As series two of Hidden Assets begins, James Melnick (Charlie Carrick) returns home with his son. She goes looking for her granddad while James turns off the music. James yells for his dad, Richard. He goes upstairs where his son tells him Richard won’t wake up. James soon finds out that Richard is dead. In Brussels, Detective Sean Prendergast (Aaron Monaghan) arrives at the office of the Police Monitoring Committee. He sees a news report about a memorial for the lost in the diverse communities in Antwerp. Sean sits next to Vince Thijs (Gilles De Schryver) and reads about Richard Melnick’s death in the newspaper.

Although the Antwerp Port sale is getting closer, the death of Richard casts a shadow over Trestford’s bid. Bibi Brannigan (Simone Kirby) sees the Melnick family from her vehicle. When she gets out, she’s greeted by Frances Swann (Karine Vanasse). Frances reminds her she was supposed to step away and James was clear about that. She says she’s sorry to hear about the divorce. Bibi says she may have taken over Richard’s family, but her family is none of her business. Frances warns her not to make a scene because Richard’s legacy is at stake. Bibi ends up leaving. Vince is called back while Sean sits alone. Vince is questioned by Thomas Martyn (Steven Van Watermeulen) and Margaux Bayot (Idalie Samad). He says their intel suggested a third attack was imminent. Sean is asked to come back next so he can talk to Thomas and Margaux of Comity P.

They are there to discuss the events that led to the death of Luca Rivera. Sean is shown images from the Museum aan de Stroom. He is asked whether DS Berry, who is no longer with the Criminals Assets Bureau, is in the photo. Sean says yes before reading a statement from DS Berry. She says she saw Rivera holding a detonator at the museum. Vince says De Jong lost his temper a few times and mistook a tourist for a terrorist. Rivera was given a phone to call his wife. Margaux says the statement fails to mention that Chief Inspector De Jong ordered DS Berry to stand down. Vince says he would’ve shot Rivera too. As for Sean, he says Rivera was no longer a threat. Chief Inspector Christian De Jong (Wouter Hendrickx) waits outside. He speaks to Sean and says it was good that Emer agreed to make a statement. De Jong tells Sean to pass on his congratulations since she’ll be the Liaison Officer to Madrid.

De Jong knows Vince’s testimony won’t do him any favors. He believes he’ll be able to put this behind him soon. Sean says Emer made it very clear in her statement that Rivera wasn’t a threat. De Jong argues she only wanted Rivera alive so she could follow the money. Sean says they could’ve gotten some answers. De Jong argues they protected innocent lives. When their conversation is interrupted by Mila, Passent Hussein (Eva Kamanda) tells Sean she’s with the Vandaag newspaper. Sean tells her to direct her questions to the Garda Press Office. Mila Albert (Maya Albert) tells De Jong about the Bruges drug unit and the intel they got on a Colombian named Carlos Ortiz. While monitoring him, authorities heard talk about La Modelo Prison. Carlos has traveled to Colombia a lot in the last 18 months.

Right now, he is in an apartment just outside of De Panne. They begin rushing to the apartment. In Limerick, Ireland, Claire Wallace meets Simon McGonigle (Shane Lennon). He has several clients who want to work with Claire. Simon asks how the Head of Investigations sounds. He eventually says the client is MCS or Malopa Consultancy Services. That could put her at odds with her former colleagues. Claire leaves and takes a call from the Chief. She meets Norah Dillon (Cathy Belton) and wants to see what they’re dealing with. Josh Ola (Kwaku Fortune) explains that they’re locked out of their operational files. The hackers have access to personnel files and confidential informants. Claire says they need to make sure nothing gets leaked before Gately releases a statement. In De Panne, De Jong and the team prepare to storm the apartment.

When they apprehend Carlos Ortiz (Rino Sokol), he begins screaming police brutality. Carlos accuses them of planting drugs. Claire speaks to the team about the hack. She explains that Detective Inspector Stewart Moore from the Cyber Crime Bureau will be managing things there. Gately is handling things in Dublin. Moore says they’ve logged the attack with EC3 in Europol. De Jong questions Carlos about last year’s bombing. Carlos says he’s not a terrorist and wouldn’t kill innocent people. De Jong warns him it’s out of his hands once they get to Antwerp. They’re stopped by a truck so De Jong asks Mila to check it out. He hears gunshots. Carlos offers to tell De Jong what he wants to know if he gets him out of there. He gets shot. De Jong tries to keep him calm and alive. He asks for a name. Carlos says Gabrio Rojas (Alain Van Goethem). Sean catches up with Norah and learns Cyber Crime has quarantined the hard drives.

The hackers want 4 million euros of Bitcoin. Claire joins them. Norah worries the hackers will sell the information. Everything they had for a warrant in the Kelly case was on the system. Claire reveals she got an extension until tomorrow. Moore suspects the hackers exploited the office move to infiltrate the Shannon VPN as a backdoor into the secure network in Dublin. He admits it could’ve been a phishing attack though. The virus is called Ripper. Josh says their backup systems were targeted as well. If they don’t pay the ransom, they could lose everything. Claire points out that CAB doesn’t negotiate with criminals. Bibi stops her car. It blows up as she’s walking away from it. At the Counter Terrorist Unit in Antwerp, De Jong calls and requests a blue notice. He gives them Rojas’s name. Then, he complains to the rest of the team about being sitting ducks.

