Hi everyone! Welcome back to the second episode of the second series of Unforgotten, where we’ve just met all our players and identified our victim. Let’s see what Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar shine a light on today!

Just a couple of things to mention (I have the best reader friends EVER); I was confused during the home scene with Marion (Rosa Cavaliero – who reminds me of Grace Gummer from Mr. Robot season two, except that she can act) is the aunt, not the mum to the kiddos that her sister Elise (Holly Aird) was herding. Also: I didn’t point out that Jason Walker (Will Brown) was clearly lying to his mum so she wouldn’t come up to his flat, note how I didn’t leave out how adorable he was?

Everyone should listen to the theme song at least once, it’s so lovely

DCI Cassie Stuart (Nicola Walker hay gurl hay!) is briefing everyone on what they know so far (fanks! convenient); the victim David Walker was killed by a single stab wound to the chest. She says that like whoever the murdered was should have at least got a couple more swings in, doesn’t she? Like someone who got pregnant while losing their virginity: just once? Aww man

She talks about the loss for Jason, who was 5 when his dad disappeared and who has spent the last 26 years not knowing what happened.

Jason is 31??? Why does he look like a shy 20 year old? Who hides their flat from their mum at 31??

We see his mum Tessa Nixon (Lorraine Ashbourne) telling her grown child (manchild) while Cassie goes over what was recovered from the pager. Not a whole lot, it sort of looks like a game of Hangman’s Noose and that mayyybe David was going to Sexy Karaoke.

DC Fran Lingley (Carolina Main who has my hair!!) will be following up with BT (?? British Telcom?) to help fill in the blanks; Cassie offers a bottle of champagne to anyone who can decipher where David Walker was going for Karaoke.

She and Sunny (Sanjeev Bhaskar) will be working the widow to find out what they can; DS Murray Boulting (Jordan Long) and DC Jake Collier (Lewis Reeves) will be going through the original Missing Persons case files.

Side note: I LOVE it when they give us names and faces at the same time! Kisses, writers. Mwah!

Cassie and Sunny spitball about what would possess a killer to leave identifiable objects on a body you were trying to hide; they decide the killer must be a rookie, panicking having never killed anyone before. Let’s keep that in mind!

Sara Mahmoud (Badria Timimi) got some good news in the post…she got a second interview!! Her hubs Hassan (Adeel Akhtar) is super happy for her!

Mmmm, it seems work and Zoe’s (Jodie Tyack) parents thought the same as Tony (Nigel Lindsay) and I… the personal calls at home between a patient and one of her nurses were very odd. Flo’s parents are feeling undermined but I’m starting to wonder at Marion’s state of mind. She says she only received two calls from Flo but I’m almost positive she’s lying. She seems upset when her boss Nicola (Katherine Jakeways) points out that it was probably Zoe who mentioned it to her parents.

Tessa and stepdad Paul (Douglas Hodge) are consoling Jason, who’s taking his dad’s death very personally. He thought his dad left him, or committed suicide because he wasn’t enough to stay alive for; 26 years of that. He feels cheated, robbed of all those years of peace. And who would have wanted to hurt his dad?

Now: my dad died when I was four and while I undoubtedly suffered from not having a male role model around, I didn’t have THAT uncertainty hanging over my head either. I’d like to think I wouldn’t decide it was a complete rejection of my five year old self, but kids are blessedly narcissistic that way.

We cut to Tessa’s face quite a lot while Jason is laying that all out; we’re very clearly being led to think she was the murderer, which means she definitely cannot be.

Colin (Mark Bonnar) must be quite the barrister, he and his husband have a beautiful flat! That kitchen! He isn’t sharing his concern with Simon (Charlie Condue), though, he’s perfectly fine, staring out the window instead of playing with his almost-daughter Flo (Amy Jayne). Shouldn’t he go to the police, though? It’s not as though that little weasel Tyler (Josef Atlin) took video of him keying that homophobe’s car or anything.

Cassie and Sunny are interviewing Tessa, who hesitates when asked if her marriage with David was happy. He struggled with depression, which put a strain on things as it does. So would being closeted, but I think I’m carrying over from the first series. She recognises one of the pager messages are being similar to something she would send “CALL ME” probably wasn’t one of the contentious ones, but sure, everything helps. She seems genuine, Cassie and I buy what she’s selling.

Detectives are putting up appeals for assistance across the city; we get a working montage while the interview continues. David worked in the “leisure” nightclub business. TV tells me those are rife with drugs, ladies ill-dressed for inclement weather and mobsters. He was well-connected within the community, which TV also has told me means that he had to be to get his crooked clubs past inspection. TV does tend to go on a bit, but back then it wouldn’t have been able to give her the detailed information she would need to hide his body properly and given that she was a stay at home mum when he disappeared, not the detective she is now, it erodes the idea that she would know how to successfully hide a body.

