As this episode of Shetland begins, a news report says a Shetland schoolgirl has become one of the youngest people to be offered a place at Oxford. 15-year-old Annie Fleck will read mathematics at the school next year. Annie did an interview with the news station. After the intro, Cora McLean (Anne Kidd) tries to speak to DI Tosh McIntosh (Alison O’Donnell) who seems out of it. Cora explains she suffered one shot to the chest. They found 9mm cartridges. Cora suspects Annie has been lying there for 24 hours. Tosh speaks to DI Ruth Calder (Ashley Jensen) who tells her about Anton Bergen. Ruth suggests Malcolm Kidd can tell them what he was doing in Shetland. The other night, Malcolm told Ruth he shot his brother because of Bergen. They discuss whether Noah might’ve saw any of it.

Ruth shows her where Noah was at one point. Tosh still believes Noah saw something because he had blood on his t-shirt. Ruth says they need to find Ian. DC Sandy Wilson (Steven Robertson) confirms they’re watching Ian Bett’s house and office. As soon as he turns on his phone, they’ll be able to track his location. Ruth tells him they’re going to need some background on Anton Bergen who is French. Tosh asks Sandy to send a unit to the Harris house because they’ll need to be informed. Lisa Friel (Tara Lee) and Angus Wallace (Jimmy Yuill) stop and look at a building. Although Lisa says it’s just a building, Angus claims they’re hiding in plain sight. At the station, Tosh and Ruth see Noah’s aunt and uncle, Michael (Andrew John Tait) and Noreen Stack (Lesley Hart). They talk about what happened. Michael says Noah is fine physically but he’s still in shock.

They believe they saw Annie a couple of days ago. Noreen says they’ve seen less of her and Noah since Annie left Ian. They don’t know where Ian is and Noah isn’t making any sense. Tosh tries to speak to Noah who is saying numbers. Noah keeps repeating the numbers so Tosh goes for help. While they’re alone, Ruth tells Noah he missed 31 which is also a prime number. Ruth tells him that his mom is dead. She was hoping he’d be able to tell them what happened. Noah keeps saying he doesn’t remember before panicking. John Harris (Vincent Regan) and Fergus Harris (Macleod Stephen) are visited by the police. The police tell John the news. At the police station, Ruth and Tosh talk to everyone about Annie Bett who was found dead by her husband Ian yesterday. They also tell the team members about Anton. Harry Lamont (Tibu Fortes) asks about the gun used.

Tosh says it was a 9mm semi-automatic and there can’t be many of them in Shetland. Sgt. Billy (Lewis Howden) asks about the witness. Ruth admits Noah isn’t helpful at the moment. They need to find Ian. Tosh says Annie wanted to tell her something. Before she could, someone killed her. Angus watches a van go into the building. Lisa has to check on him. She gets upset that he’s smoking. Lisa pleads with him to stop for her. She takes the keys so she can visit a shop. Tosh and Ruth speak to Malcolm Kidd (Stuart Campbell) about Anton Bergen. Malcolm says it really wasn’t Anton’s fault. He admits to playing poker with Anton at The Golden Dragon. Bergen took a grand from him and that was the money meant for the wedding with Eleanor. Malcolm was too ashamed to go home and tell her so he went to Andrew’s house instead. That’s how he found Andrew and Eleanor together. Malcolm claims they weren’t connected to Bergen any other way.

As for Annie, he hasn’t spoken to her in years. As they leave, Ruth and Tosh learn Ian Bett’s phone is at the old mission. They rush to the scene and try to find Ian. Tosh finds Ian (Robert Jack), wakes him up, and asks what he’s doing. She notices that he has blood on his shirt. They break the news to him in an interview room. Ian insists no one goes up to the lot where Annie was found. They had to stop work at that place. Tosh asks him about Anton Bergen. Ian insists he doesn’t know him. He doesn’t answer questions about the blood on his shirt. On Friday, he was a Tara’s party. Tosh points out that Donnie and Frank put him in a taxi around midnight. Ian suggests he went to the mission after that. Ruth says the kids at the mission said he didn’t turn up until 5 a.m. on Saturday. Ian eventually asks about Noah. When he learns he’s at the hospital, he wants to go and see his son. Tosh and Ruth speak to Harry Lamont about Ian’s interview.

Harry says they have to treat Ian Bett as a victim of a crime and let him go. Billy knows about JJ Huang (Nicholas Goh) who runs the poker game. Sandy says Anton came to the Isles six months ago. He has an address for him. PC Alex Grant (Conor McCarry) tells Sandy and Billy that Annie Bett had a row with a resident at Hem where she volunteered on Friday afternoon. The resident was Lisa Friel. Billy says Lisa will be with Campervan Angus. Tosh briefly speaks to Donnie Russell (Angus Miller) who doesn’t believe Ian did this. After the call, Tosh alleges that Ruth thinks she’s conflicted. Ruth denies that and insists they weren’t arguing back there. They visit Karin Jakobson (Nathalie Merchant) who says she’s renting the house with her husband Stefan (Johannes Lassen). As for Anton, he just works for them. They go inside and break the news to Stefan. Ruth and Tosh learn that Anton was a nurse who was caring for the couple’s daughter.

Astrid has a genetic disorder that impacts her respiratory system. They came to Shetland for Astrid (Ines Hoysaeter Asserson) since she needed to be someplace quiet. Astrid joins them and breaks down when she hears about Anton. Sandy speaks to JJ who says it was just a friendly game. Sandy tells him about the discovery. Nathan Huang (Marlowe Chan-Reeves) returns with oil. Nathan overhears Sandy telling JJ about Anton and Annie. Karin says she last saw Anton on Thursday afternoon. She thinks it would’ve been strange if Anton didn’t have someone. Karin never saw him with anyone. Lisa seems worried when she sees a police officer near the campervan. She immediately tries to hide. Lisa manages to escape in the campervan. The team discusses the newest information at the police station. Ruth learns that someone from Organized Crime and Counter Terrorism called her. Ruth receives a visit from Professor Euan Rossi (Ian Hart).

