Hi everyone, this is it!! This is the series 3 finale of Unforgotten, I have my suspect firmly locked on and am indubitably wrong. Unforgotten likes to throw twists as others throw glitter at a disco, but I have committed and will stay the course. Let’s find out for realsie reals after the break!

Last time for the lovely Unforgotten theme song…

DCI Cassie Stuart (Nicola Walker – she just joined Twitter, I heard! Go find oot!) has just arrested prime suspect (totally picked him) Dr. Tim Finch (Alex Jennings) with half the police station in tow, her boss Det. Supt. Clive Owens (Colin R. Campbell) hopes there’s something to find.

Already DS Jake Collier (Lewis Reeves) has uncovered a pair of carefully preserved underwear, a scrunchie (definitely not new) and a necklace with gobs of hair attached, so I think we’re good! Dr. Tim could just have a creepy fixation with an old lover, though, couldn’t he?

DI (INSPECTOR – corrected by none other than the excellent Mr Bhaskar himself) Sunil “Sunny” Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) is more than just an attractive chauffeur with a glorious head of hair, Cassie, he can make some of those calls too? Never mind, Sunny, she calls Jessica Reid (Bronagh Waugh), twin sister of our murder victim Hayley, they’d like the family to come to London.

I guess for a lineup? Or chat?

It’s not going well back at Dr. Finch’s house, his daughters Emma (Jo Hebert) and Claire (Lucinda Dryzek) are split over whether or not he beat their mum.

He totally did.

Tim’s second wife Carol (Amanda Root) listens, I am waiting for her to jump in at any time. So is Emma, but Carol keeps whatever she’s thinking to herself.

*I heard someone explain in a talk once about how different it is to be a victim of domestic abuse than it looks like from the outside and I can confirm. For one thing, sometimes you don’t know you’re being abused. He’s just going through a rough patch, he doesn’t mean to take it out on you and anyway: didn’t you do that thing that he asked you specifically not to do? Or that other thing? He’s not abusive, he just needs things a certain way and if he remembers events differently, it’s probably because you still don’t understand him properly. You should try harder, be better, you’re the only one he can talk/turn to. It’s been a very long time since I was in that situation.

James Hollis (Kevin McNally) is another of our suspects, I think he’s just lost his wife Amy (Emma Fielding) who didn’t seem to mind the infidelity he was practicing on a regular basis but the murder suspicion pushed her over the edge. It may also have been the type of assignations he was enjoying, I have never heard of a MAN professing rape fantasies, that is legit messing with me.

He sits alone in his beautiful house and cries.

Jessica and her mum Suzanna Reid (Brid Brennan) take the train to London, reminiscing about fun times. Suzanna is so sorry for her daughter’s loss.

Tim’s in interview with Cassie and Sunny, he explains the scrunchie and necklace in his hidden lockbox as leftover souvenirs from Middlewhatsit. He says he and his daughters went down there for several years after he and his first wife divorced.

He has a “farfetched” explanation for the panties, too, the girls used old pairs for tying their hair back.

He maintains his innocence and insists he never met Hayley Reid.

Chris Lowe (James Fleet) is looking for his girlfriend Jamila Faruk (Sasha Behar) but she’s at the police station. That’s probably not good news for him.

Also not good news is the Reid family checking out the artefacts from the box: Hayley would not have used that scrunchie as her hair was cut short just before she disappeared. The underwear doesn’t match either, which leaves the necklace, which is definitely not Hayley’s.

See? My perfect suspect fell apart like wet cardboard.

But the girls tied their hair back with old panties.

Cassie goes home and practices some parenting of a young adult from afar.

Jamila leaves the station disappointed, everyone associated with the case has left.

Sunny has bad news and good news for Cassie in the morning: the trophies in the locked box do not belong to Hayley. But they DO belong to another cold case, a 14 year old girl who was raped and murdered in 1997.

So Tim IS a serial killer!

Cassie briefs the team the next morning (hey, who are the two new hunks at the back of the room taking notes? I don’t remember them and I think I would), they need to connect Tim to the murder of Alison Baldwin and solidly, or he’ll claim coincidence. Cassie strongly believes Tim killed both young girls and if my PHD in True Crime is good for anything (prolly not), there will be more besides.

Cassie loses her composure, tears spilling over so Sunny steps in to help direct the team in their mission to find all the unsolved cases possible in the areas.

John Bentley of the one date and cheek kiss chooses that moment to text Cassie, who deletes his number.

Alison Baldwin’s family identifies her found items and we all cry a bit.

A search team scours a wooded area, looks like a hubcap has been buried?

Tim’s back in interview, why are we wasting time listening to this wanker and his implausible stories? He’s not going to confess, Cassie, nail him on physical evidence and throw him in the clink.

*I also have a PHD in old-timey euphemisms

Sunny explains to us that they think the ditched wheel in the shrubbery is a big deal: he would have had to make space in the boot for Hayley’s body. Tim “blah blah what? course not blah blah *condescending stare* blah”

But they’ve found Tim’s car, which is the first thing that surprises him. It’s in the lab right now being tested, let’s see what they say!

