As the first episode of Crime begins, Britney’s mother screams for her to go because she is going to be late. Brit pleads with her mother to take her to school although she can’t because her sister is sick and she has to worry about work. As Brit walks to school, Ray Lennox (Dougray Scott) talks about ignorance being bliss and believing monsters are few and far in between. He says people believe that evil people can be fixed, but he doesn’t believe it since he has stared evil in the face. Britney Hamil walks past two young girls and is immediately called names like Shitney Britney. Then, she walks near a white van while an old man watches her from nearby. The old man across the street watches as Britney is kidnapped and taken away in the white van. Meanwhile, Ray talks to his old partner about Scotland and the fact it used to design things. It is their last stakeout together before Ray’s friend is taken away by his Floridian beauty.

They notice an escort with Winterburn so Ginger decides to get involved. He gets into a fight with the suspect and gets punched in the face. He crashes down on the fence and it likely pokes through his backside. Ray quickly subdues the man before they head back to the Lothian Police Station. Ray tells his friend that he doesn’t want to go to any strip clubs because Trudi (Angela Griffin) wouldn’t like that very much. Ginger gets a call confirming two bodies have been found in a flat in the Old Town. Dougie Gillman (Jamie Sives) arrives at the scene and learns that the two victims are French aged 22 and 26. The victims were likely killed by asphyxiation and a piece of paper with 3720 written on it sits nearby. Back at the station, Ray and Amanda Drummond (Joanna Vanderham) sit down with their boss Bob Toal (Ken Stott).

He reminds them that Eddie is retiring so Amanda has been promoted to DS, and she is going to be working with Ray. Dougie interrupts to tell his boss about the two French students, Fabienne Rodier and Gaston Villiers. He claims Froggy went off courting and got a bit too carried away with turning off the gas and she croaked. Once this happened, he killed himself. Dougie wants the toxicologists on it because both were full of GHB and had ligature marks on both necks. Ray follows him out to ask if there is any similarity in MO to other sexual strangulation cases, but Dougie doesn’t believe it has anything to do with the serial killer case that Ray is obsessed with. He also reminds Ray that he doesn’t need some social justice warrior poking his neb in his case. Ray rushes out after checking the time. He meets with Trudi who reveals she got the job. Although they want to celebrate, Ray gets a call from Bob telling him about the young girl gone missing.

At the station, Bob tells everyone about 13-year-old Britney Hamil who has gone missing. She left for school yesterday at the usual time around 8:30, but never arrived. Since her sister Tess was ill, Brit ended up walking to school alone. Her mother is 35-year-old Angela Hamil. Ray stands up and begins talking before Stuart McCorkel (Michael Abubakar) says Brit wasn’t acting out of character and hasn’t been using her phone or social media. She also has never done anything like this. The father lives in Canada and left the mother when she had the baby. Dougie doesn’t like it when he hears they’re going to move one of his guys off his case. Then, Ray and Amanda discuss Britney walking onto Slateford Road and vanishing. CCTV footage shows Brit saw something as she was walking down Slateford Road. Amanda wonders if any locals had doorbell cameras, but Ray doubts it because people there can’t afford them.

A speed camera picks up the white van which has a partial license plate of KF67D. They also find that Brit had a notepad with her at the time of her disappearance. Once they prepare to leave, Ray lets Amanda drive because he likes observing and thinking. Ray looks up stories about Mr. Confectioner and suspects it is happening again. He tells Amanda about Claire Gorman who was found dead ten years ago and Nula Andrews. Although Robert Ellis had an alibi for Claire’s, he didn’t for Nula’s murder. Amanda reminds him that Ellis was arrested after being caught masturbating on their graves and the murders stopped when he went down. Amanda says it is screwed up to focus on a serial killer when they haven’t even found Britney’s body yet and he should focus on a hot trail instead of a cold one.

Once they arrive at the scene, Ray notices a piece of paper behind a phone booth and decides to have it bagged. Andy takes a picture of it before they bag it. Amanda asks if he worked on many missing kids’ cases so Ray explains there are no such cases because kids don’t just go missing. Gary Franklin (Bhav Joshi) watches them as they prepare to talk to the family members. As they walk along, Ray tells her how they usually take kids from single parent families because it creates more chaos. They suspect it was someone who knew what they were doing although Ray says they should keep that to themselves. Then, they talk to Angela who says they were off to the cinema on Wednesday night and she put her to bed. She tells them how Britney was going to walk to school by herself and promises there were no boyfriends in the house. She begins telling them how her daughter was starved of oxygen when she was born and had to be on an incubator for weeks.

When Amanda asks about her relationships, Angela says she doesn’t date. When asked whether they promise to get him, Amanda says they will. Ray says everyone is doing their best before quickly rephrasing it and saying most everyone. As they head upstairs, they talk about the estranged father named Ronnie Hamil. They check Tess’s bedroom and find out that she urinated the bed, so she must’ve been a nervous kid. He finds a drawing nearby and says it is every girl’s dream to be saved by a prince and not a filthy nonce in a white van. Once they leave, they wonder whether Tess might’ve been knocking around with an older guy. As they return to the scene, Ray learns that known pedo Tommy Loughran lives nearby so they decide to pay him a visit. They knock on his door, but Tommy doesn’t answer. Although Amanda believes he’d be too old to offend, Ray suggests otherwise. He says football players become couches once they lose their legs because it keeps them in the game.