He learns that Annie is dead and Noah is alive. Ruth takes his number so they can talk some more later. Then, Billy shows Ruth texts on Ian Bett’s phone from last week. The texts to Annie aren’t good. Tosh thinks they should go get Ian. In the car, Ruth offers to do it on her own. Tosh goes in with her though. Tosh speaks to Tara Kirk (Nalini Chetty) and Joni Connal (Gemma McElhinney) outside. When they go inside, Tosh arrests Ian on suspicion of the murders. John, Fergus, and Patrick Harris (Ross Anderson) talk about the police collecting evidence. John seems out of it. Fergus and Patrick try to get him to talk about the police visit. They discuss the possibility of visiting Noah. John gets upset and leaves the room before driving away. Ruth interviews Ian alone. She asks him about the texts in which he accused Annie of cheating. Ian explains that Annie decided to split up with him and he sent the messages because he was frustrated.

Ruth asks about the message in which he threatens to kill him when he finds him. She asks who he was going to kill. Ian thought she was seeing someone although he didn’t know who it was. He claims she was more secretive before she left. When he’s asked about the argument in the car park, Ian says Annie was giving him a hard time for turning up at the Harris place the other night. Ian doesn’t remember where he went when he left the party. Ruth says the taxi driver said he took him to Lerwick. She asks what’s at Hayfield Lane. Ian says he doesn’t want to do this anymore. He yells at Tosh that it’s done. During a break, Billy, Ruth, and Tosh discuss his statements. Sandy interrupts to say Anton was making fortnightly payments to the Harbour Hotel. The last payment was on Friday afternoon. Hayfield Lane is two streets away. Sandy goes to investigate. PC Alex Grant arrives and says he almost had Lisa.

They think Reverend Alan Calder (Steven Miller) might know where she is. Ruth calls Alan who admits he’s been looking after Lisa. He eventually tells Ruth that Lisa and Angus have gone to Nesting. Lisa returns to Angus who needs to update the blog. Lisa suggests they should go somewhere else for a few weeks. Angus doesn’t want to leave now. Sandy tells Ruth and Tosh that Anton Bergen’s boyfriend wouldn’t come to the station. Ruth and Tosh speak to Nathan Huang who confirms he was seeing Anton every second Friday. He’d sneak back home before his dad woke up. Anton claimed he was going to take him back to Europe with him. Nathan says Anton never talked about Annie although he did talk about Astrid. Anton broke up with him on Friday. Anton took a phone call. When he came back, he told Nathan he didn’t love him and that he should go home. Nathan doesn’t know who called him. At the station, the team agrees Anton likely wasn’t in a relationship with Annie.

Sandy is asked to find out who called Bergen that night. Ruth and Tosh meet Cora who has found something. Cora tells them that Annie was shot previously and still has shards in her shoulder. There was no evidence of a gunshot injury in Annie’s records. Outside, Ruth questions who Annie was. They agree they’ll have to dig through that part of Annie’s life. Fergus tells Patrick he can’t get in touch with their dad. Patrick says he didn’t like that woman living in their house. Billy calls Tosh to say the blood on Ian’s shirt does not match Annie or Anton’s blood. It’s his blood. Joni questions Tosh about Ian. She says Ian didn’t kill Annie because he was with her. Joni believes he left around four. She admits Ian told her not to say anything. Joni questions whether this is going to come out because she’ll have to tell Jamie. Tosh urges her to go home. She calls Billy and asks him to do something before Ian is released.

John watches Ian when he’s released. He hits him with his car. Ian falls and hits his head on concrete. Ruth gets a call from an OCCTU officer (John Scougall) who has information about Annie. She learns that the Chief Constable’s Office requested information about Annie. Ruth agrees he can tell them she’ll send a report over tomorrow. Professor Rossi approaches Ruth who says OCCTU already knew about Annie. Ruth realized that Annie was one of their own or a spy. She thinks Professor Rossi is as well. Ruth asks what Annie was involved in. Rossi says it was something that got her killed.

 

Shetland Review

This episode of Shetland was okay although it certainly didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. The story unfolds at a snail’s pace without any emotional attachment to any of the characters making it impossible to care what happens to anyone. The dialogue is a serious issue, especially in this episode. The writers must think viewers are idiots who need everything repeated multiple times.

The show regularly spells everything out for viewers even though it’s easy to see what’s going on. Everything at the morgue with Cora is a perfect example of that. We get it that Annie was shot in the arm previously. We didn’t need a character to lay it out so clearly. The same can be said about the hospital records.

We’re also reaching the realm where everything has been done before so the story is getting more outlandish as a way to find some sense of originality. John just had to hit Ian who just had to fall and crack his skull open. The old head-knocking has to be one of the most overused clichés in modern crime dramas. Then, we find out that there are possibly two spies in Shetland.

If that were the case, the local police force would most likely not be investigating the murder. Not to mention that Tosh should’ve already been removed from the case because of a conflict of interest. The Tosh character is more mopey than usual. She should probably get away from the police force for a bit because the character is teetering toward full-blown depression.

The series would be better with fewer characters, fewer episodes, and a less contrived story. While the series may be worthwhile as a whole, many episodes feel like daunting tasks at times. This episode scores a 5.5 out of 10. Recaps of Shetland can be found here. Find out how to support our independent site at this link.

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