How long can Zoey investigate the mystery of Joe's death before she gets into serious trouble? At this point, everyone involved in the Singleton house bombing is either missing or dead, including Sarah Trafford. It turns out the Stranger's name is Downey, and he killed Axel Crane and took Sarah away in his not-at-all-creepy gray van. At the first opportunity, Sarah runs away from him, but he grabs her and points a gun at her before deciding to let her make her choice. She can either go back to the van or let “them” catch her, the people who are going to kill her. So she goes back to the van. At the same time, she could get an answer from Downey: who are “they”?
We know it's the Department of Defense; more specifically, what appears to be their homicide department. The man sent to look into Axel's death is his own brother Amos, who makes it seem like nothing happened except that he couldn't have known that the bathroom doorknob was broken before Sarah tried to hold it with all her might. When Zoe breaks into Sarah's house and notices it's been fixed, she knows someone was there. She was looking for Sarah after identifying Axel as Joe's killer. When she went to buy cigarettes next door, it occurred to her that the store was guarded by cameras. Mel, the owner, was inclined to indulge his police procedural fantasies by watching CCTV footage of Axel leaving Joe's office and entering the store. Sarah, of course, already knows that Axel killed Joe, but she didn't have a chance to tell Zoe.
Finding Sarah's house empty, Zoe instead encounters Wigwam, who appears looking for his friend. My theory that Wigwam is an undercover government agent falls apart due to her reaction to Sarah and Rufus' disappearance. She desperately needs to find out what's going on; she breaks her rule of never talking to the police, the “patriarchal misogynists” they are, to talk to Zoe, who is pretending to be a police officer investigating Joe's death. The night before, Wigwam fell asleep after putting the children to bed, and did not notice that Rufus returned only in the morning. In Wigwam's kitchen, Zoe notices a photo of Axel on the refrigerator, which Wigwam refers to as Rufus. That he simply appeared in Wigwam's life out of nowhere, and that his main profession was a “juggler”, only adds to the evidence of his slipperiness. Zoey tells Wigwam to get out of there with his kids and to call her if Sarah contacts her.
On the short end of this mysterious stick is Malik. This week he gets his ass kicked by both his unnamed boss C and his subordinate Amos Crane, whom he fires, or at least tries to do. The Cranes' unorthodox methods have spilled too much unnecessary blood, including their own, so Malik is tasked with removing Amos from the case. After clearing the crime scene, Amos buried his own brother. He cried, although it was unnatural for him. When Malik tells him he's giving up the case to avoid more people dying, he knocks Malik out of his chair before he can finish the “permanent grief leave” line. Amos promises to find Downey, regardless of whether it is his official duty.
Downey is the key to the whole conspiracy, but he doesn't seem very inclined to start talking. He's not the least bit threatened when Sarah points a shaking gun at him from the van's dashboard, demanding to know who he is and where he's taking her. All he tells Sarah is that he has been following her because he is also looking for Dina, and that “they” are more powerful than “any of us”, and that if “they” discover where Sarah and Downey are, it will be game over for all of them, including Dina. For her part, Zoe knows that solving Sarah's disappearance will bring her closer to Joe's death, but the local police are not interested in following up her leads. She lays out her theory to the officer in charge that Axel blew up the Singletons, killed Joe, and left Sarah missing. She gives him the cap he wore the night Joe was killed, which she took from the Wigwam house, but he ignores her plea.
Either way, Zoey isn't waiting for police approval to take matters into her own hands. Digging deeper, she discovers betrayal. When Sarah first walked into Joe's office, Zoe wondered wryly if she was looking for someone to investigate her husband's affair with his secretary. Sarah laughed back, saying that this kind of thing didn't exist anymore. As it turns out, Zoe was right: while walking Mark to his office, she films him kissing his assistant Emma as they return from their lunch break. I knew there was something fishy about Mark's ill-timed overnight stay in London, although nothing could have prepared me for Emma calling him a “sex god” (this guy?!). Zoe's tactic to get Mark to cooperate is to roast him in the middle of his open-plan office. Once he agrees to talk in a more private room, Zoe informs him that Sarah is missing. She wants him to file a missing person's report so the police will be required to look into it. To make sure he does it, Zoey shows him a video she took of him and Emma.
But the video will not be used as blackmail, since Sarah herself finds out about Mark’s betrayal. Never underestimate a man's ability to ruin a woman's day, even if she is embroiled in a life-threatening government conspiracy. At a gas station, Sarah uses her wits to steal another customer's phone. In the bathroom, she calls Mark, who she expects will go crazy with worry about her. When he picks up, she hears Emma's voice: “It's probably a cold call, buddy, just hang up.” But he doesn't hang up, he just hangs up and Sarah hears him tell Emma that she's apparently missing without the slightest worry in his voice. Emma suggests that perhaps Sarah has finally ended the marriage. Mark laughs, “That would be the result,” and then asks her to order them dinner. Sarah would have every right to pounce on Axel Crane and see if she could hang him with an assistant.
