As the fifth episode of Bloodlands begins, DCI Tom Brannick (James Nesbitt) attempts to deal with Birdy’s death while Izzy (Lola Petticrew) waits for a response from him. Tom visits Olivia Foyle (Victoria Smurfit) and immediately pulls a gun on her. He demands to know where the gun and gold are, but Olivia refuses to tell him. He attempts to arrest her. As he drives her, Olivia tells him she doesn’t think he thought this through. She warns him that this will come back on him and it could impact his daughter. Once they stop, Olivia asks what he was going to do and whether he would’ve let Birdy run away. Tom insists he would’ve thought of something. When asked why she is still there, Olivia says she needs him and would’ve shot him otherwise. Tom begins believing that Birdy wasn’t the first. He suspects her husband had second thoughts about keeping the gold.

He believes Olivia killed her husband after she found out that he had written her out of the will. Olivia claims she isn’t a murderer and killed Birdy for them. There is a farm attached to their property and Olivia wants Tom to go to the old barn there. He goes there and finds the rifle that killed Colin. Robert told Olivia where he hid it. Olivia asks him to place it into the investigation so they can remove any suspicion his colleagues have for her. Then, she will leave so she can enjoy the gold without being a fugitive. Tom wants a cut of the gold and the gun she used to kill Birdy. Tom removes the handcuffs before telling her that she needs to prove she didn’t stand to gain from her husband’s death. Tom reminds him that she still needs him and shouldn’t forget it. He leaves her there and tells her to walk like he did. Tom takes the rifle and places it in the old mine.

Then, he uses the phone to lure the police out there. When he catches up with DS Niamh McGovern (Charlene McKenna) at the office, he tells her he was up all night trying to find out where Robert has gone. Later, he asks Judith (Vanessa Ifediora) to check his terminal because it is acting up and he can’t get anything. DCS Jackie Twomey (Lorcan Cranitch) begins asking about Birdy. While Jackie gets a message about the tracking system, Niamh tries to get in touch with Birdy. After the call, Niamh tells Jackie that they had a trace on the burner phone. Tom and Niamh decide to visit the location in question. They arrive at the mine and decide whether they want to go in or wait for backup. Niamh convinced him to go ahead and go inside because she doesn’t want to let Robert get away again. Once they go inside and find the files, they wait for others to arrive.

Leah Hardy (Vanessa Emme) lets them know that the paperwork belonged to Colin. After they bring out the rifle, Niamh thinks they should speak to Olivia again. When they catch up with her, Olivia insists her husband never said anything about the mine. She hopes that is enough proof for them to realize that Dardis is the one who murdered her husband. When Niamh steps away for a phone call, Olivia asks Tom about having Rob’s phone. Tom claims he recovered it from his father’s house when they arrested him and he doesn’t know where Robert is right now. Niamh returns to ask Olivia about Hugo since the mine belonged to him. Olivia remains adamant that she knows nothing about the man. At the station, Tom tells the others about the mine and other discoveries. Hugo has late-stage Alzheimer’s and all his property will be in limbo until after he dies. Judith interrupts to tell everyone about Birdy’s car being located.

Niamh freaks out when she arrives and sees the bullet holes in the windshield of the vehicle. Olivia meets with Ryan Savage (Jonjo O’Neill) on the golf course. They discuss the gold. Olivia insists her plan will work, but she just needs a little more time. Ryan doesn’t want to give her more time though. She just wants to make sure the police aren’t investigating her when she collects the bars of gold. Olivia offers to play him for a little more time. Leah says it looks like a body has been dragged from the vehicle due to the marks on the road. Although it doesn’t look good, she can’t say whether the body is Birdy’s. She notes that one shot was fired into the passenger side although it could be a stray round. Two are unaccounted for and one is in the seat. The one in the seat likely went through the driver’s body. As for the casings, it looks like they’ve been collected.

Tom suggests shifting resources from Dardis to Birdy since he might still be alive. Olivia challenges Ryan on the hardest hole of the course. Jackie tells Niamh it has been a long time since he lost an officer. She tells him about Izzy and Birdy seeing each other before he disappeared. Niamh is asked to call her and say he is missing. Jackie hopes whoever did this is dead by the time he gets to them. Ryan talks to Olivia about the fact that she never knew her father. He knows she was raised by a single mom in a poor neighborhood and worked hard to put herself through school. They argue whether the ball is out of bounds with Ryan believing it belongs to Olivia, but it is actually his ball. Olivia wins so she is given more time to get the gold. Ryan physically threatens her to make sure she doesn’t fail. After that, Olivia meets with Davy (Chris McCurry) and claims Rob used to drive for her.