Tessa took two days to report David missing; she called his office several times in the interim but eventually decided he’s had a breakdown and hied to a backwater to deal. Sunny is surprised; he was that troubled?

She didn’t realise much money after David’s business was settled. Her and Jason walking away with less than $30,000, so she joined the police force. She was impressed with the detectives on the case, let’s meet them now! Okay, whenever there is time.

Sara is fighting the good fight at her local mosque; putting up a petition to have women and men’s prayer spaces be equal. Ahmed (Amir Mime) does not agree, but she will not stop putting up the posters protesting the inequity.

Cassie gets home to a really disgusting conversation with her dad Martin (Peter Egan) about young Adam (Jassa Ahluwalia)’s cheating girlfriend. It seems where Cassie sees betrayal, her son sees an opportunity for a threeway and those are not things I EVER WANT TO KNOW ABOUT MY CHILDREN. EVER!!!! Youth of today

Cassie questions her dad about a ticket to Winchester she found in his jeans. Stop stop Cassie, unless you want to hear inappropriate things about your dad’s sex life too!! He blows it off by badly lying, which makes us wonder

Marion’s asked Tony if he was the one who squealed on her about the phone calls with Zoe. He’s concerned she’s veering off again. She must have a history of mental illness, which explains her sister and Tony acting as though they are tag-team wardens. I bet that’s not at ALL frustrating for Marion. Or them. She stomps out.

Cassie updates everyone; her and Sunny both believed that Tessa was holding back information, they just don’t know it it had to with the murder. Murray thinks he’s found a new way to look at an old lead in the case, hopefully an 80-year-old widower has something for them! Or, you know, did it herself while in a fit of rage at her closeted husband. Sorry, sorry, series one, my bad.

Oh ho, maybe I’m not so out to lunch! Jake’s found a couple of calls made to and from Colin Osbourne, our gay barrister. Not that it has to be an illicit hookup, it could have been for legal advice if Colin was practicing back then.

Fran’s sorted out most of the numbers on the pagers, the one she thinks is the most important is David’s best mate James Gregory – I don’t believe we’ve met him yet, have we? Or maybe we have and he’s calling himself something else *cough Frankie C cough*.

Fran’s solved the puzzle and won the Prosecco!

That was Colin’s address! And a posh one at that, 2000 pounds per month back in the 80s. Sunny’s also made some inroads and found the present day Colin, who is making that ill-advised deal to give $5000 quid to Tyler after all. Colin doesn’t even know that Tyler is with Flo’s mum! He could be just some con artist, honestly. You’d think a lawyer would be more suspicious.

The landlord of the King’s Cross property can’t give them specific information about the name S. Alazi, who was paying for gas heat back in those days, but he does tell that he only rented to prostitutes at that house. OH. Sara was a prostitute? Or Marion was? I’m guessing Sara, given the S

Sunny sets Jack on the S Alazi while be and Cassie talk about the possible ramifications of a wife finding out that her husband had a prostitute’s address on his pager. Lets ask the wife in question!

We get a lot of shots of Nicola Walker looking concerned on this show, don’t we?

Like; sorry about this dreadful murder business, it’s very upsetting all around I’m sure.

Tessa doesn’t know anything about David using prostitutes, she makes me laugh here

Cassie stutters a bit after that, rebounding to ask Tessa if, in the light of these new circumstances: could that have been something David could have done? Given his…condition? They compare lengths of times as detectives; that was oddly confrontational on Tessa’s part, although someone asking if you murdered your adulterous husband or not could get up one’s nose, I suppose, however kindly and gently.

Tessa’s boss is trying to kindly and gently put her on restricted duties; you know, sit back for a few weeks while things cool off but she’s not having it. They’ll have to enforce it.

Sunny’s description of arguing with his children about curfews as being like “negotiating with a goldfish” make me laugh out loud. They’re off to see Colin, who just threw up in his mouth

He’ll join them in a minute, after he finishes cleaning up from ACTUALLY throwing up in the bathroom. He says he doesn’t recognise David, nope, (hookers and coke flashback at a party) no idea why his flat phone number was in his desk diary. He doesn’t remember because that flat was “Party Central”, he had that fat 80’s banker salary back then, which explains the posh digs. Cassie asks why he changed from the business of Greed Being Good (hey! We’re back in that era!) to being a criminal defense lawyer; he calls his past life “pretty soulless.” Cassie brings up his charity pro-bono work; the clear implication is that he’s paying for SOMETHING, and when exactly did he stop being a banker? Somewhere around early 1990…They leave and Mark bails from his court case.

