As the first episode of Four Lives begins, we join Sarah Sak (Sheridan Smith) and her son Anthony (Tim Preston) at the Undergraduate Degree Show at Middlesex University in 2014. Anthony Walgate’s name appears on the screen as he begins screaming. Models wearing his clothes come out and strut their stuff down the walkway. He points out the burka outfit to his mother believing she’d like it. Anthony jumps on the stage for a few pictures with the burka woman before returning to his mother. After the show ends, he joins Sarah and Sami Sak (Memet Ali Alabora) to discuss his burka outfit. He insists he isn’t racist because his stepfather is Muslim. Sami jokes about the idea of trying to get Sarah into a burka. His nan compliments his outfit as well before Sarah says they have to leave. Anthony says goodbye to his loved ones because his mother is going on a holiday. Back at home, Anthony tries to dye his name and ends up making a complete mess of it.

He calls one of his friends in the middle of the night to ask her to come help him deal with the mess. Two girls try to help him dye his hair before he receives a message on his phone and mentions something about getting a gig. His friends don’t like it so Anthony says he is only doing it when he is getting low on funds. Kiera (Alexa Davies) and the other girl warn him it is dangerous to meet up with strangers and it could hurt him whenever he finally finds someone to hook up with for real. He receives a message from a man calling himself Joe Dean who offers 800 quid for sex. He tells his friends and shows them a picture of the man in question. Anthony admits he told Joe he was 18 because he is in his 20s. One friend can’t understand how someone living in Barking could possibly waste 800 quid. The other friend, China (Isabella Laughland), jokes he’d go for high-class if he had that kind of money. Anthony decides to ask more questions.

He asks why he is living in Barking if he has 800 quid. Joe responds that he is only housesitting for someone who has gone to South Africa. The girls remind Anthony to tell them when and where before and make sure he contacts them after so they’ll know he is okay. Meanwhile, Paul (Shaun Thomas) rushes Sarah and Sami so they won’t miss their trip. Before they leave, Paul gives his mother a card to open later. Later that evening, Anthony texts one of his friends to let her know he is doing the 800-quid job just in case he gets killed. That night, emergency services receive a call from someone who says a person has collapsed outside. He tells them where to find the person in Barking and suspects the patient had a seizure or might be drunk. When the dispatcher asks what number he is calling from, the caller abruptly hangs up. They call him back to confirm the address and where the victim was located. The caller says something about a car park being there. He claims he got out, called, and got back in.

Seconds later, we see Anthony’s body slumped against a wall outside an apartment complex in Cooke Street. Meanwhile, Sarah and Sami celebrate and she tells him the watch he bought her is beautiful. While a team works on Anthony’s body outside, a police officer goes inside to speak to Stephen Port (Stephen Merchant). The officer introduces himself and asks whether Stephen made the 999 call and he confirms he did. Inside the flat, Port says he was coming back from his night shift when he saw him lying there. He tells the officer about his job before suggesting the patient had too much to drink. He insists he has never seen him before and he seemed to be alive at the time. Port claims the boy was making noises so he tried to touch him and make him come around. When he didn’t, Port propped the boy up against the wall. After that, he called 999, came inside, and went straight to sleep because he was knackered. One of Anthony’s friends, China, begins searching for him, but he is nowhere to be found.

She calls Kiera and admits she hasn’t had any luck tracking him down. Since it has been two days, the girls agree to report it. One friend goes down to the station to talk to the police only to learn a person by that name has been found dead. When the police try to get in touch with Sarah Sak, they run into her sister Kate (Leanne Best). She explains her sister is away on holiday before asking what this is all about. Later, she desperately times to call Sarah who doesn’t answer. Then, Tom (Kris Hitchen) arrives outside. When he comes inside, he says a cop came to his place to say his brother Anthony is dead. He said he didn’t have a brother named that. Instead, Anthony is his son. Kate admits she can’t get in touch with Sarah and immediately asks Tom what the authorities they told him.

