As the second episode of After the Verdict begins, Clara (Michelle Davidson) has a nightmare that Heidi (Tess Haubrich) is pouring gasoline all over her bedroom. Once Heidi lights the match, she abruptly wakes up. Later, Clara tries to fix the smoke alarm downstairs while the kids ask why and if someone is going to burn the house down. Clara insists they’re not and the fire at Dom’s shop was probably an accident. She finds no batteries in the smoke detector. Her kids remind her that she removed them when she burnt the sausages. She told them she’d rather burn to death than listen to that bloody noise. Margie (Magda Szubanski) hides the dove she got from Heidi before Trish (Virginia Gay) enters to ask about their bridal dance. Trish forces her to show her the dove which Margie calls an early wedding present. Trish loves it. Margie lies about where it came from before saying she needs to head to work.

Clara meets with Margie and Ollie (Lincoln Younes). Both stuck to the alibi when they spoke to the cops. Clara hopes Daniel (Sullivan Stapleton) stuck to the story because he isn’t answering her calls. Ollie is worried they’ll go down if Daniel doesn’t back them up so he suggests going to the cops first and blaming Heidi. He thinks it was Heidi while Clara reminds Margie that she thought it was the husband. Margie doesn’t know after their dinner with Heidi though. When Clara asks why she’d do this, Ollie wonders if she was doing her a favor. Margie thinks she might’ve done it because Clara thought she was guilty. Clara hopes they made friends with her. Clara tries to convince the others to go see Heidi. Once they arrive, Heidi asks if they saw anyone because some guy has been hanging around. They give her a plant to make it even for the dove.

Clara says they want to move on from the trial and they think she does too. Heidi wonders if anyone will give her a job before admitting it is hard starting over. Ollie convinces Heidi to get him another glass of water. While she is gone, he tells the others that she is offering rock melon and that isn’t arsonist or murder behavior. Margie isn’t sure about that. Ollie suggests it could be Daniel since he is avoiding them and he heard that Clara wanted the shop burned down. He goes on to claim Daniel has a crush on Clara. After Heidi returns, Clara gets a call and tells the others they’re going to have to go. As they go down to the police station, Clara reveals they said they needed to see all the jurors. They find Dom (Richard Brancatisano) there. He says they know who the arsonist is and told him to wait there. Clara introduces him to the others before he recognizes Ollie from the CCTV footage.

Detective Sarti (Hazem Shammas) interrupts to say they got an ID because he cut himself on the window when he broke in. The DNA matches a man named Dean Walsh (Tel Benjamin) who was known to police for property damage, stalking, and assault. They remember him from court because he was a member of fanatics called “Free Heidis”. The detective says they believe Walsh was targeting Clara. They found a computer file he had to keep notes on the jurors. They’ve shown what he kept. He knew who they were, where they work, where they live, and other things. When they’re shown Ollie’s file, he mentions that Ollie doesn’t concentrate on the case. Ollie denies that before Clara learns that the guy knew about her kids and her house. The detective says they’ll be sending patrol cars around to check on everyone. They believe Dean felt one of the jurors wasn’t convinced about Heidi’s innocence and is trying to get revenge.

Clara steps away because she begins freaking out. When she returns, she hears Dom arguing with Sarti for giving them a checklist of friendly tips for dealing with a stalker. Clara tells Sarti that they talked to Heidi this morning and she said someone might be following her. The detective admits they have some of her complaints. Clara tells them about being in Heidi’s courtyard on the night of the fire. She wonders if he heard her say she wishes the store would burn down. She quickly apologizes to Dom who rushes out of the police station. Clara thinks the kids should stay with him. Dom isn’t going to let the kids anywhere near her while she is wrapped up in this mess.

Clara reminds him that Mia has a flute concert tomorrow. She gives him advice and asks him to give the kids a kiss for her. Once Dom leaves, Clara contemplates going to work. Ollie thinks it would be a good idea to be unpredictable so Margie suggests staying with her and Trish. Clara wonders about Dana because they had to call him in too. She goes to the school to tell him about Dean Walsh. Clara says Dean made notes on everyone except Daniel who suggests he just wasn’t as interesting as them. Clara tells him about Dean targeting her because he must know she thought Heidi might be guilty. Daniel wonders if she told him because she kept banging on about it with Margie mostly. She claims she didn’t know anyone was listening. Once Clara leaves, Daniel calls Dean to tell him the cops are onto him. Deal already knows and threatens to take Daniel down with him. At work, Geoff (Josh Price) complains about Clara clocking in late today.

