Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Case Histories Episode 6 - "When Will There Be Good News? part 2"


Jackson Brodie (Jason Isaacs) finds himself in jail for assaulting a police officer, but DI Munroe (Amanda Abbington) straightens it all out with the help of Reggie (Gwyneth Keyworth) who told them that the officer threw the first punch.
Reggie's apartment gets ransacked, more than that, destroyed by a couple of drug dealers who are looking for the drugs her brother took but hasn't paid them for. She tells Brodie that it'll be alright and lies to him about her mother being out of town on holiday. Brodie finally finds out the whole story about the drugs - Reggie had hidden them at the old woman's house (in the previous episode).
Brodie finds the man who stole his wallet and phone dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on the beach where the crime the man committed 30 years ago took place. Everyone seems convinced that the woman Reggie nanny's for is just laying low since this Jones fellow had just gotten out of jail, everyone except Brodie.
Munroe brings Brodie his phone and wallet back and tells him to disregard the message she left when she drunk-dialed him, so of course he listens to it and goes over to her place to talk to her about it, interrupting her date with the handsome doctor who just happened to have looked after Brodie all the times he has been in the hospital in this and the last episode. He covers by saying he is there to talk about the missing woman, and Munroe tells him to piss off.
Reggie takes Brodie to the old woman's house to recover the drugs she had hidden there when her brother shows up demanding them. They have a bit of a row and Brodie leaves it up to Reggie whether or not to give the drugs to her brother to which she says not to and tells her brother to take off and go into hiding because he can't have the drugs.
Brodie and Reggie go to see the missing woman's husband and he finally admits that his wife and baby are being held captive by gangsters until he pays them the money he owes them. The two follow the gangsters after they leave a meeting with the man in hopes of finding the missing woman and baby. But, by the time Brodie can get into the shed she's being held in, it's all over. The woman took it upon herself that noone else could help and took out both men. Brodie helps her cover up the scene by dousing the shed and the contents including the bodies in petrol and lighting it on fire.
Brodie gets a call from the man who hired him for the job at the start of the previous episode and says he's got it all figured out now and just by the way he says it, Brodie knows the man is going to do something horrible. When he gets to the house where the wife is staying, Munroe's DC is just arriving, Brodie tells him not to go near the man but he doesn't listen. The man thinks the DC is having an affair with his wife because he saw him before and the man shoots him dead.
The episode ends on Christmas day. Brodie talks to his daughter and then goes by to give a gift to Reggie and has a little talk with the woman, asking her if she intentionally guilted Jones into killing himself. She asks him if they've met before, but he denies it. Reggie tries to get him to stay, but he has one more visit, which is to see Munroe. He finally gets her to tell him what he said in the hospital that he can't remember, and when she says it was nothing, he tells her it must be okay to tell him then, when she says that he told her he loved her, Brodie answers that that sounds about right. Instead of going in, he goes for a run and ends up overlooking Edinburgh at sundown and recalls an incident when he was a soldier where he found a missing girl, that just happens to be the woman who thought she knew him.
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Best episode yet. I think Keyworth is delightful as Reggie and her interaction with Isaacs is pure gold to be all cliched.
This was another action packed episode that would have gone completely different if it were an American show. Brodie confronts the two thugs who had trashed Reggie's home and doesn't throw a single punch, he just grabs one of the dudes by his balls on puts on the pressure figuratively and literally. An American P.I. would have thrown at least one punch.
I wonder if this show will be back. I know that the BBC has ordered a second series, but I also know that Isaacs is the lead in the American police-procedural-with-a-sci-fi-twist, Awake. It's not completely inconceivable for him to do both shows, especially since this series is only six episodes compared to the 13 of Awake and the 22 to 24 next year if it gets picked up by the network.
Oh, and while Isaacs American accent is very good, I prefer him with a British one.

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