As the second episode of Litvinenko begins, DS Clive Timmons (Mark Bonnar) meets with Marina Litvinenko (Margarita Levieva) to tell her that her husband was killed by polonium. When Clive calls it a suspicious death, Marina says it was murder. Clive says his interviews will be their guide now. They must be as thorough in investigating his account as he was in giving it. Clive warns Marina that she may be asked to leave her home so they can test for polonium. Duncan Ball (Richard Pepper) confirms they have places they can stay for a while, but Alexander doesn’t think they should leave since they’ve been here for a month already. Clive introduces the liaison officers including Ray and Aiden. Clive explains he isn’t going to hang around to offer emotional support because it is his job to find out who did this to her husband.

Pat Troop (Maggie Evans) and others discuss how dangerous the poison is. Dr. Nick Gent (Ian Conningham) believes this is a chemical attack on the United Kingdom. They discuss finding out which areas have been contaminated. Clive says they can identify the sites that need checking and their teams can check them. Sir John Scarlett (Simon Paisley Day) asks Clive if he has ever dealt with a case like this. Clive wonders if anyone has. Marina and Anatoly (Temirlan Blaev) are told it is time to go. Marina looks at some of her husband’s things before going. Brent Hyatt (Neil Maskell) looks at Alexander’s body until he is told they’re asking for the area to be cleared. Pat talks to the press about the poisoning. Dr. Nick Gent gives officers instructions for protecting themselves from the poison. He shows them the alpha detector that they’ll need to use to check for polonium.

Clive tells DAC Peter Clarke (Daniel Ryan) in private that he is going to tell his team he doesn’t know what the risk is. Peter doesn’t think he should since he carries the worry for them. If he doesn’t, the whole thing will unravel and panic will spread faster than the disease. Clive goes to his team and tells them he wants to start with Litvinenko and work backwards. He explains that they’ll keep checking until they find out where the trail stops. He gives anyone who doesn’t fancy this an opportunity to leave. Marina and her son leave their home as the search team enters to look for polonium. Something is detected in the toilet. Clive tells Brent it’d be something more if they hadn’t found polonium in the house. Brent explains that Alexander takes them through everything on the recordings. Clive wants to search everywhere because they shouldn’t take anyone’s word for it.

Clive reminds them that they were with Alexander the most so they’ll need to be tested and cleared to avoid putting the team in danger. Next, Clive is told that Scaramella is a regular in London. He puts DI Brian Tarpey (Sam Troughton) in charge of finding him. Clive meets with DC Deborah Maxwell (Kayla Meikle) who tells him that the manager’s name is Martin Spencer. He tells them that he remembers Kovtun and describes him as a low-key guy. As for Lugovoy, he walked around like he owned the place. Martin gives the detectives their room numbers before revealing that the Pine Bar has no CCTV cameras. He begins checking for CCTV footage for the rest of the hotel. Brent speaks with Dr. Onome George (Estella Daniels) so he can get tested for polonium exposure. He questions if this could impact his ability to have children in the future. The doctor believes it’d depend on the amount of time he spent with the victim. The team searches the sushi restaurant.

They receive a very high reading at one point. Martin finds Lugovoy on the surveillance video. He books one of the family suites. Clive wonders if he’d bring the wife and kids if he was going to poison someone using one of the most dangerous poisons in the world. Brian calls Clive to ask him about getting the Italian to grab Scaramella, but Clive doesn’t want anyone nabbed. Clive asks for his number so he can call him. Nick Gent tells Clive that they got secondary readings at the house so they came from Alexander. They can eliminate the wife and son. At the sushi restaurant, the readings are much higher so there was polonium right there. Clive learns that one of his men found it and he is worried that his sleeve wasn’t taped correctly. If the test comes back clean, he can be back at work in a few days. Clive gets the phone number for Mario Scaramella (Antonio Magro). He calls Mario and says there are some individuals they’re keen to talk to. Mario gets into a vehicle with Duncan who introduces himself.

