Last week on Unforgotten we met everyone and also figured out who our victim probably was, woot! Rolling E2 after the break!

I am IN LOVE with the theme song, it sounds like Of Monsters and Men, must check. No, it’s “All We DO” by Oh Wonder. Close!

Sunny’s still complaining about his lady friend, she’s moved on from crying for no reason to taking things. 20 quid last week and a bottle of vodka this time. Oh wait; he’s talking about one of his daughters! And Cassie would like to tell him it gets better, but it just gets worse, he has two girls.

They have a Murder WhiteBoard for James Sullivan, he was only 17 when he was reported missing on November of 1976. Aw man.  Cassie’s talked to his mum already, and we all cry for a bit while Cassie explains the pain this poor woman is still feeling, 39 year later. Cassie wants to find out whoever was responsible and punish them.

Sir Phillip is raking his son Josh over the coals in front of his business associates; he will never work with Josh’s people, they’re all Turkish and / or criminals. Josh explains more clearly; they just want his name, see, but no, they’re in agreement that isn’t going to happen.

Sunny’s assigning everyone duties; we keep cutting to a very young-looking detective that must be important. Cassie’s still broken up; Jimmy would only be a few years older than them, all the life they’ve lived.

Curtis is running the gauntlet of gang members by his flat again while Lizzie waits, they’re targeting him now. It’s just a matter of time until they make a move on him. If he can’t play football, will the Wilton’s still help him? The gangbanger warns him of the same thing “don’t never trust those mudsharks.”

Cassie’s working on the train to Liverpool; going to see Jimmy’s mum and looking at pictures of her own lads along the way.

Sheila (Tessa Peake – Jones) opens up Father Bob’s community centre to find it’s been broken into and all the money gone.

Jimmy Sullivan’s mum, Maureen (Frances Tomelty – I thought she was Lesley Ann Warren!!),  is an old Irish white lady; that was a surprise. I can’t tell for sure, but Jimmy Sullivan looked well and truly not-white to me.  She’s devastated but she really wants the body to be Jimmy; she wants to be with her son again.

Father Bob can’t believe it. Shelia left about 1200 pounds in the office, all of which has now been stolen. There’s still the matter of the missing $2000 pounds from the bookkeeping audit, perhaps this theft was a way to cover up somebody desperate?  Having reached the limits of embezzlement decided to be more direct and stage this scene? They certainly appeared to know what they were looking for.

Also, Shelia can’t believe the Estates would steal their own money, why would they do that?? For the same reason people deface public property and throw tampon applicators on the beach: some people don’t feel connected to society and as such only worry about their own selves.  The police can’t do anything, of course.

Maureen tells the tale of Jimmy’s young life; she met his dad Thomas when she was just 15. He was from Barbados (okay, whew, my peepers were not deceiving me) and when she fell pregnant her parents disowned her. Thomas agreed to marry her, which she called the last decent thing he did. It doesn’t SOUND like it was a very decent thing to do, since he was an abusive alcoholic. That drove Maureen to drink and with all of that: Jimmy was gone one day, ran away to London. One day the letters stopped and she was worried, very worried and she waited but she knew. Ah Maureen, there’s a beautiful picture of her holding a baby Jimmy (she looks a gorgeous 30, not 15 it must be said). After four months with no letters she went to the police, but they were no help and she cries and maybe we cry too. She knew something had happened to him and she was right wasn’t she, she asks Cassie. Yes is all our Cassie can say.

I hope they leave out the part where he was found with the key to a stolen car in his pocket, it sounds like she’s in poor health, no sense in disillusioning her at this point, give the woman her grief untainted by pettiness.

A detective is printing off everything associated with our Jimmy while Sunny chats with Colin Leeming (Neal Barry), whose number was found on Jimmy’s list next to the name Lizzie, who we know is now married to that football coach but of whom Mr. Leeming knows nowt. His mum ran a boarding house back in the day, she’s in a nursing home but maybe she can help.

DC Willets is at the house of retired DCI Kendrick (if that didn’t make you think of DCI Tom Kendrick from Spotless, you need to GET THEE TO NETFLIX and watch it! One season, do it in a day, great show, if only for the beauty of Brendan Coyle’s work); whew he hasn’t heard that for awhile. And he’s bored AF, so yes, come on in!

Cassie and Maureen are going through what’s left of Jimmy’s past (Bowie and Jimi Hendrix fan, of COURSE), so much has been stolen from her with the death of her son.