Heidi calls her to apologize for causing her stalker to come after her. She isn’t positive if it is him since she never got a good look at his face. Heidi believes he has been stealing clothes from her line because some of her things have gone missing. Clara is asked to check out the stuff he was saying on the Free Heidi chat. He has been following her, taking pictures of her, and calling her his soul mate. It frustrates Heidi that she told the police a while back and they did nothing. Once the call ends, Geoff hopes it wasn’t a personal call. Dean jumps Daniel before asking what type of plan he has. He suggests he can stay at Daniel’s place. When Daniel says he can’t, he is told he better figure out this plan of his. Ollie surprises Eliza (Emma Diaz) with flowers and invites her to dinner. She explains to him that having sex with him was a bad idea and it isn’t happening. When Trish gets home, Margie offers her a drink and says they should skip dance class tonight.

She is eventually forced to admit that they have a stalker. She begins telling her everything before Clara arrives and interrupts. Clara joins them for whiskey as Trish tries to find out more about the accused murderer and their dinner together. After Margie says it was Clara’s idea, Clara says she is actually a nice person. She reveals Heidi gave Margie the dove. Clara thinks it would be a good idea for her to go home, but Margie tries to get her to stay. She admits she wishes Clara hadn’t tricked them into meeting Heidi at the restaurant that night. Clara gets into her car and leaves after ending the argument. She parks outside of her home and calls her daughter to tell her why they’re not together. Jamie is busy making busy. Clara claims she’ll make it to the concert tomorrow as a car pulls up behind her. When someone gets out, she freaks and drives away.

She goes to Ollie to tell him it was the stalker. Ollie learns she only saw the foot and a blue car with a D in the number plate. Clara changes her mind and suggests it was just a normal person. She wonders if she is nuts. Ollie always thought she was nuts. Clara decides to call Heidi to see if she knows whether Dean had a blue car. Ollie asks if she wants a beer. Trish and Margie practice dancing at home. Trish gets upset before admitting she doesn’t feel very relaxed right now. Heidi arrives at Ollie’s flat where they play a game shooting zombies. Clara asks her if she managed to catch up with her friends earlier. Heidi says she called around, but everyone was apparently busy. She grew up with a conservative crowd that didn’t stick by her during the trial. Clara knows how that is because she lost friends when she split from Dom.

Heidi gets a message saying, Now you’re free, you’re mine.” She wonders how he has her number. They report it to the detective who tells Heidi to keep him talking if he picks up. Sarti wants to find out where he is, but Dean doesn’t answer. They’re going to file a report and see what comes back. Clara says she can’t go to her daughter’s concert if he is going to follow her there. The detective wouldn’t recommend it. She asks if he even wants to help. Sarti could ask her the same since she lied about her whereabouts on the night of the fire. Clara tells him about the blue car only for Sarti to say Dean doesn’t drive a blue car.

She suggests it was hired or stolen. The detectives talk to some of the members of the Free Heidi group and they thought Dean was too unhinged. Then, they learn that the phone is registered to Clara Rossi. They speculate that he somehow registered the phone in Clara’s name. She begins worrying that Dean has been in her house. Ollie thinks he knows somewhere they can stay so he takes them to the client’s house they were going to sell. While Ollie gets champagne, Heidi tells Clara not to stand too close to the window while she is around since it is a long way down. She begins laughing since it was just a joke. Once they sit down, Clara asks Heidi what she thinks happened to Belinda that day on the roof. She says she has thought about it so much and just can’t believe that Paul would ever hurt her. Although he had a temper, he was a loving husband.

She can’t understand why he’d make up that stuff about her though. It was weird after Belinda lost the baby as if Paul blamed her. Her lawyers thought it would be easier to show reasonable doubt by saying it was likely suicide. Heidi knew her better than anyone and doesn’t believe she would’ve killed herself. Heidi feels like she almost deserves everything that is happening to her because she got her freedom saying Belinda took her own life. She is sure someone pushed Belinda off the roof that day. Daniel comes back on his boat. He tells Dean he has a plan, but he needs to get off the grid. He wants to take him to the bush using a boat to avoid cameras. When Clara and Heidi wake up, they learn that Ollie went out so he could make them breakfast. Before Heidi leaves, she tells Clara that the police will find this guy. Margie finds the dove in the garbage before Trish tells her that her shift starts in half an hour.