De Jong suspects someone leaked their route. He says this was an assassination carried out with military precision. Moore tells Claire they’ve told the hacker they need more time to buy the Bitcoin. They haven’t received anything from EC3 yet. Sean interrupts to say he downloaded an attachment to his computer that he thought was from a neighbor. He believes this is his fault. Moore says that’s something they’ll have to look into. Claire needs to call Gately and she thinks Sean should too. The next day, Claire hears a news report about the car bombing. She catches up with Moore and the others at the office. Norah believes the bombing could be revenge for the Darren Reid hit. Sean says that may be the case if Fionn Brannigan is getting the blame.

Claire wonders why it happened now. Sean shows her the newspaper about Richard’s death. Josh interrupts to show Claire something. The hackers have threatened to release the files. The team discusses whether Richard’s death could be linked to the car bombing. Sean points out that Richard about to buy the port. Cyber Crime is moving the investigation back to Dublin. Claire admits it’s not known if they’re going to pay. Josh leaves to speak to Moore. Claire tells Sean that Moore is staying on to oversee the restoration of the system. Moore tells Josh that the hackers released personal information of a service CAB officer to prove what they had. They released Josh’s information. Dublin will review the information to ensure his anonymity hasn’t been compromised.

Sean finds him coming out of the bathroom after vomiting. Josh tells him they’re good although he wants a minute alone. Claire checks on Norah who says she knew what she was signing up for when she entered the Bureau. Norah says she should be worried about Josh since he’ll be looking after his shoulder. Claire is invited to join them for a drink but she refuses. Later, Norah tells Josh that Claire likely won’t stay long because she was dressed for an interview yesterday. Josh argues there’s nothing wrong with planning for the future. He decides to head home alone. Sean blames himself for opening the email. Claire looks at the Kelly file. Then, she learns more about Bibi. In Charleroi Belgium, Rojas gets a call from someone. He tells them to keep their head down and mouth shut until they know if Ortiz gave them anything.

He’s picked up by Nikola Dmitrovic (Mike Imbierowicz) who is with Teodora Babic (Natalya Strutsenko). Nikola tells him it’s at the motel even though that wasn’t the deal. Teodora ends up strangling Rojas to death. The next day, Moore tells Claire they’re updating security privileges on all the devices. Josh confirms the files are corrupted. He’s found 12 case files that are either partially or completely corrupted. Moore calls it collateral damage. He gets a call from the EC3. After the call, he tells Claire and the others that the federal police building in Antwerp discovered a security breach overnight. Josh checks and learns that the Melnick case files have been corrupted. Fionn Brannigan’s files are corrupted too. Claire says CAB had a joint operation with Antwerp CTU last year. Now, the files for that operation are corrupted.

Moore believes this is a coordinated attack. Claire is asked to CTU immediately. Sean warns her De Jong won’t be thrilled to hear from CAB.

Vince voices concern about the system failure. Mila says they are fortunate that the server is disconnected. He insists the Columbians are responsible. She urges him to not jump to conclusions and let FCCU do its job. He says how else would the Columbians find out about Ortiz’s transfer. A stressed De Jong leaves his office for only a few minutes and doesn’t speak to anyone. A short time later, he receives a call from Claire informing him of the CAB ransomware attack which she believes is linked to the CTU breach. Disagreeing with her assessment, he says their communications have been under surveillance for months by a “bad actor.” She tells him that the CAB attack targeted the Brannigan-Melnick files. Later, Claire and Sean are en route to see Bibi when De Jong calls to say the Brannigan-Melnick files have been corrupted on CTU’s end.

Forensics processes the crime of a murdered Rojas. Elsewhere, Sean and Claire visit Bibi’s residence. Claire rings the doorbell and greets Bibi. She asks if she knows who was trying to hurt her. Bibi tells her to talk to the detective assigned to the case. Claire says they may be reopening her case. She also mentions her father-in-law. Bibi shuts the door on her. Bibi sits down on the stairs with her phone. She calls James and asks to speak to Arthur. James says he’s resting because they’ve had a rough couple of days. He says he might let her speak to him later when he wakes up. James questions why she insists on bringing trouble into their lives. Bibi argues this isn’t her fault, but James reminds her she picked her path. Bibi asks him to step up security before James abruptly ends the call.

 

Hidden Assets Review

The opening episode of the second series of Hidden Assets was okay although we’ve seen a lot of this before. Most of the scenes involving Carlos Ortiz were very predictable, corny, and repetitive. That’s a shame considering how well Rino Sokol acted out the death scene. It’s too common for criminals with vital information to get assassinated only to provide crucial information seconds before their deaths.

The camera work is far too shaky at times. The core story is probably simple while everything else is unnecessarily complicated. Most people aren’t going to remember all these people, terms, teams, and so on. If the writing was stronger and the story was more captivating, it might give us more motivation to remember them.

When it comes down to it, the episode felt like a chore to get through and I didn’t care about the characters or anything else. The episode was long-winded, cliché, and just going through the motions. Some performances are good but they’re going to get lost in the overall complexity of the story and the bloated cast.

The episode scores a 4.5 out of 10. Get more Hidden Assets recaps here. Find out how to support our independent site at this link. Learn more about advertising with us here. See what others are saying here.