DCI Kendrick knows the one name on the list very well; Frankie C goes by his middle name now: Phillip and the C stands for Cross and the Sir was a ways off. Willets is shocked, how could the honourable Sir Phillip Cross’s number be in the diary of a poor runaway and possible car thief. Frankie C sounds exactly like a mob boss, though I may have been watching too much “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.” Can we take a small moment to mourn what could have been with Jason Statham’s career had he kept doing movies like that and hadn’t found international fame as a mono-syllabic action star? His earlier work, where he had lines and everything, was magic. Okay, back to it. Frankie C wasn’t necessarily a mob boss, but a “cocky little runt” working FOR the mob: the Fenwicks , which isn’t a guarantee he did bad stuff, but it is assumed as such.

Cassie’s back from Liverpool and being filled on the day’s progress  by Sunny while she watches the news about “Wealth Creator” Sir Phillip Cross (that’s like saying Air Creator – means nothing)

All right, Martin’s made risotto for Cassie and poured a glass of wine! Best.Dad.roomie.EVER! She fills him in on her day, still shaken over the wrenching grief of Maureen who asked “what’s the point of me?” And Cassie and I understand completely. I’m not saying that you can’t have a full and fulfilling life without children, you get to sleep in a bloody lot more, I’ll say that. But once you have the wee ungrateful bastages, everything else becomes fuller in a way you can’t explain to those without the life and joy sucking savages. I make fun of my children all the time, mostly at them, you know, but I am grateful for and love them madly every day of my life and I make sure they know that too.

Damnit I just made my own self cry, one second.

Eric’s cutting out numbers (for the party?) and watching his Stories when a furious Claire bursts in, dressed for going out with a suitcase packed. “YOU EVIL FCUKING PIG!! I know what you are, I know what you DID!” and now my attention is fully on Eric as Jimmy’s murderer. She stomps out to go to her sister’s while Eric calls Les, “it’s happened again.”

Les finds Claire outside a stranger’s house, her sister doesn’t live there anymore and I am TERRIFIED that this woman has a driver’s license.

Sunny’s talked to one of the original detectives on Jimmy’s missing person’s file, he figured it was open and shut. And was also a screaming bigot who looked down on Maureen’s interracial marriage and the spawn issued forth.  “Seventies, eh? Good times” says Sunny and I WISH that was true, that this shite wasn’t still happening today.

Sunny’s in to see Mrs. Leeming (June Watson) at the nursing home while she watches her game shows, she remembers Lizzie but wouldn’t have rented to her if she’d seen her head. What? Lizzie and her boyfriend were skinheads? WHUT? She had to get her brother ‘round to get them out and hold on, WHUT? Lizzie, married and procreating with a black man was a skinhead in her youth?

Present Lizzie washes and washes her hands, contemplating their swollen wrinkly whiteness, are we meant to be thinking of Lady MacBeth just now? What blood IS on her hands? Ohhh no, it’s to show us that she had “SKIN HEAD” tattooed across her fingers, so yes, she WAS a white supremacist  in her youth. She covers the markings daily with rings, surely her hubs has noticed, unless she likes to be bejeweled while throwing down.  I’m calling this storyline a White Herring.

Cassie’s reading all of Jimmy’s postcards and letters;  including a picture of the car he just bought (ahhh maybe he just bought stolen goods?) and he had a girlfriend! WHO?? Givvus a name, there’s a good lad, Jimmy! It can’t be Lizzie, she was a racist then (apparently you can just stop being one at some point), who else do we have of an appropriate age? Claire?

Cassie’s received the confirmation of Jimmy’s DNA; Sunny’s confirmed that Frankie C’s number belonged to the Fenwicks who had lots of arrests, but no convictions.

Oh Jeebus, Father Bob’s going through his wife’s jewelry box, he must be pawning stuff, is that for the Estates or for himself for the holiday he as much as promised Grace? She comes in and starts to microwave food (which he clearly couldn’t do himself with those male fingers and all) for his tea. She was touched by the flowers he got her (NOT stolen from a website, honest!) but even more so by the fact that he went to Caroline’s scan. He’s trying to be around more, not give it all to the church, but I’d be holding onto my watch if I were her.

There’s news on Lizzie; DC Murray Bouting (Jordan Long) explains at the briefing the next morning, typical bad kid, 8 convictions between 75 and 78 for the usual: drugs, disturbing peace, etc etc. Except for the attack on a person of West Indies descent. Her boyfriend at the time was arrested later for a murder of another person of colour and died in prison. They’ve found Lizzie, though, through her name change at the time of marriage and even have her current address. Well done Murray!

DC Jake Collier (Lewis Reeves) is up next, no pressure mate! By the by, he’s the detective the camera kept cutting to during Sunny’s speech, maybe not we’ll find out why he was so important. He’s tracked down Eric Slater, who was the bookkeeper at the hostel Jimmy stayed at periodically. Father Bob was also associated with that hostel, and they need to check if Elizabeth Wilton ever stayed at the Hostel of Doom.