After that, they visit Clovesdale High School to talk to the principal who insists Brit usually didn’t walk to school on her own. He says nobody else picked up Britney and he didn’t talk to Angela about her parenting. He tells them about sports day when Angela was chain smoking and with a man so he pointed out that it was a big impression on the children. He agrees to give them a description of the man in question and look at some pictures. Ray gets a call from Stuart and learns they’ve matched 86 white vans with the partial registration number. Ray zones out when he believes he sees Britney getting her picture taken at the school. As Ray leaves with Amanda, he tells her to try to trace the yellow notepad when they return to the station. They’re not sure whether the school sports guy could be the guy in the white van although Ray doesn’t know what Angela would lie about. Then, they talk about Amanda guaranteeing that they would find the man responsible and he doesn’t like that.

He says women’s rights being abused is when they’re being strangled by some psycho. Amanda argues that this is why she is focusing on this case and not cold cases. As they drive away, Ray apologizes. She says it is a lot of pressure having to capture pedophiles, but Ray doesn’t like that word because these beasts do not love children. He shows her a lollipop with a razor blade in it and stays it was from a man who was arrested for distributing child porn. He gets out seconds later. Next, Trudi plays a game with the head of HR who she calls a trailblazer. She says it was tough on Roddy for her to get the promotion and she is looking forward to getting sisterly support. As for Trudi, she claims her new man is so caring and attentive. Ray attends a meeting and tells everyone he is struggling to cope with work which is life and death.

He explains they’re employed to deal with the scum of the Earth. He wants to drink the city dry and snort the whole rainforest. When he returns to the station, Gill says Brit’s grandfather Ronnie Hamil has vanished. Although he has prior arrests, it is nothing like the sports guy. Dougie gets a piece of yellow paper so Ray quickly asks about it and learns they found it was the Froggy place. Dougie refuses to let him look at it. Seconds later, Bob pulls Ray into his office to tell him they need a press release since some lassie at the school just tweeted about Britney’s disappearance. Ian Hoy has the information and is threatening to go to BBC Scotland with it. Although Ray doesn’t think Ronnie is involved, Bob suggests otherwise since the girl was a bedwetter and he could’ve messed with Angela before that. In a flashback, we see two young boys walking into a tunnel of sorts. Ray tells Bob about the piece of paper only to be told he should haul in the missing suspects first.

Bob tells him to get Ronnie and the boyfriend. After that, Ray meets Amanda who wonders why Angela would lie to them. Ray gets a text before asking Amanda if she is okay with the way things are going right now. She says yes although the mansplaining is annoying her a bit though. She wants him to talk to her like he would talk to Ginger. They return to Angela to ask about her father and the sports guy who she says is Graham Cornell. She doesn’t think Graham would be involved because he works at the offices she cleans and he is gay. She goes on to say he sticks to himself. Outside, Ray learns from Gill that Cornell took two weeks of leave without telling a soul. When Angela decides to leave, they follow her. They follow Angela to her father’s house where she attacks him and they have to break it up. She accuses him of beasting her and says she promised she’d never let him get his hands on her daughter. Ronnie denies it though.

Ray looks around his flat and finds a dead cat with maggots crawling all over it. They grab Ronnie’s laptop and leave in a hurry. Ronnie is taken down to the station so he can sober up before they try to question him. Once they leave, they go to Ginger’s party. Ginger asks him what he thinks about Dougie’s case so he suspects there is might be something different going on. Dougie and Amanda get into a brief spat about vegan food and other things. Ginger tells them he is going to leave them in the capable hands of Jessica and Tatiana. The two exotic dancers enter moments later and begin putting on a show. Ray and Amanda leave the party early. Amanda tells Ray that Ronnie has an alibi because he was fished out of the canal and nearly drowned. He was in the hospital when Britney was taken. He discharged himself. Ray says he is still a beast and should’ve been left in the water.

They agree they need to talk to Graham and Tommy although they don’t think Tommy is involved. Trudi texts Ray to let him know she is almost at his place. Ray still seems to believe the notepad paper is the evidence they need. Amanda joins him at his desk to say they only found porn on Ronnie’s laptop. He tells her about his old mate Georgie boy who was SIO on the Mr. Confectioner case. He explains there was a lot of stuff that never came out and he suspected the Confectioner was guilty of murdering twelve girls all over the country. He admits that Mr. Confectioner spread fear among men and women. He calls the killer pure, unadulterated evil. Trudi enters his flat, finds a key, and begins looking around. She finds a bunch of pictures and newspaper clippings on the wall from the Confectioner case. Ray enters and tells her that the man who took their lives is still out there somewhere and he won’t let go. Later, two women go for a run and find the body of Britney posed nearby.

Ray gets the call and learns about the discovery. As we see the white van, he talks about the souls that are on the road to hell and only want to drag more souls with them.

 

Crime Review

Crime has everything going for it, including an interesting story, gritty scenery, and outstanding acting. I’ve always been a big fan of Joanna Vanderham and Jamie Sives, but Dougray Scott is excellent in his respective role as well. However, the first episode wasn’t as gripping as it could’ve and should’ve been. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if people stopped watching the series immediately after the first episode because it was mostly just painfully slow.

On the other hand, I could see Crime getting better with time and a lot of patience. Will viewers be willing to stick around and continue putting up with the slow, clunky storytelling? It is hard to say since there is no hook or heart right now. None of the characters are particularly interesting enough to keep me lingering around.

I’ll likely stick with it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if others dropped out early. The opening episode was just too slow and uneventful. More needs to happen to make Crime worth the viewer’s time and energy. I sincerely hope it manages to pull things together in future episodes, but my expectations are not high. The episode scores a 6.5 out of 10. All recaps of Crime will be available on Reel Mockery here later.