Review: Grace (S3 E2/3)

There’s something happening in Grace at the moment, and it’s to do with both Roy Grace and his partner Glen Branson’s relationships. In the case of the latter, his marriage is on the ropes and he’s struggling to understand why. In the case of the former, we know – thanks to the stunning last scene in episode one last week – that Grace’s long-missing wife, Sandy was revealed to be alive and living somewhere in Germany (just as Grace and Cleo agreed to move in together). There’s some nice mirroring going on there between these two.

However, the question in this follow-up was whether Sandy and Grace’s storyline would be furthered. It turns out it was not.

Instead, we were plunged into a strange, new case. A young American student by the name of Tony Robinson was ploughed down while riding his bike in an apparent hit-and-run, the culprit driving a blue pick-up truck. And so we were off and running – Grace, Branson and the team working out the leads, and trying to identify the driver. This led us on a merry dance around one young gentleman with connections to prison and drugs and, well, let’s just say he became the prime suspect pretty quickly.

Elsewhere, one of the drivers involved in the crash – a single mother named Carly Davis – was acting strangely with a murky history all of her own and we were offered up a scenario where she might actually be something to do with the young student’s death.

While the investigation evolves slowly (for us and for Cassian Pewe, who, no surprises, is at loggerheads with Grace), more bodies start to show up – everyone connected to the case is being tortured and murdered. So what’s going on here?

Up until that point, it felt like an odd, cumbersome plot and it then got much odder.

Tony Robinson’s American mother and father travel to Brighton, and it’s revealed that the mother is actually the daughter of a Mafia don – a nugget of information revealed by Tony’s girlfriend near to the end of the episode. (“Oh, by the way, Tony’s mum is the daughter of head of the most powerful Mafia families on the East Coast of America.”)

So Roy Grace is now taking on the Mafia, and the daughter of a crime gang who is hellbent on taking her own revenge. So, quite the turn there.

With all that being said, there’s a thrilling denouement, where the son of Carly Davis – being held by a Mafia hitman – uses his recently deceased dad’s smart-watch to help locate him.

But really, not the greatest episode.

And yet… Sandy reappears at the very end… in Brighton, telling her young son via video call that she was looking for an “old friend”.

And some final random thoughts: is Cleo now turning into as much of a profiler as a forensic technician? Certainly seems that way. And… whoever’s in charge of the music went bonkers in this episode – there were huge, fierce classical swells and soaring, emotive orchestral arrangements.

Paul Hirons

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

READ MORE: OUR EPISODE ONE REVIEW

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