She is worried that he fell prey to an American. Once Davy learns more, he says they should talk in the back. Then, she visits Noel Timoney (Dan Gordon) to ask about Colin cutting her out of the will. Noel claims Colin said she was okay with it. Olivia blackmails him by saying he grabbed her backside at a party so he’ll give her a copy of the will. She asks if the police would be interested in knowing what Colin was paying him for all these years. Once she gets a copy, she goes to the police station with her attorney in hopes of clearing her name. Olivia shows them the paperwork and explains she consented to be written out of the will. They’re also shown a payment from Noel to Robert that shows Colin paid Robert a considerable sum before he died. Her attorney suggests Rob thought he could take even more money from Colin by force.

Tom mentions the gold and how it wouldn’t be subject to the will if it were illegal. The attorney makes it clear that Olivia didn’t know about the gold. Olivia claims she was at Boyd’s house last night. When Olivia is told about Birdy, she begins asking if it is Dardis and whether she is safe. She goes on to say she visited Boyd last night to talk about taking out a harassment case. After the meeting, Olivia wants to make sure Tom gets his team to stop investigating her. Next, Jackie tells everyone how Robert’s fingerprints were found on the rifle. Leah is pretty confident the rifle matches the bullet that killed Colin. Tom tries to get them to stop focusing on Olivia so much. Jackie argues they should be smarter about how they approach it. When Ryan goes back to his vehicle, he is choked and possibly killed by Davy. Michelle Foyle’s grave has been disturbed so Leah and the others decide to check it out.

It looks like the gold bars had been hidden there at one time. Niamh thinks Birdy was onto it. Tom points out that you can reach the yacht club when you continue driving past the church. Niamh blames herself since she doesn’t think this would’ve happened if Robert wouldn’t have gotten away. She gets upset with Birdy for not letting them know what he was up to. They run into Izzy who asks about Birdy. When Niamh leaves, Tom is surprised to learn about Izzy and Birdy seeing each other. Tom tells her about Birdy’s car and the bullet holes in the windshield. Izzy gets mad and blames the job for Birdy being unable to tell Tom about their relationship. Izzy wants him to swear that he’ll find Birdy because she doesn’t want to lose everyone. Niamh goes to Jackie to blame herself for everything that has happened. She explains she was working on something in the office in the basement so she might be responsible for Birdy being there.

Jackie wonders why Goliath would fit into Birdy’s disappearance. He says they’ve been working on Birdy’s computer for hours and haven’t found anything unusual. There is also nothing pointing to Goliath. Jackie believes Birdy turned up at the church not realizing he was in over his head. It is their job to find Dardis if he is the one who shot Birdy. Tom doesn’t want to tell his daughter much and instead insists they should keep going. Izzy learns about blood being found in the car with his belongings. She wants to go to Birdy’s house to get her stuff since she knows he leaves a key with the next door neighbor. She worries he might’ve already come home. They go to Birdy’s place to look around, but he isn’t home. While Izzy grabs her things, Tom looks around downstairs. Tom puts Birdy’s laptop in a bag as Izzy listens to his voice message again. When she returns downstairs, she says Birdy wasn’t a threat to anyone so she doesn’t understand why someone would do that.

She asks her father to find him since she believes he is a hostage or something. Izzy doesn’t think Tom is looking for him and won’t let him give up on him. She goes on to say Birdy loves and admires Tom. Niamh is surprised to learn that Birdy’s computer is clean like he never worked on it. When Izzy puts her stuff in the back of the car, she notices Birdy’s camera. Tom pretends it is from work and says he’ll take it back. Tom wants to come up to Izzy’s room with her, but she wants him to start looking for Birdy. Niamh questions whether Birdy was a victim of Robert Dardis. Olivia finds two boxes sitting in her home. One contains a phone from Davy asking her to ring him. She calls and leaves a message asking if he has done it yet. The other box gives her that answer. Ryan calls her on the phone to ask if she opened the box. He tells her to look at the body part and recognize the man she sent to kill him.

Once Olivia says she’ll do whatever he wants, Ryan wants to know more about her cop friend. Izzy tells Tom she has been going to counseling and it helps. It means something to her like Birdy so she doesn’t want to keep these things secret from him. He has always been there for her, but there are some things counseling can do that he can’t. In so many ways, she is just like him so she has his darkness. Izzy believes Birdy can see that although he makes everything better. Before Tom leaves, he promises to kill whoever did something to Birdy. Ryan watches him leave. In a flashback, Olivia tells Ryan about Tom’s daughter.

 

Bloodlands Review

Although this wasn’t as good as the prior episode, it is doing a good job of setting things up for future episodes. Viewers can already see where things are headed and how Olivia is pitting Tom and Ryan against each other in an attempt to save her own skin. It is interesting to watch Tom juggle things with his daughter while he knows that Birdy has already been killed.

Unfortunately, it was difficult to match the intensity of the last episode since it included Birdy’s death, but this was still a decent episode overall. Again, it did a good job of establishing a potential showdown in future episodes and that is exciting. Tom will also have to worry about Niamh figuring out what is going on and how he is involved.

The episode scores a 6.5 out of 10. Recaps of Bloodlands can be found on Reel Mockery here. Find out how to support our work by following this link.