Cassie has another rabbit in her hat, she’s pulled out Tim’s diary from 1997. Let’s look at June 5th! He was in Cambridge, 5 miles from where Alison Baldwin was. This is it, the smoking gun, Cassie asks him to give the Reid and Baldwin families the little bit of peace that he can. Can he do that?

He’d like a cuppa, fanks.

Then maybe he’d talk about what happened to these girls after. He is admitting to the murder of both girls, and that’s not all.

ALL THE CHILLS.

I knew it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Serial killing motherhumper!! Slick doctor hiding-behind-a-facade mofo!

Mel Hollis (Sara Stewart), the ex wife of James, is trying to make James feel better about his life choices regarding their son. “Please don’t destroy yourself over this.” James believed this whole time that his son had killed Hayley and has been protecting him the last 18 years, which could also be calling enabling. Either way: Eliot needs some alone time to think over his own life choices.

Cassie sits with Jessica and Suzanna, promising that Tim will never again be able to hurt anyone as a consolation.

Everyone watches in shock as Det. Supt. Owens explains the charges against Dr. Tim Finch.

Tim himself is in interview, he killed those girls in self-defense, meaning that he raped them and they would have reported him, so what was he to do? He smiles in a self-deprecating fashion, he’s amazed at his ability to make those decisions and carry on as normal.

He doesn’t have feelings as such, a fondness for his girls, yes, but he has lots of opinions about his superior intelligence and psychopathic makeup.

I’m all done listening to this jerk muse about his propensity for murder and hebephilia. I almost fell off my chair then, though, everyone calls it pedophilia but adolescent people are not children. NOT THAT RAPING AND MURDERING THEM IS ANY BETTER, I’m just saying that everyone throws the word pedophile around and it gets my pedantic back up.

And I say HE goes on too much?

Cassie’s composure slips when she asks about what happened to Hayley, he seems fascinated by her emotion, like watching an animal in a zoo. Tim had already seem Hayley several times, it was a case of wrong time, wrong place.

Cassie cries as he details Hayley’s rape and murder, Sunny taking over for a bit but Tim focusing on Cassie again when he sees an opportunity to make her cry.

Sunny asks if there are any other victims, Tim would like to make sure of the ground rules first, he’d like to be treated with respect, fanks. He’ll take them to a place tomorrow. Cassie ends the interview abruptly.

Sunny finds her outside, does she think Tim’s playing some kind of a game?

Sunny goes home to present a (ridiculously untenable) position to his kids: he loves his girlfriend Sal (Michelle Bonnar), but he’ll take their mum Usha (Shobu Kapoor) back if they want.

*Break for stomping around pointing at the air while putting on the kettle

They love their mum, but they like their dad as he is now, much happier with Sal, whom he really loves. Those are unselfish kids, I love that they see their dad as someone worthy of love and happiness, not just a servant to their wishes.

Cassie eats alone, her dad gone.

The next morning, we’re on the road with Tim, who takes Sunny and Cassie to a wooded hill. They find a body almost immediately, her name was Natasha, killed by Tim 6 years ago. Alison in 1997 wasn’t his first either.

Cassie’s had enough.

Chris has come to see Jamila, who is happy to see him. She checked him out thoroughly, and now she’s ready to receive him. He thought she should have had faith, but she’s already been down that path. He forgives her and she is ready to be with him, we have an unlikely Unforgotten happy ending for this couple!

Suzanna wants to leave the area, she was staying because she felt a connection to Hayley there, but she wants Jessica and her to move on, now. To be happy.

Cassie returns home soaking wet to find her dad.

They make up, maybe she could take some time off to feel better? She would like that very much.

Watching them cry together, come on, Unforgotten!! I’m trying to breathe here!

Three Months Later

Tim’s not having a great time in prison, he’s tired and pale and has been beaten. Sunny and DC Fran Lingely (Carolina Main) don’t have a lot of sympathy for the former doctor and current serial killer.

Tim rebounds a bit and asks after Cassie, then creeps on Fran.

He spits out the name of another victim as his wife Carol stares at their house and Maria Carr (Indra Ové) buries her husband, former suspect Peter Carr. Everyone is there, including troubled Eliot Hollis (Tom Rhys Harries) who looks as though he might be off the drugs for a bit.

Chris and Jamila are getting married, AND she’s pregnant! Wow. Chris is about 5 years older than Santa.

Amy came back to James, too.

Cassie’s out with John Bentley after all! They’re at the kissing on the lips stage and everything! She meets Sunny at Elland Woodland, bringing yellow roses for a fresh start at Hayley’s grave. Jessica and Suzanna are there too, they hug and roses are placed as we’re out for another year.

Oh that was beautifully done. You could see Cassie reach her breaking point, we’ve been headed there this entire series and I love the decision to make her regeneration the final focal point and not the pointless violence and dissonance of the depraved Dr. Finch. I love that we ended thinking about fresh starts and beauty and life after the grimness of the march. Bravo, Chris Lang and Mainstreet Pictures. Cheers you lot, I hope to see you again soon on another recap!