Marcella recap: episode three sudden death and spaniels | Television & radio

Publish date: 2024-08-15
Tough-girl Cara, who managed to make an enemy of a serial killer. Photograph: ITVTough-girl Cara, who managed to make an enemy of a serial killer. Photograph: ITV
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Marcella recap: episode three – sudden death and spaniels

There are 565 suspects on the loose, and they’re all up to no good: chaining people up, running people over repeatedly and crucifying doggies

Marcella trundles on, never quite proving gripping but featuring enough jumpy moments to hold my attention, most notably this week with the sudden and horrible death of Cara and the untimely demise of a spaniel. I’m hoping that as the finger of blame slowly shifts towards Marcella, things might get a bit more engrossing. Anna Friel’s scrambled performance is proving the highlight of this show, so the more of that the better, quite frankly.

Detective. Witness. Suspect

After her bin-kicking exploits last week, Marcella does a better job of holding things together this time around, largely avoiding those damaging blackouts and making some headway in the Grove Park murders. It’s a case she arguably shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near, given that the entire team are now aware of her connection to Grace Gibson. But she’s given a pass, and even manages to convince her sour-faced superiors to consider Peter Cullen as a suspect after it emerges that he hasn’t exactly been under close supervision at the bakery.

Of course, the potential for Marcella’s life to fall to bits is an ever-present concern, especially now that Grace’s body has been discovered on Hampstead Heath. Marcella is managing to keep a poker face about that discovery, but the fact that the team are doing tests on the blood found at Grace’s house doesn’t bode well, nor does the fact that whizzkid techie Mark has spotted that Marcella was looking at the CCTV records for Grace’s road before her body was discovered. A more realistic-seeming police department would surely have taken her off the case – at the very minimum – on discovery of this detail, but I suspect that Marcella’s job is safe for the time being, if only because watching her squirm as every new detail about Grace’s murder emerges is making for solid entertainment.

A shambles … the potential for Marcella’s life to fall apart is an ever-present concern. Photograph: ITV

Marcella’s home life remains a shambles, especially now her daughter is in trouble at school for smoking weed. At least this week she can cling to the fact that she managed to briefly rekindle her relationship with estranged husband Jason, albeit in a fashion that spoke to the aggression and anger at the centre of their relationship. (Like rutting stags is how you might characterise that bedroom scene). Still, any sense of this being anything other than a brief bout of breakup sex was quickly extinguished by the news that Jason has been seeing Grace for a monumental three years, suggesting this was anything but a brief fling. More darkly, it’s revealed that Grace was pregnant.

Also under suspicion

Peter Cullen is back in prime suspect territory, though ironically it’s due to a crime he didn’t commit. The team spot the bakery’s van outside the house where the failed murder attempt took place and link its appearance to his boss Guy, who they learn from hospital records was recently treated at hospital for a nasty scissor injury. Guy admits to not supervising Cullen during the time of the attack, which puts him right back on the team’s radar. I think we can rule out the theory that Cullen and Guy have been working together on the Grove Park killings: their conversation when Guy wishes Cullen a fond farewell didn’t sound terribly conspiratorial.

Fond farewell … Peter Cullen and Guy Roberts don’t seem terribly conspiratorial. Photograph: ITV

Cullen may or may not be the bad man responsible for the Grove Park killings, but he’s certainly a bad man period. No sooner has he been placed on parole than he’s following Maddy back to her house and eavesdropping on her conversation with her boyfriend, who is concerned that Maddy is playing a dangerous game with Cullen. He’s right to be worried, given that soon after he expresses his reservations about the guy, he finds himself chained up in a darkened room with Cullen looming over him. As sure a sign of Cullen’s psychopathy as this act is, it’s also arguably another piece of evidence that he isn’t the Grove Park killer, given that the killer doesn’t tend to announce himself to his victims.

Remember Clive Bonn, the suspect from episode one, who we heard nary a peep from last week? Well he’s back with a bang this week, appearing on the Hampstead Heath car park CCTV just before Grace’s death. Expect to see him hauled in for questioning along with the show’s 565 other suspects next time around.

Other goings on

RIP Cara. You were never long for this world, what with you not only being involved in illicit web activities, but also managing to make an enemy of a genuine serial killer in your brief time on the show. Cara’s grim demise, run over repeatedly by a car, reminded me of a similar fate suffered in Happy Valley, though that death felt far more devastating, largely because the character in question was so much more rounded and real than cardboard cut-out tough girl Cara. Still it shows the ruthlessness of our killer. How did he know she would be running down that side street at that time? Was he tipped off somehow?

Meanwhile, as promised, we are forced to witness the crucifixion of a dog. The likely culprit looks to be Bendek, an immigrant from Poland who has been working for, and was racially abused by, the dog’s owner. If that’s how he treats a dog, imagine what he might do to an actual living person …

Notes and observations

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