjoy my recap of Traces S2:E01 # 1 after the break!

We open with a juxtaposition between a quiet and low-lit group church-led therapy session and a flash award ceremony; Father Nkusi (Patrice Naiambana) asks us to consider the nature of a state of grace. What does that look like?

We watch Azra McKinven (Laila Rouass) receive an award for outstanding intelligence analysis alongside her colleagues Emma Hedges (Molly Windsor), Professor Kathy Torrance (Jennifer Spence), Professor Sarah Gordon (Laura Fraser), who splits her focus between Azra and DCI Neil McKinven (Michael Nardone who I know from so many shows, but most notably Rose and Maloney with our Sarah Lancashire).

Sarah is up on the stage next, for her work on street drugs, and she’s so tiny! So very tiny. She gives a shoutout to Emma, that’s nice of her, isn’t it?

Back in the church basement with Father Nkusi, a young man enters late, is excused…then sets up a bomb and explodes everyone, including himself.

So I mentioned that Val McDermid was associated with this show, I did not tell you who their co-creator is! It’s none other than Amelia Bullmore! From Scott & Bailey! And Gentleman Jack! How awesome is that??

Anyway, back to the show! Sarah was staring at Neil because there was this little romantic tension building; which has apparently been blown completely out of the water by Neil and Azra being an item. There’s an excruciatingly awkward drinks after the ceremony, I have all the sympathy. Oh. And Azra is Neil’s wife, that’s quite something, were they married when he and Sarah were staring at each other last series?

Oh this is even more surprising, Emma goes home to be met with a kiss by Daniel MacAfee (Martin Compston); I 1000% thought that was a fling and now they’re living together for real? With his mum Aileen MacAfee (Stella Gonet) as well? Jesus wept.

Emma can tell something is up, Daniel’s quiet and Aileen is staring: there is a set date for the trial, so it’ll be real, then.

As a quick recap, we spent the whole first series with Emma as the focus as she searched for her long-missing mum, Marie Monroe. She found her mum’s body, then was instrumental in finding out that her mum’s killer was none other than the father of her new (much older) boyfriend Daniel.

Now they’re all living together, with Emma surely being a witness against the patriarch of the family she is literally sleeping next to. Aileen won’t have to testify about Daniel’s dad, so I guess that’s good? She is not supportive of Emma and Daniel, however.

That’s unfortunate; Emma and Daniel have such a weird relationship, it shouldn’t work at all, and sometimes it appears quite jarring when they are together due to the age gap, but their chemistry is undeniable and their quiet scenes together bring this whole show into focus.

Oh and Emma might be pregnant and they’re over the moon about it.

In the meantime, Neil and everyone else have been called to Newport to that church basement that was just blown up with a bomb.

Not our Professor Kathy Torrance, however, she’s busy being raked over the coals for being unfriendly to her students, according to Facebook. Dean Jean Bruzzi (Badria Timimi) is not happy with the optics, nor are the students happy with how the dead.pigs are being treated. (Dead.pigs) Kathy offers to do a presentation with her PhD student Erika (Krysten Peck) to dispel any myths; is Erika going to explain about the pain comprehension of dead pigs?

Back at the bomb site, Emma and Sarah work closely together and oddly, the young man who had the bomb looks…not blown up. He’s lying very peacefully on the ground while the room is in pieces around him. How odd. Also, Father Nkusi literally just got a scratch on his cheek while the room looks like a hurricane hit it.

Neil explains that the dead person was Jo and his widow Ruth Tinto (Pamela Byrne) is understandably upset and confused. So am I, once Neil tells Father Nkusi that the bomb was in the room, not on Jo’s person, as it appeared.

Who would want to blow up a church?

I mean, people do, I suppose, and there’s all that systemic oppression, but it’s not very usual these days, is it?

Father Nkusi thinks it’s straight up racism, that there are people who feel as though ‘black priests should stay in black countries.’ His CV: he set up a group for Catholics from East Africa and campaigned to ease celibacy requirements for priests. He calls that a divisive issue and …how?

DS Safi Khurana (Ro Kumar) is helping Neil investigate, but he’s having trouble wrapping his head around the inherent sneakiness of bombing someone. As opposed to getting mad and shooting someone, which is apparently more understandable, and calm down, Safi, nobody is expecting Scotland to be like TV Texas.

Sarah doesn’t buy Father Nkusi’s theory that he alone was the target of his online abusers, this type of bomb is not that specific. The perpetrator used a pipe bomb, not a car bomb or something that would affect the priest specifically. Pipe bombs are more made to affect loads of people, and this one, while making an unholy mess, doesn’t have any of the nastier components that she would expect to see: spikes and shrapnel, nails, ball bearings, etc.

**My experience with pipe bombs is far in my past, but the point back then seemed to be more that pipe bombs are made of easily sourced materials that can be assembled by just about anyone.

Daniel meets with…the crown? The prosecutor? The person putting his dad on trial, anyway, is Joseph Mann (John MacKay) and he will be trying Daniel’s dad for murdering Emma’s mum first, then for using shoddy materials in a nightclub that caught fire and caused two deaths (see Traces Series 1!). That’s how Emma and Daniel met, she had just joined the lab that was testing stuff for the fire.

Emma and Sarah continue working the site of the church bombing while Daniel heads off to see his dad. Emma thinks about her mum as she rubs her tummy, it’s a shame her mum won’t get to meet the potential baby.

