As this episode of Human Error begins, Holly O’Rourke (Leeanna Walsman) goes to the school after a student brought something weird. Holly tells the teacher it was one of her father’s old work photos. Her daughter says Bear (Steve Bisley) solved that in one day. Holly suspects Alice (Rosie Mitchell) just wanted to show off her grandfather’s handiwork. Miss Julia reminds them it’s a photo of two people missing their heads. Holly says a student left a pile of human waste on the gym floor not too long ago and the culprit was never publicly identified. Now, the teacher has held her daughter back. Julia says there will need to be an apology. As they leave, Holly tells her daughter why she can’t share photos like that.

Holly receives a call about a case so she calls her dad to see if he can pick up Alice. Holly ends up taking her daughter to the crime scene, but she makes her wait in the car. Jarred Pines (Rahel Romahn) tells Holly that the victim is 35-year-old Sonia Matthews (Kate Angus). She was shot twice and lives with her husband Mike Simpson (Sachin Joab). Holly notices the wound on Sonia’s head has a burn mark around it. She’s been executed. Sonia’s stepson, 8-year-old Connor, called in the shooting. Holly speaks to Connor (Jude Premraj) who says a ran after Sonia and shot her. The man had a mask on. Bianca (Jane Allsop) arrives and explains that Mike left her for Sonia. She texted Sonia this afternoon about picking up Connor. Holly asks about Mike being violent. Bianca says no.

They’re reworking custody because Connor has been accepted into a better school near them. Bianca doesn’t want her son thinking about this again. Bear arrives to pick up Alice. He doesn’t know how Alice got the photo from the old Hamilton case. Bear argues he didn’t take his girl to a murder scene. Rose Starry (Katrina Milosevic) shows Holly what she found at the bottom of the car. It includes a positive pregnancy test. Next, Mike is told they’ll have to stay elsewhere for a day or two. Mike says he came there at night and had a meeting with a client. He visited the Wallace Centre for a design seminar. He drives a black Audi A3. Mike doesn’t know anyone who would want to hurt Sonia. He insists there hasn’t been any unexpected news in the last few days. Detective Inspector Kirsten Leigh (Daniela Farinacci) speaks to the media about the shooting.

Holly speaks to her husband, Luke O’Rourke (Matt Day), who happens to be a prosecutor. Luke says he’s going out with Dylan McKenzie (Stephen Peacocke) for a drink and won’t be home. Dylan interrupts and briefly speaks to Holly about her busy night. Then, Holly learns the phone tap on the husband should be up in a few minutes. She’s told Sonia was born in the UK and arrived on a backpack visa in 2012. Sonia married Mike five years ago. Maia Kirsner (Emily Joy) confirms Sonia didn’t have a criminal record. Bianca White has no arrest and no criminal record. The new husband Quentin Whitehall is a criminal barrister. He just finished a trial involving a shooting at a bikie clubhouse. Kirsten introduces them to Gabe King (Ethan Lwin) who is there to help.

Gabe has an injured foot and is using a crutch. Holly speaks to Kirsten about the crime and her eyewitness. Later, the group watches CCTV of the crime. They see the assassin shoot Sonia three times and misses. When she falls, he walks up and shoots her in the head. Minutes later, Connor gets out of the car and runs across the street. Jarred says he hates anything with kids because it’s so cringey. Holly reminds him it isn’t about him right now. She finds it odd that Mike even mentioned Sonia’s pregnancy. Maia is asked to look for a money trail in case Mike paid someone to kill his wife. Holly steps out of the room to collect herself. It appears she’s pregnant as well. There’s another news report about Sonia’s murder. Seconds later, Maia tells Holly there were grumpy text messages between Sonia and Bianca three hours before the shooting.

Uniformed police officers have found a Mercedes like the one in the crime video abandoned in a paddock near Thomastown. The vehicle has been torched so there is nothing helpful in it. Maia says there are a few gaps in the spending they can’t account for. Mike has other ways of moving money. The Wallace Centre doesn’t have proof that Mike attended, but it wasn’t obligatory to sign the register either. He was booked with a colleague, Dallas Lang. Jarred and Maia talk about whether Holly is edgy. Maia learns that Dallas Lang (Danielle Horvat) is an accountant. They notice Dallas in a picture near Sonia and Mike. She’s questioned. Dallas tells Maia and Jarred that they played tennis instead of going to the seminar. They took separate vehicles and she got back to work around 2:30 or 3. As for Mike, he returned around 4.

