As this episode of Annika begins, DI Annika Strandhed (Nicola Walker) is surprised to see DS Michael McAndrews (Jamie Sives) back since she thought he was taking two weeks. Michael admits he is finding it hard to be at home before saying he hasn’t done it yet. Annika tells him they have a high-profile case. She offers to ride there together so they can discuss things, but Michael says he’ll drive by himself. Once he is gone, Annika confesses she thought Michael quit. The fact he is even there is good.

Once Annika reaches the crime scene, she begins talking about Robert Louis Stevenson who was interested in the idea that everyone could be two different people at the same time. As a result, he wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde which is a story about a double personality. Michael gives Annika a suit without saying anything. Annika thought only Bond villains have aquariums in the basement. Michael thinks the victim was as rich as one of those. They join DS Tyrone Clarke (Ukweli Roach) and DC Blair Ferguson (Katie Leung) in the basement. The victim’s body is floating near the bottom of the aquarium.

Annika makes it clear they should treat the case like they would any other. Tyrone explains that Fabian Hyde was a billionaire green tech entrepreneur. He was discovered dead by his house managed around 8:15 this morning. There are no signs of forced entry, but they’re asking the staff if anything has been stolen. Annika notices a clock in the aquarium. Fabian’s next of kin is a daughter named Katherine Hyde (Jessica Hardwick) who lives in the nearby village. Annika is shown a bottle with “SPRITZ” on it. Katherine knew ten minutes before the press did. When they’re alone, Michael asks Annika when she is going to tell Morgan (Silvie Furneaux).

Annika jokes that she doesn’t have any gigs coming up. Michael walks away without laughing. She tries to apologize and explains she doesn’t know how to do this. Fabian’s security manager, January Deacon, tells Tyrone she doesn’t understand why he was even there last night. He should’ve been in Dundee. She shows Blair the laptop that is used to control the house’s security system. The backup system should’ve kicked in so she’ll have to find out why it didn’t. Blair learns about Greg Connolly (Russ Bain) who is the chief executive of one of Fabian’s companies. He is caught on CCTV banging on the door and doesn’t seem happy.

Fabian pushes him back and tells him to leave. Annika tells Michael that the granddaughter, Grace (Layla Cooke), is deaf so he should turn his back on her. They speak to Katherine who says Fabian always addressed people’s concerns. He divorced her mom when she was a kid and never got remarried. Katherine lives there with her daughter and Dylan (Tiger Mitchell). The granddaughter reveals she was going on a trip to Brazil. As for Katherine, she had an allowance. Fabian was very generous like that. Katherine volunteers at a women’s facility and was there until seven. Annika asks for the address. When Michael questions Dylan, he learns that he works at a chip shop although Dylan seems to be hiding something else.

Annika tells Katherine that their media person will be doing a press conference about Fabian. At the station, DCI Diane Oban (Katie Dickie) tells Annika otherwise and she’ll be doing it instead. While changing her jacket in the bathroom, Annika gets a rundown from Diane. The others watch the press conference until Michael turns it off and asks if they got anything from the security system. Blair reveals it looks like someone switched off the system manually. The CEO bangs on the door, goes inside, and the system goes off eight minutes later. Blair shows them a video of Greg Connolly accusing Fabian of forcing him to close Doxon Holdings.

It looks legit and was posted after Fabian died. Michael and Tyrone visit Doxon Holding where their vehicle is surrounded by protestors. They have to save Greg who is nearly crushed in his vehicle. Once things calm down, Greg says he wanted them to know Fabian was responsible for them losing their jobs. He claims Fabian was alive when he left last night. Greg says he wouldn’t know how to turn off the security system and they had a shouting match. He said his peace and left. At the cemetery, Annika talks about a type of cake. She thinks she could open a tearoom and people would come for the cake. That would be the other version of her and not the version Michael sees.

Annika believes that version would’ve let Michael know he was the dad straight away. Michael calls seconds later to tell Annika that Greg has agreed to give a DNA sample. He asks if Morgan wants to know. Annika reveals they’ve always had a deal that Morgan would ask when she wants to know. Michael believes that could be years. He goes on to say he feels like he is lying all the time now before hanging up. Annika suspects she knew it would lead to this when she came to this city. At school, Morgan talks to Femi Talla (Taylor Goodwin) about turning 16. Morgan suggests having a party at her place. Femi believes she just wants to invite Erin. At the station, Blair, Tyrone, and Annika go through everything they have right now.

The victim’s smartwatch stopped registering his heartbeat at 22:11 which is the same time on the clock in the aquarium. The victim had blunt-force trauma to the head. They wonder if Fabian was hit with the clock. Fabian was landlord to half the village and there is a petition going around because he was pushing the rent up. The petition is being organized by the local chippie which is owned by Dylan McQuade’s family. Once Michael arrives, he says he has something on Grace. He shows them a picture of Ross Kincaid (Andrew Still) with Grace and Katherine. Michael explains that Ross assaulted the victim a few months ago and the charges were dropped. He has a hardware store in town.

