As the episode begins, Erin (Sara Vickers) speaks about Adrian (Robin Laing) now that he has left rehab. She hopes he stays that way although he claims she wants him to be boring. They share a toast to boring. Later that night, Adrian sneaks out and leaves in a taxi. He goes to a building that looks like a nightclub before returning home with a bag. Erin finds him downstairs and learns he has a bag full of cash. She accuses him of being as high as a kit, but Adrian says he went out and one thing led to another. He says it was an accident, he saw an opportunity, and this allows them to get out of the hole they’re in. She didn’t know they were in a hole and calls him pathetic for wasting their money. Before she can pack her bags and leave, they hear someone enter the house upstairs.

Adrian instructs her to hide before the stranger descends the stairs and shoots Adrian in the head. She hits him from behind with a golf club before getting the gun. The man gets up and tries to take the gun but is ultimately shot in the chest. She listens to the man suffer so she walks over and contemplates shooting him once again. She doesn’t and instead goes upstairs, sits down, and notices the blood on her hands. Seconds later, Max McCall (Mark Bonnar) is released from prison after two years. He goes to Jake’s flat and steps inside. Meanwhile, Kenny Burns (Emun Elliott) attends an alcoholics’ support group and listens to Yvonne (Rochelle Neil) talk about her experience so far. When the session ends, Kenny tells Yvonne that he talks about who he was in the meetings and leaves him in there.

He finds out she has a nice vehicle which she says she got from the divorce. Yvonne asks him out for a drink or something, but Kenny reminds her the group doesn’t recommend that. He tells her that she can call him though. Next, Max goes to his old workplace to confront Roy Lynch (Stuart Bowman). Max explains he sat in the cell for two years with a psycho and said nothing about their operation. He insists he could’ve said things to get Roy in trouble as well. He says there was another way it could’ve gone, and he would’ve barely fallen at all, but others would’ve. He encourages Roy to soften the fall for him. Roy claims he is being greedy and says he has already allowed him to continue breathing the rich air of Edinburgh. He can continue doing so as long as he remains irrelevant. He goes on to say you come out of prison and find out that your old life has run for the hills.

Max says it hasn’t run far since this was his business. Roy says he is clean now and Max is dirtier than ever. He tells Max he is still falling so he’ll need to search for salvation a little lower. When Max leaves, he visits Kenny at his new office which used to be a daycare for children. They talk about the damage Max did and the damage done to him. Max says Jake sent him the keys to his flat from Chicago. Kenny listens to his offer to become business partners, but he thinks Max only wants this because he can create legal documents. Since Max was disbarred, he can’t do that now. Max claims he feels guilt and wants to help Kenny do better. Max tells him to remember this moment because it is when his life turns. Kenny says he’d be working under him, but Max says they’d be working together as partners. Kenny knows this was Max’s last resort, so he agrees to give him a trial run, but it isn’t what Max wants.

Max spends the night cleaning up and painting the walls while Kenny goes back to his crappy flat. Max runs out of paint and can’t finish. He gets a call while Roy gets one as well. Max answers and tells Kenny he did it and he is serious about doing this. Roy answers his daughter’s call and learns she is calling him for a reason. He goes to her house and learns about the two dead bodies in the basement. She makes it clear that he is only hearing from her because of the circumstances. Roy learns Adrian’s family gave up on him a few rehabs ago but will likely come looking for him eventually. He explains a police officer will file a missing person’s report saying Adrian left suddenly, he had a troubled private life, he drained his account, took his passport, and was spotted at the airport. Erin will tell her friend he relapsed, and she was forced to kick him out. She is sad but she needs to move on.

As for the other one, he has an army tattoo and smells like alcohol. He is ex-army, full of drink, and owns a gun so they can make it look like one would expect it would. Erin claims she doesn’t want the money, but Roy says she can use it once it is cleaned up. It’ll be a silver lining and give her a break from men like Adrian. She insists this isn’t going to be what her father thinks it will be. He mentions the fact that the intruder hasn’t been as dead as long as Adrian. He tells her to go to bed and this will be all done when she gets up. He thanks her for calling him and insists he doesn’t do this anymore. Roy takes care of the bodies before cleaning his shoes while Erin tries to remove blood from her bathrobe. Next, Yvonne talks about seeing her ex on Thursday and that creating a problem for her. Her conversations would get the better of her at night so she would drink.