Always in robes, is our Mark Bonnar, isn’t he?! Of course, I only know him from Home Fires and here, but still.

Marion’s in for a check-up, is she fertile? Given the she hasn’t had a cycle in 18 months and her age…nope. She must be in early menopause.

Colin’s finally telling Simon about the homophobe in the supermarket and his response; Simon’s worried because he thought this type of temper issue was in the past. How could he jeopardize the adoption over some neanderthal? They have to tell Janet, which could affect everything. The other option: give Tyler the money and I can’t even say how glad I am Colin isn’t trying to handle this on his own. That is the fastest way to end a marriage; not share information, problems and concerns with a partner. I’m an expert because I used to watch a lot of I.D. channel.

Jason’s not much good at work, so his boss sends him home to ignore Cath (Bryony Howard) while across town Cassie’s checking up on her dad’s story about not being in Winchester. Whatever he was doing, he clearly feels it’s worth lying to his daughter about and we probably don’t want to know. He went on a train and ate Indian food, lock him up!

Jason’s kept a special box of his father’s things, including a sweater, maybe it smells like him? When traveling for work, I used to wear a sweater of my husband’s for sleeping because it smelled like him, but it never made me cry as it does Jason.

There’s an awkward conversation with Paul about sending away his daughter for the weekend (IN FRONT OF SAID DAUGHTER) because she needs some peace. I suppose this is what parenting in extended families looks like; all negotiated weekends and back and forths. Gak. She gets her way in the end anyway and all that scene really meant to me was that Tessa and Paul have a giant red Aga! WOOT! Oh yes, Paul follows Tessa to ask if she wants to talk about anything, she thanks him for his kindness and comes in for a hug. Just kidding, she bites his head off too and goes off by herself: the prickly pear stands alone

Cassie’s doing an internet search on Colin Osbourne, mmmm dishy, and yes, lots of partying. She doesn’t ask her dad about what she found out, that sort of thing is hard to bring up, innit? WHY DID YOU LIE TO ME ABOUT SOMETHING I HAVE NO RIGHT TO ASK ABOUT??

Jake’s dug up a little history about S Alazi, who was arrested for soliciting a couple of times with a Samira Khan (Sirine Saba), who is STILL a sex-worker, 26 years later! Wow, atta girl, Samira, retirement plan, schmetirement plan.

They’re off to her brothel, where Samira willingly talks to the detectives, now tell me if her name is Sara! Of course it is, we heard the speech Sara did last time to the board about being at rock bottom when 16. She and Samira kept in touch for a long time after, they are able to connect to her new name and everything. So helpful!

They head straight to see Sara, who’s teaching and also just threw up in her mouth. You guys, Cassie and Sunny are super nice, no need to be so worried!

In interview, we see how Sara knew David Walker, something with drugs but she keeps a good poker face, if pausing just a hair too long. She can’t hold it when they bring up her sex-worker past, oh Sara, don’t cry! Watching her face work through the emotions; she begs them to not tell anyone about that past. Her family, her school, nobody can know and she promises to help them as much as she can if they keep it quiet. She then immediately lies and says she doesn’t recognise him. She’s the Lizzie of this season.

They get into specifics, but Sara has an alibi: she was abroad at that time! Check passport records. Cassie and Sunny take their leave, finding her “completely credible. But let’s assume she’s lying” and that’s detective work, innit!?

Jason’s flipping out at his mum’s house, his stepsister is scared and texting her dad to come home, like, RIGHT NOW.

Fran’s talked to David’s best mate James Gregory, he’s filled in some more blanks in David’s behaviour. David was fighting depression and drinking (not mentioned by Tessa) because he was dealing with his child abuse from when he was young. His primary teacher abused him and in the months before his death, he’d talked about both confronting his assailant and about going to the police.We’re out.

Hmm, that’s a whole other motive; I’m just trying to think of who’s old enough for that? We also weren’t given gender, so I have to assume Marion is a possible suspect there, given her blurring of boundaries with Zoe. Its odd, because I thought “grooming” during that part, but it seemed like far too much of a reach. It could be that Marion is our Father Bob from last season, only time will tell.

The elevator music for scoring on this show and the several shots of Nicola Walker whimsically grinning at the floor make it…slightly more soap opera than you would expect for a crime procedural, but I really like the way they do some things. Like the flashbacks, giving us small teases of what people were like when alive, I love those.

Until next time, you lot! Keep smiling at the floor!