As the opening episode of Boat Story begins, a young boy finds something that scares him. He brings his friends back to show them the severed head of Samuel (Paterson Joseph). The series jumps back in time to the small town of Applebury. Janet (Daisy Haggard) goes to work at a factory. She asks Keith to stop whistling before the boss urges them to get back to work. Janet asks Nigel to shut it down since there is a jam. She ends up getting her fingers squashed in the machine. A man’s boat is boarded by police. When the officer finds drugs on the boat, the captain pulls out a knife and a fight begins. The officer ends up killing the attacker before collapsing as well. At home, Janet tends to her fingerless hand.

She puts on a prosthetic before playing a shooting game. Even though she doesn’t win, the man running the game feels sorry for her and gives her a stuffed frog. Then, she surprises Alan (Oliver Sheridan). A man and woman approach Janet who pretends she is there with a friend. Her ex reminds her that she can’t keep doing this because this isn’t her life now. They tell Janet they’re praying for her before leaving. Janet leaves the frog on a bench with a note asking for someone to look after it. She takes her dog to the beach and finds a boat washed ashore. She is approached by Samuel who starts a conversation. Janet explains that the dog is not hers. Samuel says he just moved up from London. In a flashback, Samuel Wells and his daughter Anya try to find their cat named Tom.

Samuel leaves the cat for the new residents. Samuel’s dog Bette finds something on the boat and alerts them. When they check the boat, they find the dead police officer and the other man. Samuel looks around and discovers the drugs. He quickly starts thinking about the street value of the drugs while Janet pleads with him to call the police. Samuel believes this is the world throwing them a bone. He says he was a Lawyer in London and believes he knows someone who would give them a lot of money for the drugs. Samuel confesses he gambled away his savings. He asks if she could use a few million quid, but Janet argues it isn’t that simple. Samuel keeps pushing until Janet asks where they’d keep the drugs. After they load the drugs into Samuel’s vehicle, he notices Bette has blood on her coat.

Arthur Lake (Jonas Armstrong) calls the slain officer to say he missed their date last night. Arthur has a ring. He asks his boyfriend to call him back. As Samuel washes his dog in the sea, he notices Pat Tooh (Joanna Scanlan) walking nearby. Samuel tells Janet about her in the vehicle and says she didn’t see his face. Janet urges him to drive. Pat finds the bodies on the boat and calls 999. Since she used to be a paramedic, she knows the victims are dead. The Tailor (Tcheky Karyo) measures a customer’s body so he can get them a suit. Once the customer leaves, The Tailor goes into the back where he has a man tied to a chair. He tells Georges that he talks too much. The Tailor begins pulling out the man’s tongue when his phone rings. He cuts off Georges’ tongue.

Then, he learns that one of their boats has gone missing. Samuel wants to drop the dogs off before stopping at a storage unit. When they stop at a light, a police car shows up behind them. Samuel ends up turning down a one-way road the wrong way leading to him being pulled over. Samuel tries to smooth things over with PC Ben Tooh (Ethan Lawrence). Even though Ben looks at the drugs, he is more interested in Rambo. He ends up letting them go. Later, they arrive at Applebury Self Storage. Harold lets them rent a unit before they move the drugs inside. Janet says they both have a padlock so they both have to be there to get into it. She suspects he is staring at her hand. Janet tells him how it happened. She drank to deal with the agony and didn’t get a payout.

Samuel gets a call from his estate agent telling him the cat has come back. He questions what they should do now. At the police station, Colin brings coffee to a coworker. A friend asks why he doesn’t ask her out. Colin says he wrote her a note. Arthur sits nearby. Ben approaches him to check on him. He says he is sorry for what happened to his life partner. Moments later, Arthur is told that Mark took a boat out on the water, but the case number assigned to it doesn’t exist. Arthur gets upset and yells that Mark was not on the take. Ron, Jason, and another man stop in a van. Guy says it is time to do it before they put their masks on. They grab guns and got into the Aireside Police Station.

They eventually shoot him and kill another officer while looking for someone. Colin hides with the girl he likes. He gives her the note and asks her to read it when this is over. When Colin goes for an ax, he is shot and killed. The woman tells Guy that his map is the wrong way around before he kills her. The gang searches the evidence room only to find that what they’re looking for isn’t there. They leave the map on the ground before leaving. Samuel admits he is wondering why Janet agreed to do something like this. He confesses she is the only person in the world who knows his secrets. After he says this is a safe place, Janet tells him about her ex named Peter and how she accidentally bumped into their boy. Peter has a restraining order against her. Now, she can’t see her son anymore.

Janet takes Samuel to see the last painting she sold. Samuel believes she has real talent. She sometimes comes there to pretend she is in an art gallery. She feels like she is in an alternate reality where she isn’t the unluckiest person in the world. Janet agreed to do this because she is tired of having nothing. She pleads with Samuel not to screw her over on this. Alan calls her because he believes something is going on because his dad and Suzie keep going quiet when he enters the room. After the call, Janet and Samuel agree to call it a night. Samuel changes his mind and invites her to get a drink. Arthur runs into a whole set of new problems. The Tailor calls him because he believes Arthur has his drugs. The Tailor says another shipment of his was taken six weeks ago by two policemen. Arthur tells him he’ll have to find him first.

The Tailor calls someone else to say he has a journey to make. Guy finds the restaurant closed for the night. Pat picks up the stuffed frog and takes it with her. The Tailor says he will find the money and hang them from the sky. When he is done, there will be nothing left. Someone scares off the kids and picks up Samuel’s head. It looks like Samuel too.

 

Boat Story Review

The opening episode of Boat Story set up an interesting premise that could easily remain exciting for six episodes, but it quickly went off the rails. Truthfully, I was hoping for something a little more serious. Instead, the series became silly within the first few minutes and it never got better after that. The funny scenes didn’t really work and just seemed more annoying than anything. In fact, many of the scenes were enough to make me roll my eyes.

Then, the series got a little disgusting when The Tailor’s hitmen walked into a police station and left almost everyone for dead. There is a risk that this excellent cast will be wasted on the silly, infantile script. The Australian series Far North wasn’t spectacular, but it at least tried to take the subject matter seriously.

The narration and black-and-white title screens were unnecessary as well. Honestly, this wasn’t a good start and doesn’t leave me feeling the urgency to watch the remaining episodes. The opening episode scores a 4.5 out of 10. Recaps of Boat Story will be available on Reel Mockery here. Find out how to support our independent site at this link.

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