She explains how it turned into drinking half the week and her partner getting promoted before her. Then, it turned into six days. It was okay because she ran on Saturdays before she came home and cleaned. She saw the woman again and decided to start drinking every day of the week and it eventually brought her there. Once she finishes, she tells Kenny that it felt good to talk about it. Then, we see a woman at a senior center watching a man who seems to be selling something to the other residents. Kenny returns to the storefront and checks out Max’s work. Kenny gets a delivery and explains he is going to sell wills for 99.99 to get people through the door before selling them more services. Roy surprisingly enters and tells Max that he owes him, so he gives him a bottle of wine. He also gives him the bag of money and says he wants to have it cleaned.

Max asks where he got the money, but Roy isn’t willing to tell him. Meanwhile, Erin decides to look through their finances. Kenny tells Max he doesn’t want this going on at the shop. Max agrees but he believes they should do it this time. He warns Kenny that Roy isn’t really asking them to do it. He also knows the money doesn’t belong to Roy. When looking through the bag, Kenny finds a tracker, so they decide to place it somewhere and see who comes to get it. Erin finds out that they’re in debt forcing her to call her father and admit she needs the money after all. When Erin says Adrian had been forging her signature, Roy says he had at least one talent. The next day, Roy visits again and learns the money is spotless. He gives Max information about where the money should be sent. Max finds it odd that Roy is running his own messages.

Roy tells him how he escapes when watching Westerns, but he couldn’t last night due to Max asking him where the money was from. Max explains he was asking for Kenny since it is his license. When Roy asks if he trusts Kenny, Max says he trusts Kenny more than he trusts him. Next, Kenny goes out with Yvonne and tells her he works in legal before she admits she wants to do this again. Erin gets a visit from Max who asks her about blind trusts. He gives her one of the cards Kenny made and it has tons of owls on it. Max says she is the sole beneficiary of a blind trust pieced together by a bunch of hack lawyers working for Roy Lynch. She pretends she doesn’t know who Roy is. Max says he used to have a house like this, but they come with so much pressure. He wonders if that pressure would convince Erin’s husband to go to Roy Lynch.

She asks if she needs to call the police, but he agrees to leave. We see a man picking up items and putting them in his car which has a bumper sticker that says, “Stanton Shoots Jesus Saves”. A detective, Stevie, files a missing person’s report for Adrian. Then, Erin visits her mother and tells her about calling her dad, but she promises this will be the last time. Her mom says Roy has a few uses. Erin tries to get her mother to move in with her, but she refuses because she doesn’t want to be unbearable for her. Stevie gives Yvonne a bunch of paperwork to put into the computer even though she’ll end up being there all night.

He warns her to be careful with the other thing because people can use a weakness against you. Roy takes the information to his daughter and tells her she can withdraw the money whenever she needs to. He insists it wasn’t what it once was. He goes on to say she won’t be taking his money. Instead, she is getting something from Adrian so it will be a silver lining. He believes she would’ve been proud of him if she was a boy, but she was embarrassed. He tells her she is made of steel, and she is him since she remembered him telling her not to call the police. Erin’s mom stops the salesman and warns him to stop peddling that stuff around here. He says he is offering a property investment in the new flats at Leith. He encourages her to keep out of it. The gunman’s family learns about his supposed suicide. A co-worker tells Yvonne that Stevie messed up the missing person’s report, so she agrees to fix it.

The woman can’t understand how Stevie got the promotion and Yvonne didn’t. Kenny watches as a car pulls up and someone grabs the bag with the tracking device. The gunman’s family insists he wasn’t a coward and wouldn’t have committed suicide. Max meets with a woman. They talk about dogs before he says he always needed something more and deeper. At first, it was fear. Once he got older, it turned into greed. When he was in the cell, he tried guilt but it didn’t work. Roy visits the salesman and has him taken care of. We see a picture of the gunman who was a member of the parachute regiment. Max says he needs some heavy fuel, and he found it when she came to see him. He gives her something that looks like a USB drive and admits he is after revenge.

 

Guilt Review

I really enjoyed the first season of Guilt and was surprised they decided to bring it back for a second season because I felt the finale sealed the deal. Nevertheless, the season could be a pleasant surprise. The opening episode was interesting at points, but it is going to take some time to get comfortable with the new characters.

It has also been a long time since we watched the first season, so a lot has been forgotten since then. Still, it feels like the season is going to get very interesting sooner or later. The opener was a bit slow, but I can see the season’s potential.

I will continue watching Guilt because I am interested in seeing what Max can do and who he goes after. The opening episode could’ve been better, but I suppose it was necessary to set up the story. It scores a 6.5 out of 10. All Guilt recaps will be available on Reel Mockery here.