Oddly enough, Daniel is not going to see his dad exactly, but rather to park in the lot and get shooed away by a security guard, and not for the first time. He goes home to have a panic attack.

Emma gets her own court prep session from Kathy, who has great advice. Kathy is not warm and cuddly and maybe that upsets her students, but she’s the perfect person to give ideas on how to keep calm and collected while testifying. Kathy is portrayed as essentially a robot. Were this made these days, I feel like there would be a diagnosis implied.

Sarah and Neil talk about the case, but when she says she’ll ring him later with more information, he abruptly tells her not to. His wife has correctly sussed that something is up between Neil and Sarah and he’s going to be working on his work life balance until she is more comfortable.

Sarah gets some sort of appointment for all her accreditations? I don’t know, but it sounds prestigious, even if I can’t understand what the person who notified her meant.

Neil and his wife Azra talk about the case; she brings up Sarah almost immediately. Do not call right now, Sarah! I don’t like how Azra talks about Sarah, who isn’t a childish woman with a crush, she was 100% not on her own in what was going on. Whatever helps you get through the night, Azra.

Emma gets home to find Daniel listening to calming mediation, which he lies about, so he can lie about the rest of his day, and she can tell him she’s pregnant. Mazel tov!

He says he’s delighted, but he’s been lying since he saw her tonight, so who knows.

One of the things Sarah did come up with, between being appointed somewhere prestigious and mooning over Neil, is that the bomb timer most likely went off late. That would make both Father Nkusi and Jo Tinto red herrings, and some Pilates class members in danger.

Neil and Safi explain this to Superintendent Gavin Blair (Peter Forbes), but nobody really believes that someone is targeting a Pilates class either.

Sarah will be the person to advise, we watch her and Emma examine bomb parts closely.

Back at the University, Kathy works on a presentation with her student teacher Erika and asks for feedback from the first years about her teaching style and gets some unexpected support. Erika thinks Kathy is fine and the students are being a bunch of entitled arses.

Sarah has had enough time to make a model of the exploded bomb, and they sort out the proper timing. Long story short: daylight savings time and the explosion was meant to happen at 5:55, not 6:55. That means most likely personal and not political, I guess we’re interviewing some Pilates people next!

Well. It’s been a few years and I guess I mis-remembered where we all stood on everyone’s opinions of Daniel’s dad’s guilt.

Phil MacAfee (Vincent Regan) has been charged with the murder of Emma’s mum, 19 years ago. Daniel does not actually believe his dad killed Emma’s mum, but Emma very much does. So we’re about to be in a very emotionally charged trial for both of them, when one of them is pregnant. Oy vey.

While Daniel and Emma are staring each other down before dinner over this, Daniel’s mum and Phil’s ex-wife Aileen MacAfee (Stella Gonet) walks in and starts shouting at everyone to calm down.

In the history of time: telling someone to calm down or that that are worrying for nothing has worked not once. Especially when someone raises their voices to share that wisdom.

Emma goes off to make a phone call and a horrible conversation ensues between Daniel and his mum. She does reassure him that he will not be responsible for putting his dad away, if that is what happens, but then goes on to spit venom about Emma. He shouldn’t be having a baby with Emma, he shouldn’t even be with her!

We’re off to court the next morning with a quiet and tense Daniel and Emma. Kathy and Sarah have a great chat in their office before they head there, I like their interactions the best. So funny and direct.

They discuss the whole Neil Situation, I’ve been scouring my recaps trying to find the part where Sarah and Neil messed about, but it was just a couple of looks and a sentence or two. Not even anything tactile. Kathy thinks there is nothing to go on about and now I’m wondering how that even happened if Neil was married.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand how that happens, but it would appear that not only is Azra super hot and attached at the hip to Neil, they all also do similar work, as she received a commendation the same time that Sarah did. How did all that stay under the radar?

Kathy’s advice: say nothing because there is nothing to be said! Sarah is just…’stupid?’ (asks Sarah), no, ‘Catholic!’ (emphatically declares Kathy).

Sarah shares the information she’d gathered about the bomb with the team, not much yet but there are a couple of things:

1. The explosive element was most likely from firework packets
2. There are recognisable tool marks
3. There is a #1 on a piece, does that mean there are others?

Neil fills Sarah in on a possible suspect, the ex partner of a Pilates student is violent and possessive, he will keep Sarah in the loop.

He clears the air, the way she wanted to, and things are good again, until he says ‘I’d hate for us not to be good’ and is he being intense again??

Look, this is not gendered, but sometimes there are people who are not single who are attracted to other people but don’t want to leave their partner, but also don’t want to lose contact with this person they’re attracted to…I refer them to this poem by Rebecca Dupas: I’m Good, Bruh. 

Daniel is called into court to answer questions, entering to see his dad staring at him from the accused’s box.

What’s interesting is that we get to see Phil’s flashbacks of the day he killed Marie Monroe (Emma’s mum), he absolutely did it. But that’s not really what we’re here to talk about, apparently. We’re going to make Daniel feel all the feelings about his whole relationship with his dad.

I guess I’ve just been watching North American crime procedurals, because it’s very proscribed as to what you can talk about on the stand. In the UK, it looks like you can explain your whole case on the witness stand if you like and nobody says boo about going off topic or hearsay.

We’re onto the third question about how Daniel felt about his dad, absolutely nothing about any evidence. Except to call Emma the real problem.

Across town, Sarah is driving down the street when another explosion happens, right in front of her, and we’re out!

Until next time, everyone, thank you for reading!