They’ve only been told that a member of the public found Anthony dead. Detective Sergeant O’Donnell (Ben Cartwright) and DC Slaymaker (Michael Jibson) meet with Anthony’s friend, China, to ask about him and their relationship. O’Donnell uses the key he got from the landlord to open Anthony’s flat so they can look around. She tells them about Joe Dean and the fact that Anthony was going to meet with him before he died. It makes it seem like the detectives are fixated on the idea that Anthony met the guy on a gay escort website of sorts. She denies he was an escort though because he only did that every so often. Instead, she describes him as a student like her. She goes on to say he was lovely and there was nothing sleazy about him. When she learns Anthony didn’t have money or his phone, she offers to give them his phone number. As the detectives look around, she wonders whether Anthony might’ve been drugged. Once she is asked whether Anthony did drugs, she said not really although he did a line of cocaine every so often.

Slaymaker finds several bottles of poppers so his friend says loads of people taking those before a night out. They take Anthony’s laptop before confirming his mom and dad had been told. She wonders if they could ask Anthony’s dad to call her. She’d like to talk to him because Anthony never told his father that he was gay. She’d rather Tom find out from her instead of the police. Sarah and Sami continue having a good time on their holiday. Sarah finally checks her phone and decides to call Paul back. When she does, she learns about Anthony’s death. He can’t talk about it so he’ll get Kate to call and tell her. Before long, she returns home. Once she steps inside, she is comforted by her mother and decides to give the police a call. She grabs the phone, calls, and asks to talk to O’Donnell. She explains that her son has been found dead and they’re investigating it. O’Donnell gets the call seconds later who looks at Slaymaker while telling Sarah that they’ve assigned a dedicated family liaison officer to the case.

Next, Ryan Edwards (Samuel Barnett) returns to his apartment complex and talks to Stephen Port who is sitting in a chair outside. He asks Stephen about his wheels nearby before Port invites him inside to see the other set he picked up. Once Ryan enters Port’s apartment, Stephen picks up a toy dump truck and shows it to him. He got it for four quid on eBay and is currently bidding on another one too. Ryan offers to take him out for a night because Stephen is spending too much time online. Stephen isn’t interested because he doesn’t think he’ll find any twinks in Barking. Ryan tries to convince him to come although Stephen says it is easier to meet guys online. Later, Sarah receives a call from Slaymaker who says Anthony was found dead by a member of the public. They used his passport to confirm his identity. Since the original postmortem was inconclusive, they’re waiting for the toxicology results to determine his cause of death.

Slaymaker isn’t saying he was poisoned but believes the results can help determine his cause of death. They’re not sure why he was in Barking yet and Anthony was indeed just lying on the ground. Since there were no obvious injuries, Sarah wonders if they believe her healthy 23-year-old son just dropped dead out of the blue. The coroner will decide when they can release Anthony’s body to his parents. Before the call ends, Slaymaker promises to call back when he has more information. China gets a call from Tom. She explains they told the police something that they want to tell him in advance. Tom sits down with Sarah later to find out when Tom told her that he was gay. When he was 14, they were traveling to a hospital appointment and Tom just came out to her although she already knew. Then, they begin talking about Joe Dean which was likely a false name.

China told the police about this and seeing his picture, but she is worried they’re not going to follow up on it. She thought the police would tell them and complains it is starting to feel like they’re irrelevant. After that, we join Gabriel Kovari (Jakub Svec) who sketches a performer. Later, he checks possible matches on a dating app and comes across a possible match named John Pape (Rufus Jones). Before long, he meets with John in the park and sits on the bench with him. John asks about his rucksack so Gabriel explains it has all of his belongings in it. Gabriel says he has been there a few weeks and picked London because it is supposed to be the best city in the world to be gay. As they get a drink, Gabriel says he has a job at a deli in Richmond, but he isn’t being paid because he doesn’t have a bank account. John knows they were on a dating website, but he was serious about letting Gabriel stay in his spare room.

He doesn’t think they’re going to have an intimate relationship because he is old enough to be his father. John offers to let him stay since he was going to take in a refugee anyway. Regardless, Gabriel is adamant that he wants to pay rent. He agrees to stay for a few weeks to see what happens and go from there. Sarah tries to call DC Slaymaker only to get his voicemail message. He leaves a message asking about the case and when she can get her son’s body. It is clear her patience is running thin. Next, she calls China who hasn’t heard anything from the police either. Sarah says they’ve given them a family liaison officer, but they can’t get ahold of him. They only know what China told them about Anthony meeting the guy from the Internet. She tells Sarah the name of the website so she can try to find more information about Joe. Anthony didn’t use his real name on the website and instead called himself Ryan.

