First things first: Vince the chocolate Labrador is OK. Despite Nigel the plumber’s mate coming over all William Tell at the end of episode six, he didn’t pull the crossbow trigger.
However, Nigel does figure as a major suspect in this fast-moving episode of Dorset’s answer to The Wire – the accents are equally unintelligible. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
DI Alec ‘Doctor’ Hardy is in a hospital bed, after the nasty attack of arrhythmia which laid him flat out during the exciting chase scene through the boatyard. That’s the boatyard leading straight off the very high cliff with the hut on top that is the scene of Danny’s murder. I’d love to see an OS map of Broadchurch.
Despite being in need of a pacemaker, Alec is soon up and about and staggers into the office like somebody who has been out for a night on the beer – (Tennants, presumably). Once up to speed – a slow shuffle – he gets DS Ellie Miller to interview Susan Wright, last week’s prime suspect and owner of Vince.
As has happened three times before with suspects, Susan turns out to be much misunderstood. Her husband killed her eldest daughter after sexually abusing both sisters and Susan had her new baby taken into care. That baby turns out to be Nigel who, we’re strongly lead to believe, is a chip off the old execution block.
Susan is supposed to have come looking for her long lost son, but then spots him late at night dropping off young Danny’s body on the beach. Having fingered her own son, Nigel is brought in and questioned. He says he wasn’t there, but was actually poaching pheasants and nicking tractor diesel miles away. As you do.
Well, that’s good enough for Alec and Ellie, so both suspects are released, even though forensic comes up with a footprint Nigel’s size on the beach near the body. This is weeks after the murder, so why has this evidence only just come to light? Does the tide never come in at Broadchurch?
Maggie and Ollie at the local paper have found out about Alec’s trip to hospital and he agrees to give them an exposition, sorry exclusive, about his previous case at Sandbrook. Turns out vital evidence in that case, a pendant, was lost from a police car break in, while Alec’s DS wife went for a drink with her DS lover. Alec took the rap to protect his daughter – though why she should be more traumatised at the thought of her mum screwing up rather than her dad is unclear.
Crunch scene is when Susan returns to her caravan to find Nigel waiting for her, threatening Vince will be ‘gutted while you sleep’ if she doesn’t leave within the hour. Susan counter-threatens that if she leaves, she will never come back. This really doesn’t rank high on Nigel’s List of Effective Threats, but she refuses to change her witness statement to take him out of the frame. Rather than getting the crossbow out, Nigel leaves the caravan, and within minutes Susan leaves Broadchurch.
The final scene shows Alec reading through the recovered emails from Ellie’s son, Tom Millar’s, laptop. Alec exclaims ‘Of course. Shit.’ which either means he’s overlooked something glaringly obvious, or that the whole plot revolves around the smuggling of illegal manure under the cover of darkness.
Quotes of the Week
Alec, in hospital bed, ‘Why did you bring grapes?’ Ellie ‘Thought you might choke on the seeds.’ Alec ‘They’re seedless.’ Ellie ‘Don’t be a smartarse.’
Ellie, interviewing a stubborn Susan, ‘I have lost so much patience, if you don’t tell me what happened, I will charge you and when we find your dog, I will have him put down.’ – Who’d be a chocolate Labrador in Broadchurch?