Margie apologizes for everything and tries to explain how she got caught up in everything. She believes she’ll be okay at work since she has a meat cleaver. As they prepare to leave, Clara shows Ollie a visit of Dean talking about the trial. He is adamant that the killer was Paul and says they’re watching him. Clara admits she isn’t the only person he doesn’t like. When they go looking for Paul, they end up at the place where Belinda died. Paul (Nicholas Brown) accuses them of letting his wife’s killer walk free. After Clara mentions Dean, Paul says Dean is already after him. He only knows that Dean is a freak and full of crap. Ollie asks if Paul blamed Belinda for losing the baby. Paul gets upset and forces them to leave. Once they leave, Ollie says he thinks they just proved that Paul killed his wife. Paul pushed him just like he pushed his wife. Ollie thinks he should tell Eliza.

Daniel calls Clara to offer her a place to stay if she is worried about this guy. She tells him she has it sorted. After the call, she admits to Ollie that it was weird. Daniel walks down the stairs with a shovel. They notice that Clara’s car has been spray painted with the words “die doubter”. Clara tries to call and speak to Mia, but they won’t let her. She gets mad and begins scrubbing the paint from the car while Ollie takes pictures to collect evidence. Clara wants to buy her daughter a flute and it to her before the end of the concert. She gets in and leaves Ollie. Margie gets a call from Ollie who tells her about everything that has happened. He finds it odd that Daniel has zero social media presence. He founds a newsletter with a picture of Daniel and his car at a fundraiser. His car is blue and there is a D in the number plate.

Margie tells him that Clara thinks it is better if she isn’t involved. Ollie says Clara is terrible because she can’t see her kids. A lunatic is trying to kill her and that lunatic could be Daniel. Clara goes to the shop to buy the flute only to find that it is closed for the day. As she prepares to leave, she sees a blue car and thinks it is the stalker. She smashes an instrument on the hood until an older woman gets out. Ollie takes Margie to Daniel’s place where they see his blue car out front. Ollie’s coworker (Vivienne Awosoga) calls complaining about him wrecking the apartment she was going to sell. After the call, they watch Daniel exit the house and leave in his car.

Clara calls Heidi to say she thinks she is losing her mind and she just took an old woman to the hospital. Heidi tells her to call in sick for work tomorrow and pack a bag so they can get away. While following Daniel, Ollie and Margie notice a police car behind them. It goes around them before they find more police cars in front of them. Daniel turns around and leaves. Margie believes he is trying to avoid whatever is in front of them and wants to check it out. They walk through the woods until they see forensics checking out Dean’s body outside his tent. They leave and try to figure out what they should do. They also discuss whether Daniel could be a murderer. Clara meets up with Heidi who is eager to take her to her parent’s place. Ollie tries to call Clara, but her phone is in the trunk.

They leave a message accusing Daniel of being a murderer and stalker. They warn her to stay away from him. When they drive by, Daniel follows them.

 

After The Verdict Review

After the Verdict is a unique mystery drama series that obviously doesn’t take itself too seriously. The episode was acted decently although there likely won’t be any standout performances due to the nature of the series. At this point, I am just indifferent to the characters. There needs to be more character development to ensure viewers actually connect with and care for the characters.

The story is pushing forward at a decent pace while there are many moving pieces. The jurors are starting to believe that Daniel could’ve killed Dean and that he is the stalker. Clara has been unable to see her kids because she is afraid of leading the stalker to them. There are a lot of silly twists and turns that don’t make sense, especially for people that are being stalked by a crazy person.

The episode was fun sometimes and boring other times. Despite some fun moments, After the Verdict just can’t break out of the box of mediocrity. Some viewers who don’t mind silly and slightly cringy humor may enjoy the series more than others. The episode scores a 5.5 out of 10. Recaps of After the Verdict can be found on Reel Mockery here. Learn how to support our work at this link.