Shetland S4|E2: Whose Dad?

Last week we left Thomas Malone in an informal grave with a mini-JCB dumping peat on top of him. This led (thank you Ali Wilson, Mr Ray Burn, Ms AGA Stove and others) to a host of Peaty Blinders jokes. But here we are at episode two and…

Quick recap: Lizzie Kilmuir was killed years ago, Thomas Malone was convicted of her murder, but has now been declared innocent and is wandering Shetland in a peculiar number one crop/beard combo.Like a member of a death metal band or a waiter at a vegan restaurant. Anyway, Tosh is not leaving (hooray!), Kilmuir case cop Drew MacColl’s daughter is also dead, murdered. Kate Kilmuir is looking haunted. She’s Lizzie’s TWIN SISTER. Forst Energy - they’re bad Norwegians who let drunken roughnecks on their rigs, then kill them. I think we’re going to Norway. More jumpers, yay!

Here we go. Mud! Mud, glorious mud (not peat). Thomas is alive, like The Bride in Kill Bill only much yuckier; his head’s sticking out of the earth. It’s like some kind of Scandinavian beauty therapy, except it hasn’t worked, clearly, in his case. He’s heading home, limping past a bus stop, wherein Twin Sister’s daughter stands. Thomas hallucinates that she’s Lizzie or her mum (TWIN SISTER) Kate back in pre-prison days. She guesses he’s her dad, right? There’s a whole lotta paternity stuff coming atcha, so get ready. Pay attention.

Here’s Jimmy. And apparently those gansies ARE Shetland-made jumpers, just not Fair isle pattern ones. And apparently not itchy next to the skin, due to secret sheep technology. They’re like the special Everest jumpers, made from ultrafine wool, as worn by Hillary and Tensing. Like..the finest cashmere, or a silk vest made from unicorn’s eyelashes. Honest. A lanolin caress.

So, quick, up to speed with the nasty Norwegians. The mysterious Forst Energy human resources baddie Andreas is in Norway, and recently-dead Sally was after him. He’s got a motive. Hasn’t he? Then there’s Alan Killick, seal succourer, Sally’s ex. And Malone. So three suspects with motives. We just don’t know what those motives are, though, do we?

Malone is in the cop shop, badly in need of a shower (NOTE: if you need a shower in Lerwick, the Clickimin Centre is good. They have saunas, steam rooms, ice cold drenches but not the fluffy dressing gowns the cop shop seems to possess for guests)

Jimmy’s “trying to keep an open mind,” while Malone grunts that he may know who tried to bury him, but he’s not saying, despite that hot shower and the towelling robe.

“I’ll not be pressing charges.” He’s no grass.

So they’re looking for “a high-roofed Transit van on the road between Malone’s farm and Laxo”. Love the way specific locations are slipped in when the whole series plays so madly fast and loose with Shetland’s geography, while making the place look gorgeous. Meanwhile, we're at Jo Halley’s house/studio - she’s the deaf artist Sally used to stay with. She’s worried about intruders. She should be. They'll be after those Ruth Brownlee paintings.

Jimmy in the Volvo, which is in A LOT of scenes. Nice alloys. Is this product placement? Swedish, not Norwegian. Or Danish. Scandic, though, and black, so, like, noir. Just make sure the central electronic control unit is under warranty, that’s all I’m saying. Jimmy is suddenly astride the ‘grave’ of Thomas Malone, and finds a toy man/soldier/Lego figure. This is A CLUE in pure Cluedo stylee. No gloves. Into the pocket in pure dead brilliant forensic mode.Bet it appears again later. You watch.

We're with Drew, retired dodgy policeman/bereaved father. He’s got a pulley. Clothes are drying on it I do like a pulley. A house is incomplete without a pulley. Or an illicit lover hiding in the corner when Jimmy arrives. Wow, that’s Alan Killick’s mum, Wildlife Woman. She’s Drew’s alibi for the grave/JCB/Malone incident, apparently, though she stays hidden before snogging Drew. His hair moves not a micron.

(What’s with the names? Killick/Kilmuir, and killings in kilns? Killiecrankie! Krumbs!)

Volvo to the Wildlife Sanctuary in (not) Hillswick and here’s Wildlife Alan - his alibi is rubbish because we know he was at the Taj Tandoori. Now he’s in a shed with a caravan in it. Where were you last night - here on my own. Wait, there’s a high-roof Transit! Open the doors! A huge deluge of mud and blood rushes forth, then out of the TV set and fills this room! Where’s the remote! Videodrome!

No, just drifted off there, sorry.

Forensic are coming. Is that the old doctor woman? All will be well.

Tosh is in a flash office to see the head of human resources at Forst Energy, which would be Andreas. But he’s in Norway, where we’re going soon. Flights available in the summer from Shetland, folks.

Here’s Duncan, Cassie Perez’s Other Dad (birth father. Jimmy is her step dad. The mother’s dead. It’s not just complicated, it’s a social work nightmare). He’s also quite clearly shaping up to be Jimmy’s lover, implicitly, if not explicitly. Anyway Dunc’s at the Lodberrie to see Cassie, and suggsts she takes a job at the wildlife sanctuary. Good move. Jimmy will be pleased. But she has to get over her ex Edison (lighthouse reference?).

Danny Hamilton - died when his arm was ripped off by “a rotating driveshaft”. Love it when you talk technical, Tosh. Looks like his widow’s been paid off by nasty Norski Forst Energy even though he was teetotal and it wasn’t his fault as they were clearly all drunk on that oil rig apart from him. Never mind, Tosh is soon off to Norway to sort that out.