Later that night, Sarah finds her son’s profile on the escorts website and discovers that Joe Dean’s profile has been deleted. Later, she talks to Kate about her son being an escort. She can’t understand it because he didn’t need money and he was very strict about his hygiene. Slaymaker calls her seconds later although he says he doesn’t have anything new. He can’t say anything about Joe because the investigation is ongoing. Slaymaker again says the coroner won’t release the body until they get the toxicology results. He warns Sarah they found drugs in his flat. Sarah knows about the poppers and insists everyone is doing them regardless of their sexuality. She goes on to say there is something going on with Joe because he deleted his profile from the website, but Slaymaker isn’t sure about that. When Gabriel returns home, he reveals he stole a bag full of food to make up for the lost wages.

He is going to make them a Slovakian meal tonight. A bit later, Gabriel says he has a DVD of Revolutionary Road that they can watch. He begins telling John more about his country and how they react to homosexuality. His father is dead and he doesn’t want to embarrass his other loved ones by revealing he is homosexual. He decided to go somewhere where it wouldn’t matter if a guy was dating a guy. Tom gets a message allegedly from Anthony’s ex Dan who claims he died because he was a massive druggie. In the morning, he shows Sarah more text messages from the same guy claiming Anthony hated his father and took the 100 pounds each month anyway. They also claim Anthony hated his mother and father. Sarah and Tom agree that he didn’t do drugs. Another message says his mom married a Turk and screwed up her son. Although Sarah says none of it is true, Tom is unable to get it out of his head so he is going to send the messages to Slaymaker.

None of Anthony’s friends or family members heard him say anything about someone named Dan. He wonders if the sender could be Joe Dean, but Sarah doesn’t want to hear it right now. Tom reminds her she isn’t the only one hurting over this. When Kate and Sarah go to the store later, Sarah breaks down and admits she wishes Tom had never told her about those text messages. She calls them rubbish and she still can’t wrap her head around the idea of Tom being an escort. Sarah wonders why they haven’t questioned Joe Dean before saying she just wants to know what happened to her son. Stephen Port is brought to the police station for questioning and immediately asked about Joe Dean. He says it is possibly a name he used on a gay escorting site. He admits to meeting someone on there but can’t remember who it was. When pressed about that again, he denies it was the same man he found outside. He is told the boy who died was named Anthony Walgate.

Stephen admits he believes the boy he met was named Anthony too. The detective questions whether they were the same person and the man outside is the one who Stephen met that day. Stephen asks if it would be his fault if the guy had an accident in his flat and ended up there. Eventually, he confesses he panicked because he thought he’d get the blame. He goes on to say they met up and he only had 200 quid so they settled on that amount. They went back to Stephen’s place where Anthony asked if he could use a drug to get high. He got something from a brown bottle, mixed it with water, and swallowed it. Anthony supposedly got hyper before they had sex, Anthony took more, and they had sex once again. Then, he got sick like he wasn’t used to the drug. When Anthony said he was tired, they went to bed together. In the morning, Anthony was still in bed so Stephen went to work believing he’d be gone by the time he got home.

Surprisingly, he was still there and he couldn’t wake him up. He didn’t think much of it believing drugs can take a while to wear off. In the middle of the night, Stephen touched him and suspected Anthony was in a deep coma. At that point, he panicked and took his body outside. He doesn’t think Anthony was dead when he took him outside. The detective warns that giving a misleading statement is a serious offense. Outside, O’Donnell tells Slaymaker that Port has been charged with suspicion of perverting the course of justice. Next, John and Gabriel have dinner together before Gabriel reveals he has found another place to live. He admits it has something to do with the fact that he feels like he can’t bring guys back to the flat. Gabriel found a place on a couch-surfing website with a guy in Barking. John can’t believe he is going to pay a hundred pounds to sleep on a guy’s sofa since he is paying much less here.

Gabriel explains it is okay now that John helped him get a bank account so he can get paid his wages. John just wants to make sure Gab doesn’t feel like he is being pressured to move on. They agree to remain friends. Sarah and Kate visit the office of MP Karl Turner (Ian Puleston-Davies) to tell him about Anthony’s death and the investigation. Sarah admits she is desperate since they don’t even know what the family liaison officer looks like because he has never visited. She complains about not being able to bring him home and the police not telling her anything about it. Karl says her concerns are understandable so he’ll talk to the chief constable and ask him to chase this up as a matter of urgency. Stephen takes Gabriel to meet his neighbor Ryan Edwards. They’ve come to see the girls so Ryan opens the balcony door and shows Gabriel his chickens. Ryan confirms they make eggs and mountains of feces before they go back inside for a cup of coffee.