Annika and Michael end up getting stuck together outside Bill’s Tool Store. She thanks Michael for not telling them. Annika explains that it happened during that training weekend. Blair and Tyrone speak to Dylan at the chippie and check the petition. He tells them that Grace is brilliant although she is stuck with the wrong family. Dylan admits Katherine wouldn’t help with the rent because she is a coward. When he is asked about his folks, Dylan insists they have nothing to do with Fabian’s death. He claims they were at the shop working. Tyrone wants to verify that himself using the camera. Ross tells Michael and Annika that Grace is his daughter. He has been with Katherine since school.

Ross says Katherine didn’t mention him because Fabian doesn’t think he is good enough for his family. Fabian also banned him from entering Katherine’s house. On Grace’s birthday, Ross wanted to give her a gift. That is when he was accused of assaulting Fabian. Ross says he never hit anyone before and he doesn’t think Fabian had been hit before. Katherine must’ve talked Fabian out of pursuing charges, but Fabian made it even worse for him. Ross says he was at the game when he died and went to the pub after that. Blair and Tyrone agree to go through the names on the petition. She also asks if he has been offered another job.

Blair and Tyrone receive a video of Annika that appears to be a deepfake. Diane Oban tells Annika about the deepfake and how it was leaked on social media. Annika admits it may be connected to the case since the house manager was tech-savvy. She hasn’t been home since they spoke to her. Diane tells Annika to try to block it out because she knows she wouldn’t say stuff like that in public. Tyrone says digital forensics found out that Fabian made several payments to January Deacon (Shereen Cutkelvin) who was his house manager. He sent her 2k on the night he was killed at the time he was arguing with his CEO. Blair managed to track the IP of the person who created the deepfake.

They’re currently at the Barrowlands. They go there and begin looking for the person responsible. They find Senga MacAuley (Seylan Baxter) making a deepfake of Fabian. Senga makes it clear she isn’t worried about a night in a cell. Later that night, Annika talks to Morgan about the deepfake. Morgan asks about having a party on Friday. Annika agrees to let her have the party, but tells her to stop sharing the deepfake video. In an interview room, Senga denies killing Fabian although she doubts anyone is crying about it. She claims Fabian was a monster. Two nights ago, she was volunteering at the college.

Senga says she doesn’t know January. Annika realizes she has likely wasted their time. After that, Blair tells Annika that they got a ping on January’s passport two hours away. They’re still waiting on DNA for the clock and water bottle. Blair shows Annika a letter that was found in the safe with the parcel delivered to Fabian’s house that day. Annika calls it hate mail. Katherine is shown the letter and quickly blames Dylan’s mom. Grace points out that the letter is written in Katherine’s handwriting. She also reveals she saw Katherine sneak out that night. Katherine claims she was meeting her mom who came back from overseas looking for a handout.

Grace gets upset and storms off with a water bottle like the one found at the scene. When January sees Tyrone and Michael, she tries to avoid them. She gets knocked down as she tries to flee the boat. January attacks the mascot before getting stuck while trying to scale the fence. At the station, Tyrone tells her that they know the crypto payments made to her were made using Fabian’s laptop from inside his study. Many of those payments were made while he was away. January remains adamant that Fabian was alive when she left and reminds them that they cannot prove otherwise. She confesses to turning off the CCTV because she was transferring the money.

January says Fabian painted himself as a savior, but he was basically bullying others. Annika tells Morgan to stay out of the wine cabinet and she can have the party without supervision. She runs out after figuring something out. Annika and Tyrone talk about Grace and the water bottle. Annika learns that Tyrone got the promotion letter and he wants to do what she does. He can start as soon as she’ll let him go. Annika hopes to get one more arrest out of him for old times’ sake. During the party, Morgan receives bad news from Erin. She tells Femi that plans have changed. Morgan takes everyone out on a boat trip. When Dylan sees the police, he gets Grace to run with him.

Tyrone, Annika, and several police officers track them to the edge of a cliff. Grace insists it was an accident. When he turned his back, she couldn’t hear what he was saying. Grace threw the clock but didn’t think it’d kill him. She is taken into custody. Annika gives Tyrone a going-away gift. Then, she receives a call from Morgan who says she took the boat and forgot to drop the anchor. Tyrone leaves Annika who is stuck with Michael once again. They end up using a paddle boat to retrieve Annika’s police boat. She tells Michael that he was off at diving training and she didn’t think he’d want to give that up to care for a baby.

Annika has been in a house in which the dad doesn’t love the mom or the kid so she didn’t want to do that to Morgan. Later, Annika scolds Morgan for stealing the boat before grounding her. Morgan says Erin dumped her via text. She thanks Annika for the extra punishment. When they’re alone, Annika promises Michael would be the first to know if they had her now. They just weren’t those people back then. Michael says it’s a shame.

 

Annika Review

This episode of Annika seemed like a step in the right direction in terms of improving the overall quality of the series. While there are still certain issues that don’t sit right with me, most things are starting to grow on me. Even Annika talking directly to the viewer seemed to work better in this episode despite the fact that some of it still flew over my head.

Although there is still room for improvement, the mystery surrounding Fabian Hyde’s death seemed more effective than some of the other investigations this season. Nicola Walker’s work here really adds a sense of moodiness to the series and that helps. The rest of the cast is great too and that includes the guest spots.

Truthfully, Annika is more of a character study at this point and it does that pretty well. The episode scores a 6.5 out of 10. Recaps of Annika can be found on Reel Mockery here. Find out how to support our independent site at this link. Learn more about advertising on Reel Mockery here.