Mike claimed he had stopped for a shower. Holly returns to the crime scene. Rose tells her the pathology results are back. Sonia was eight weeks pregnant and it was her husband. Holly looks around. She meets Keith Bird (Anthony J. Sharpe) to ask him about the shooting in Greensborough. She asks him to see if he can find anything out about Mike. Keith says a clean 9mm might cost around 20 grand nowadays. Next, Gabe says Mike opened a national bank account in June 2015. $10,000 was deposited into the account, but it was instantly transferred out to an HSBC account in Hong Kong. Gabe shows everyone a USB he found in Mike’s home office drawer. It’s a Bitcoin wallet and it’s password protected. It’s dated July 2015. It’d be worth around 200 grand now. Holly goes home and has dinner with the family.

She reminds Alice she needs to make an apology to 4B. Alice gets up and plays around until Holly says that’s enough. Later, Holly tells Luke that she’s sick of her dad’s BS. He tells Holly that Dylan started crying about Shawn last night. Holly suggests organizing something for Shawn’s birthday in a few weeks. She doesn’t say anything about her pregnancy. The next day, Dylan asks Holly if she’s spoken to Keith Bird. She says they went through the academy together. Last she heard, he was deep in with the bikies. Dylan worries he could be seen with a detective. Jarred and Maia say the tennis club’s CCTV picked up Mike and Dallas around 12:15. They were only there for about twenty minutes before leaving. They agree to bring Dallas in. Kirsten learns that Holly wants to offer a reward. They talk about the case and possible suspects.

Holly confirms they have contacts with the criminal underworld. Bianca’s husband just got the Longwarry shooter off. Kirsten tells her she has a live cross with the Channel Nine news tonight. Jarred asks Dallas how long they were at the court. She admits they did some other exercises like sex. Holly warns her she committed conspiracy by providing Mike with an alibi. Dallas admits they had sex in the car. Mike was pretty angry that Sonia was pregnant and he sent her an email about it. They go to Bianca’s house. Mike is there causing a stir with Bianca and her new husband. Mike says he just wants to see his son. Mike ends up getting tazed. He’s brought to the station for an interview. Holly asks about his relationship with Dallas Lang. He claims they’re just friends.

Mike is forced to admit they had sex in his car. Holly asks about the bank account he opened in 2015. He says he used to mow lawns for Mrs. Cobb when he was a kid. When she passed, she left him money in her will. It was $10,000 and he bought Bitcoin. He forgot about it until the price went through the roof. He can’t access it because he doesn’t have the password. Holly asks him to read the email he sent to Dallas. Mike insists he wouldn’t kill Sonia over this. In the email, he says Sonia got pregnant even though he said this wasn’t the right time. Mike insists he’s innocent and loved his wife. Holly asks where he was between 2 and 4 on the day of Sonia’s murder. Mike admits he was at Bianca’s place because Bianca texted Sonia saying she was coming early to pick up Connor. Mike wouldn’t have gotten to see his son after work. He went there and slashed her tires so she couldn’t drive.

Holly speaks to the others about Mike’s statements. Kirsten asks Holly what’s going on here. She reminds Holly she’s got a live cross in ten minutes. Holly does the television interview moments later. She lets it slip that Sonia was pregnant with her first child. Jarred tells Maia that Holly is making a mess of this. Later, Maia tells Holly that Sonia’s mother just called from the UK. She wants to know why they didn’t tell her about Sonia’s pregnancy. Holly agrees to call her. She also learns that Mike’s alibi stands up. She wants to look at how Sonia was killed. She’ll follow up with her undercover who is working on the gun. Holly returns home and talks to her father who says he’s proud of her. Bear gets upset and walks out of the room. Holly goes to Alice’s room and finds a card she made to apologize to her class.

She calls someone to tell them she’s pregnant just before Luke returns home. She claims she was talking about work on the phone.

 

Human Error Review

The opening episode of Human Error was interesting although a little dry. The story is supposedly inspired by true events so that definitely makes the series a little more interesting. It was a bit surprising that the case wasn’t solved in the first episode so that may lead to things being prolonged a bit too much.

Most of the cast does a good job with the script, including Leeanna Walsman, Matt Day, and others. Some of the dialogue is a bit odd though or the delivery is just flat. It just doesn’t sound kosher sometimes like the characters are saying things that people normally wouldn’t. For instance, Jarred’s line about kids being cringey was very odd.

It’s very heavy on the personal dramas, such as Holly’s pregnancy, Dylan’s loss, and so on. These things may take up a lot of the screen time as the series progresses. Truthfully, this is another detective drama and it really doesn’t stand out much. Will viewers enjoy it? They may very well if they haven’t become tired of such shows which are undoubtedly overdone at the moment.

It’s really just right in the middle of the pack at this point. The episode scores a 5.5 out of 10. Recaps of Human Error can be found on Reel Mockery 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.