They chat in the kitchen while Stephen watches television alone in the other room. Gabriel reveals he likes sketching so he might be interested in attending an art course. Stephen and Ryan agree that Barking is not the center of gay civilization. In private, Gabriel tells Ryan that Stephen is a strange guy. Ryan agrees that his friend is quirky, but he thinks he is harmless. Gabriel thought the same at first although his opinion has changed now. Ryan recommends making it very clear if Stephen comes onto him and he isn’t interested. Gabriel tells him it isn’t that easy because Stephen is much different when they’re alone together. He says he doesn’t like him. Ryan offers to let Gabriel stay at his place if he isn’t happy at Stephen’s.

He quickly gives Gabriel his phone number so he can take him up on the offer if necessary. Stephen enters and tells them about the die-cast Transformers toys at Toys R Us. Next, John tries to get in touch with Gabriel by sending him a few messages. He sends multiple text messages but doesn’t receive an answer. Ryan sends Stephen a message asking him how things are going with Gabriel. At home, John checks Gabriel’s social media account in hopes of finding out what is going on. He also begins chatting with one of his friends. He talks to Gabriel’s ex-boyfriend Rafael Costa who hasn’t heard from Gabriel since he went to London. Ryan receives a message from Stephen claiming Gabriel left and send a message about going off with some army guy. A woman walking around the graveyard at St. Margaret’s Church finds Gabriel’s body propped up against a wall.

John gets a visit from multiple police officers who want to talk about Gabriel. He explains they weren’t in a relationship like that although he helped him with a few things including getting a bank account. He is shocked to learn that his friend’s body was found in a graveyard in Barking. Stephen runs into Ryan after visiting the store and tells him about the bad news that Gabriel is dead. He goes on to claim that Gabriel went back to Slovakia where he went into a medical crisis and just died. Stephen claims someone who knew Gabriel got in touch to tell him about it. He asks Ryan not to post about it on social media because his family will be devastating. Sarah reads an article about the discovery of her son’s body and finds a similar article about the body in the graveyard. She calls Slaymaker only to get his voicemail again. Then, she tells Paul to say something, but he isn’t eager to bawl his eyes out.

He says he can swallow a fist full of pills like her although nothing is going to bring him back. Their argument continues as Paul says this wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for her. He believes she should’ve stopped Anthony from going to London. She calls Slaymaker again and he asks why she’d complain to her MP. She gets loud while saying she doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t want her saying her son was murdered or his case is linked to the other discovery because there is no evidence to prove it. He admits he hasn’t done the job before although he has completed the training. He knows she asked the MP for a new liaison officer. Before the call ends, Slaymaker promises to call her when she calms down.

 

Four Lives Review

While nothing groundbreaking yet, Four Lives could transform into a worthwhile, meaningful three-part drama during the next two episodes. It is interesting and unique in the sense that they’ve decided to show things from the perspectives of the victims’ families and friends. However, I am not sure this has been effective from the outset. It could be problematic because there were simply too many people impacted by the crimes of Stephen Port.

In the first episode, the show really didn’t place enough emphasis on the failings of the police besides the family liaison officer being a no-show. Since the show is designed to spotlight the investigation’s flaws and police biases, more should’ve been done to stress this. The next two episodes will need to nail the point home if this was the intention. Otherwise, it isn’t much different from the other BBC and ITV true-crime dramas released in the last few months and years, but this isn’t a bad thing.

It is interesting enough to hold the viewer’s attention and the performances from the leads and secondary characters were respectable. At this point, I felt the most sympathy for John Pape who was portrayed as going out of his way to help someone in need. It is really hard to judge a show like this based solely on the first episode. I sincerely hope it gets better and more effectively relays its message in the next two episodes because the message is very important. I’ll say it took me a while to become familiarized with some of the characters and their names so that may be reflected in the recap above.

The first episode scores a 7 out of 10. All recaps of Four Lives will be available on Reel Mockery here soon.