Meanwhile, in the van, Downey takes a pill from a bottle labeled “Histopine”. In London, C meets with a man named Isaac, who assures him that Singleton's death is already decided. All evidence of the explosion was destroyed and his body, recorded as John Doe, was removed from the morgue. This means that what Wigwam told Sarah about Maddie's husband's death can't be true – how can a person die twice? When S asks what condition Singleton was in before the explosion, Isaac replies that he must have been seriously suffering from nerve damage that could only be relieved by histropine. “Without pills, his days were numbered,” Isaac says, assuring S. that Downey won’t last longer than his own supply, which isn’t easily refilled at any random pharmacy.
As if hearing echoes of foul play in the rarefied halls of power, Zoe decides to inspect the morgue. After asking the duty clerk Wayne to show Joe's body, she plays a little game with a hint of truth about how she didn't get a chance to say goodbye. But she doesn't even open Joe's body bag—she looks through other boxes instead. Maddie Singleton is here, but the box marked “John Doe” is, as expected, empty. On the way out, Zoe talks to Wayne about the importance of following your dreams. This is her way of implying that Wayne should be doing more with his life than letting people get away with crap in the morgue, even if his idea of ”doing more” is a constant live broadcast. She leaves him with her card.
Zoe's main strength as an investigator is her ability to open people like locks, drawing out the information she needs from them, targeting directly their insecurities. It's part of her tendency to “do the unexpected,” as Joe's mother Janice says. But in the face of the harsh facts, she is still in the dark. What she knows is this: Before he died, Joe revealed that eight soldiers were being court-martialed in 2021, following the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan. Three months later, they were all presumed dead in a helicopter crash, including Tommy Singleton, Maddie's husband. Then a house in Oxford exploded, leaving a dead mother, a missing body and a missing child. She tells all this to her Irish lover when he comes to “express his condolences” for Joe. He wonders if, as a member of the Metropolitan Police or the Met, he can help her. But when she comes to Singleton's name, he warns her to drop the word before she gets hurt. Zoe is furious. Through the window she throws the TV into his car.
Encouraged, Zoe goes to Wayne. She asks if he saw the John Doe they brought in and if he's in Maddie Singleton's Facebook profile photo. Wayne confirms that it is him, not only visually, but also by showing her that his dreams are indeed alive – he accidentally wrote his own facial recognition program on his work computer and runs a search on Tommy Singleton's face, revealing a photo of the battalion he was with on a website called “Veterans Reunion”. So it's confirmed: Tommy Singleton did not die in the helicopter crash; he died when his house was bombed. Also in the Veterans Reunion photo, Downey, who is in a hotel room with Sarah at this point, acts like a gentleman and allows her to take the bed while he takes the chair.
Sarah finds Joe's business card in his pants pocket. She waits for Downey to shower so she can call Zoe. But Zoë is busy having tea with Janice, Joe's mother, who needs help planning Joe's funeral, so she ignores the calls. Zoe tells Janice that Joe did not commit suicide and that she is looking for the people who killed him. She hands Janice an envelope with a number, instructing her mother-in-law to call there and give them the envelope in case she doesn't hear from Zoe. From Joe's old bedroom, where she plans to spend the night, Zoe dials the number that called her phone. Sarah picks up after the first ring.
• Did Malik really think those two idiots he hired to hang out at Dinah's cottage could hold off Amos? Amos literally laughs as two heavyweights threaten him with a stun gun. Amos stops by with Dina's teddy bear, although it's obvious that he's really assessing the situation before committing an infraction. He calls Axel's phone, which he correctly assumes Downey took with him, but to no avail.
• During C's meeting with Isaac, it is revealed that the boss has a boss – Secretary of Defense Talia Ross, who is clearly despised.
• Sarah notices that Downey has scars on his arms, which appear to be related to the nerve damage Isaac mentioned. Together with the military tribunal and the involvement of the Ministry of Defense, this all reeks of something that rhymes with “Schwar crimes”.
• As tensions rise, three different races take place simultaneously: Zoe's race to catch up with the conspiracy; Downey and Sarah rush to get to Dina; and Amos' race to get to Downey and Sarah. I'm already looking forward to seeing how the show brings all these races together without causing another huge explosion.
• And also… Gerard? I'm still not sure of his innocence.
• The precedent has been set so far: C will provide one lasting assessment of the situation each week. This week: “The stinking river of dysentery you call an operation continues to shit.” Come on! This sings.