Murray gets to check out the Fenwicks, ergh. I guess it’s a testament to his powers of detection that he gets the extry difficult mob investigation.

Sunny and Cassie are in to see Phillip Cross, the former Frankie C is annoyed at their lack of notice AND Sunny not using his title “It’s Sir Phillip,” not Mr. Cross. DUH. He doesn’t remember James Sullivan, any other information? A picture!  Phillip flashes back to grabbing a live Jimmy (Harley Sylvester) by the shoulder and then they drop the other penny for him. His name, or rather, his FIRST name was found next to an old London number in Jimmy’s address book. He asks if he needs a lawyer and Cassie makes me laugh when she says “Oh that’s ENTIRELY up to you.” HAHAHAHA okay, maybe it doesn’t sound funny, but Nicola Walker put a lovely spin.

At the mention of the Fenwicks, meeting is OVAH and next time, there will be a lawyer for sure. An interesting speech about the incompetence of coppers and their “fact finding” missions and “shorter. And fatter”  than on the telly. Sir Phillip (as he prefers) watches them  walk away with a troubled look on his face.

They go for a two-fer and head over to see Lizzie, and it’s a testament to their copfaces that they don’t bat an eyelash when her hubs wanders his non-white bum over. Just a few questions!  She too gets a flash of remembrance when handed Jimmy’s picture, her boyfriend hassling him.

Lizzie calls her time back then in London a period of being “a little bit lost” and I guess we all have that. Maybe not the white supremacy leanings, which seems to be sorted into the same youthful lark as wearing funny hats.

Cassie has to go through ALL of Lizzie’s background, not admitting to her past OR the racism, so we don’t have a chance to find out yet how Lizzie found her way from the dark side to the light. Lizzie uses the “look at my non-white husband” defense, which is admittedly a fairly good rebuttal, but we’re talking about her time wearing funny hats, after all.

Lizzie runs out and doesn’t give anything away to Ray while Cassie and Sunny review what they know: she stayed at the hostel 5 nights when Jimmy was there; hmmm. Was she a lover of Jimmy’s? The way they lingered over the word “nights” oh herk, I forgot he was only 17 when he died. Not old enough for us to talk about lovers without the squicks. She could have been the girl he wrote to his mum about, though.

DC Willets is hot on the trail of Father Bob, who’s off pawning that ring after all, wearing a disguise even.

Lizzie’s explaining, kinda, about the investigation to Ray, still leaving out lots. Does he know about her past?

Cassie’s totting up the day’s accomplishments when Martin comes in with a box. It’s full of letters that Cassie’s mum received 20 years previous; he found them after she died. He scoots while Cassie pretends she’s paying attention. She comes out and starts going through them; love letters?

Father Bob’s spinning a yarn about the accounts to Geoff, he blames it on an absentminded Grace, anyway, all sorted now. If he’s been embezzling, where is the money going? Certainly not at home with Grace and her 16 year old towels (those are the SOFTEST!).  Geoff gives him a head-up about the police looking for him about a “historic case;” Father Bob doesn’t even need a picture to flash back to Jimmy! There he is at church, and Jimmy did tell his mum he’d been going.

Cassie’s mum’s letters do appear to be love letters, from a Chris? Unless England uses Chris as a nickname for Martin on the regular, we have to assume Cassie’s mum was filling her time with other things.  Marriage is tough even from the inside, y’all, trying to understand it from the outside is IMPOSSIBLE.

Sir Phillip’s in to see his sponsor, Liam, who’s angry he didn’t get full disclosure during the vetting procedure. It’s just a courtesy notice, though, Frankie C isn’t about to answer to this little shit so he picks Liam up and throws him into his chair. “I’ve had a very bad day, Liam. Don’t make me make  it worse.”

Claire’s in bed, apologizing to Eric for being confused again but Eric pats her down, we all get confused now and again. She really needs to be in care.

An article in the paper about the police finding the body brings him back to watching two people make love.

Father Bob has snuck off to a phone booth to leave a message for Georgia (I fink?), he needs to talk to her urgently and we’re oot. Was that about the money or about the murder? Or are the two related? The only two motives I could come up with for him taking the money were a woman on the side and blackmail re: the murder. Okay, and a gambling problem, so three things. We shall see!

I am liking the show so far, I like a good mystery and I dig the way they’re developing it. It’s very silly of me, but I am just tickled to see Gillian in charge! And sober and not boning every inappropriate male within 100 yards. See you next time, when we unravel more about young Jimmy Sullivan!