Nobody’s taken Malone’s shotgun off him I see. Must have applied for a licence when he was still in jail, as you do. Strangely intimate meeting with Kate Kilmuir (TWIN SISTER TO MURDERED LIZZIE) who suggests he needs to stop rocking “the Charles Manson look.” As this would involve plastic surgery it seems a bit of an ask.

“Some leds aroond heer lest neet treed tae berry me aleeve!” Come on Tommy, that’s no excuse for bad grooming. And get that generator fixed! Oho, get that wee wave at Kate’s daughter. As if...as if….they might be related in some way

The van in question (not the one at the Wildlife Sanctuary, keep up) has been sold to Benny who was the witness crucial to convicting Thomas back in the day. Now he owns a garage and a blue boiler suit. His beard’s almost as bad as Malone’s. Sandy goes to his garage. “Is this your digger?” No, and what’s more the van’s off to the crusher. More men in blue boiler suits stand around threateningly. Sandy knows kung fu, though, and beats the living daylights out of them. Or perhaps I imagined that.

Cassie has cycled to Hillswick from Lerwick in about ten minutes to volunteer at the Wildlife Sanctuary, where she and Alan begin to establish a soulful and tender relationship. They have been kissed by a loving seal, or maybe an otter. Tosh and Jimmy pursue the missing Andreas through his rented house on Whalsay, which is surrounded by trees and is clearly in Barrhead or Mauchline in ‘real life’. Handily, he’s left his wallet which has Sally’s business card in it. Aha! The Volvo is still looking good. The cottage doesn’t meet Tosh’s conception of Scandinavian chic:

“I was hoping for something a bit more hygge - is that Norwegian or Danish? It means the complete absence of anything annoying.”

Grumpy Jimmy: “Unfortunately that’s not a concept I’m familiar with.” Read some interior design magazines, pal.

Hold on. We have a major development. From a lab. And it’s to do with Alan Killick, because his name is on a form and circled in pen. Partial secondary DNA on the scarf used to strangle Lizzie Killickmuirmarnockintilloch turn out to be related to Alan Killick “on the male side.” (And by the way 'Preserved Killick' is a major character in Patrick O'Brian's superb Aubrey/Maturin novels).

“That narrows things down quite a bit.” Uh huh.

Volvo! Mine has been in the garage for six months. This is upsetting.

We’re back at Hillswick with Killicks, who don’t have a kiln and are not the Kilmuirs, but whose dad Kevin may have killed a Kilmuir, but not a Killick. Or maybe a Kirkintilloch or a Kilmarnock. Cassie’s still hanging about. Jimmy’s not happy. Mrs Wildlife used to get beaten up by Kevin. Maybe she...no. Too simple.

They decide to dig up the body of Kevin who’s been dead for eight years because his wife, Mrs Wildlife, hasn’t kept his toothbrush. “My dad didn’t do it!” says Alan. The grave is opened. Alan’s in Jo Halley’s house raking through Sally’s belongings, claiming he “just wants to spend the night in her room.” Normal. At least Jo seems to think so. “Fancy a coffee?” Maybe a seal has escaped.

Benny Ray, garagiste, boiler suit wearer, was known as Benny Blue (boiler suit or pills?) and was “Shetland’s answer to Liam Gallagher” back in the day, apparently, though it should be said right now that Liam WAS NOT, IS NOT and NEVER WAS a drug dealer or a police informant. Or, for that matter, a guitarist, though he was and is a fine singer in my opinion.

Here’s the gruesomely puntastic forensic elderly doctor woman as they exhume Kevin Killick’s Korpse. Some people don’t like this kind of thing, she says, but “it’s no skin off my nose, though there are some who find the whole process hard to stomach.” She’s a one with that medical black humour, isn’t she?

OK, loads of stuff comin’ now. CCTV from Norway shows Sally with Andreas (WE’RE GOING TO BERGEN!) Malone drops a mobile phone. Drew MacColl had Benny Blue as an informer which means he should NOT have been a witness at the trial. Jimmy chins Benny outside Benny’s grandson’s school, where the peerie lad asks about a model figure, and I’m not talking Kate Moss. Told you. Telt ye! Jimmy produces He Man/Lego Larry, the one he found at the grave. Gotcha! Except he hasn’t. Back to the Volvo. Tosh is off to Norway, flight’s at seven. Jimmy can’t go because of Cassie and the Other Dad. He and Duncan stare soulfully into each other’s eyes. Will they? Won’t they?

Thomas is moaning in his house with all these dodgy drawings of Lizzie OR HER TWIN SISTER Kate, who’s outside trying to get in. She loves you, Thomas! How can you be so blind! Or maybe you’re not.

Procurator Fiscal Rhona arrives at the Lodberrie to announce that Kevin Killick’s is NOT the DNA from Lizzie’s strangle-scarf. What’s more Kevin WAS NOT ALAN’s DAD. Obviously it couldn’t have been Alan, who was just a boy or not born, so WHO IS ALAN’s REAL DAD? Not Drew, because that would mean….Chinatown!

Malone passes that bus stop. He hallucinates, sees the young Lizzie again. Or maybe her TWIN SISTER. Then he goes off, gets a hammer, and beats Benny Blue to a pulp. Really.

SO….

Next, Norway. Tosh is tough but can she cope with trolls? And Norwegian drink prices?

Is Benny black and blue or bludgeoned to bloody obliteration?

Will Jimmy and Duncan finally admit their feelings for each other?

Volvos or Saabs in Bergen?

More next week!

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