Marina and Anatoly get settled into a different house. More polonium is detected at the table Alexander and the others sat at. DC Maxwell takes a box of documents back to the team. DI Tarpey takes the paper with Lugovoy’s card and account number. Mario is interviewed by Clive. He denies being involved in Sasha’s poisoning. Mario claims he was so eager to talk to Sasha because he was worried about him and himself. He thought they were both targets. He is allowed to listen to the recording of Alexander calling him a madman. He goes on to admit that Mario could be the person sent to poison him. Clive suggests getting his hotel tested as well as other places he has been in London to find out how possible it is. Out of Mario’s view, Clive orders for him to have a urine test immediately and to send a team to his motel. While the team begins working, DAC Clarke ignores a call from John Scarlett.

Brian Tarpey hears the news reporter call Alexander Russian. He tells Clive that she got it wrong since Alexander was British. Clive is shown a video of Lugovoy making a call at 15:38. That was the exact same time Sasha told Brent they spoke on the phone. When the call ends, Lugovoy speaks to Kovtun. Duncan finds it odd that they went to the bathroom together. Lugovoy comes out of the bathroom, pats his pocket, and goes back to the bar to wait for Alexander. Clive mentions that they had polonium in Itsu before anything in the video and nothing will change that. After receiving a call, Clive calls DC Maxwell to tell her to go to the foyer and get the dust buster things ready. He tells Duncan and Brian that Scaramella is clean. Brian finds that Lugovoy used his card during a trip to London two weeks earlier. On the 16th of October, he used the card to buy food from the same Itsu.

Maxwell is told to tell the others to check in the gentleman’s bathroom. Duncan says Alexander liked to meet at Itsu. If they were there, they were there to meet Alexander. Clive gets a call learning it is full-scale deflection which is radioactive as it gets. Clive tells his team that Lugovoy and Kovtun are their boys. They tried to poison Alexander previously and failed. This time, they wanted to do it on their terms so they invited him to the motel. When he got there, they were already waiting on him. Peter Clarke meets with John Scarlett who wants to give him the Russian angle on this. Scarlett says any Russian citizen deemed to be an enemy of the state is fair game no matter where they are. He goes on to say Litvinenko had been stirring things up. He had branded Putin a war criminal before he even got in. Alexander had also been doing work for them so he was basically asking for trouble.

Peter has other ideas since Alexander was a British citizen and lived here. He believes Alexander should be protected under the laws of the United Kingdom. Marina and her son watch the television and see Putin claim that it wasn’t murder. Marina looks at Alexander’s papers and tells her son that Putin underestimated him. Clive tells the team that they must find physical evidence that links their men to the polonium. Lugovoy went to the football match and they ate in a place called Pescatore the night after. Clive says anything that happens after they met Alexander doesn’t work because the radiation could’ve come from him. Maxwell suggests checking the airplane they came in on and Clive agrees. Brent gets a call from Dr. George who tells him that he is clear and his partner is as well. Maxwell learns that the plane in question is at Heathrow. Contamination is found on the seat used by Lugovoy.

Clive takes the new information to Peter and says it is enough to apply for extradition. Peter breaks the news that there will be no application because there is resistance. He explains they may have to limit themselves to correctly identifying the culprits. Clive asks if they can’t speak to the men or extradite them before Peter reminds him that there is no extradition agreement between the UK and Russia. Clive believes that is something they’ll have to work around. Next, Clive learns that DI Tarpey doesn’t want to work on the case anymore, but Clive wants him to go to Moscow. Anatoly takes drinks to the liaison officers outside. Marina gets a call from someone saying they hope the person responsible is found. The man eventually identifies himself as her friend Andrei Lugovoy. She freaks out and hangs up the phone.

 

Litvinenko Review

The second episode of Litvinenko pushed the investigation forward while the detectives identified their primary suspects, Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun. The series has an interesting story even if it has been covered many times previously and the performances have been good through two episodes. It still feels like something is missing since the backstory of Alexander Litvinenko was barely covered in the first episode and wasn’t touched on in this episode.

The investigation is interesting enough but there isn’t much else going on. Unfortunately, there is a void where the viewer should feel anger towards the poisoners or sympathy for Alexander because there was no build-up. Some aspects of the series, especially in this episode, make it seem like reality was bent regularly to accommodate a modern audience which may be a problem for some viewers.

The episode was okay although it feels like Litvinenko could’ve been even better, more gripping, and more emotional. The second episode scores a 6 out of 10. Recaps of Litvinenko are available on Reel Mockery here. Have you found our site helpful? Consider supporting us and our independent voice by following this link.