As the second episode of Ludwig begins, it appears a man is running around afraid in a manor. Lucy Betts-Taylor (Anna Maxwell Martin) finds John Taylor (David Mitchell) working on James’s cipher. Since he’s not seeing a pattern, John suspects it requires a source key to crack. He doesn’t understand why James puts wallpaper on his notebooks. Lucy argues he needs to find out what case James was working on when he vanished. She tells him to ask subtly or check James’s computers. Lucy also doesn’t want him to deal with many more distractions including murder cases. She doesn’t want John not to trust her like James did. John goes to the police station and struggles to park again. He speaks to the receptionist so he can avoid Holly Pinder (Sophie Willan).

DCS Carol Shaw (Dorothy Atkinson) joins John and asks him about his new DI Russell Carter (Dipo Ola). He says it’s fine. Shaw was expecting a different response. She admits she didn’t want to see DI Neville transferred any more than he did. Shaw warns him that it was either him or Neville after the Sinclair business. She just hopes they can get back to normal now. John tries to reach his office. Before he can, he sees a crying woman with Russell. DC Simon Evans (Gerran Howell) and DS Alice Finch (Izuka Hoyle) tell John that missing persons set her up. Once John makes it to James’s office, he finds multiple outgoing calls in the call log. He writes a number on his arm. He tries to find out more about R. Sinclair, but he needs an authorization code to access the file. When John sees Russell coming, he unplugs the computer. He tells John that the woman’s husband didn’t come home from some work team-building retreat thing.

She got a cryptic phone call from him last night. John gets interested in the case so he decides to work on it with Russell. John tries to talk to him about the Sinclair business, but Russell doesn’t seem to know what he’s talking about. They go to the place where Peter Williams (Tom Bell) was staying and speak to Lady Camilla Bryce (Felicity Kendal). Camilla says Peter checked out around seven last night and left the others behind. John realizes that the lobby used to be the kitchen. Camilla gives Russell the business card Peter left before learning he has vanished. John and Russell speak to Hannah Waldron (Alice Feetham), Ben Naylor (Jamie Beamish), and Ross Barclay (Hammed Animashaun). Ross explains he’s a motivational speaker and is running the workshop. Hannah says Peter came down to his room as they were heading to dinner. He said he wasn’t feeling well and he was heading home.

Elliot Collins (Ethan Moorhouse) points out that Peter’s vehicle is gone and he wasn’t at breakfast. Russell believes this is a midlife crisis although John isn’t so sure about that. They see a camera and decide to check the footage. Lucy goes out and snaps photos of a house that is for rent. Noel (Naveed Khan) asks if she’s interested. Lucy explains she’s looking for Matt Neville only to learn he moved about a month ago. He’s left his things and they’ll be auctioned off in three weeks. Lucy finds out that other people have been looking for Matt too. Noel refuses to help her. At the police station, Holly goes through the stills from the camera. They see Peter around seven. Then, the desk is empty until about nine when Camilla returns. It flips until the next morning. That happens every night. Holly gets upset with John and leaves.

Alice interrupts to say Peter’s company, Cambridge Luxury Wellness, sells exclusive memberships to a luxury spa retreat. It doesn’t actually exist though. This time last year, Peter was selling tickets to a provisional music festival that collapsed under the weight of its own ambition. It’s Peter’s fourth business in six years. John suspects something is different in the video. At home, Lucy is not happy to learn he’s caught up in another murder investigation. She reminds him he’s supposed to be looking into James’s last case. Lucy tells John about Neville disappearing. He asks if James ever mentioned the name Sinclair. They talk about the woman whose husband has gone missing. Lucy approaches Henry to say she should’ve told him everything from the start. She promises that they will find James. Henry asks if she read the letter James wrote.

He believes James was writing like he thought someone was coming after him. Henry worries that person go to him first. Lucy insists that isn’t the case. In the morning, Lucy tells John about Neville’s wife. She’s upset that she is missing too and actually knows what’s going on. Lucy says she’s taking the notebook. John looks through the address book to see if he can find the number James called on the day he vanished. Lucy asks if he’s called the number. She calls the number and hears a fax machine on the other line. Lucy wonders who James knows who still owns a fax machine. When John goes to the police station, he’s approached by Chief Constable Ziegler (Ralph Ineson). John is reminded that team reviews are coming up. Ziegler hopes his new report will be as favorable as the last. Simon and Alice tell John they’ve found Peter’s car abandoned at Hutley about a two-hour drive away. John also learns that the superintendent wants to see him.

John sees Russell with DCS Carol Shaw. She wants to talk to him about his investigation into Bryce Manor. Those employees had to buy into their jobs with the promise of a steady wage and a percentage of profits. It was a con. Peter was declared bankrupt the day he disappeared. His wife didn’t know. The jig was up and Peter knew it. John doesn’t believe it and suspects they should talk to the team now. After all, they now have a motive for murder. In the elevator, John notices that Russell receives a call from Ziegler. After the brief call, Russell says it was his niece. They go back to Bryce Manor to speak to the workers who are now suspects. Russell asks Barclay if he has been paid for this gig. John and Russell begin speaking to each of them as suspects. They say Peter came down last, but was too sick to stay for dinner. By the time they finished, he was already gone.

Hannah says they didn’t know Peter or each other. They only met a week ago when they turned up for the job. The ad for the job was taped to a lamppost right outside a probation office. Ben says Peter knew who to target. Hannah admits she had been arrested for shoplifting. The others detail their crimes. Ben complains that he’s back to being jobless and broke. As they leave, John calls them all criminals. He notices that one urn has been cleaned but not the other. Russell receives another call. Alice tells him they’re at the vehicle. There is no note. The keys are in the ignition and there’s a bag in the back. Meanwhile, Lucy takes photos of a wedding. She looks at James’s notebook and possibly finds that pages are missing. At the station, Alice and Russell talk about Peter’s disappearance. Simon and John try to figure out the difference between the images.

John learns that his wife is downstairs. Lucy shows him that pages have been torn out. She’s also done the penis-rubbing thing and found that name Sinclair. She’s also found Ziegler’s name and some numbers. Holly watches them as they separate. Back in his office, John tries to guess the authorization code. He tries the numbers James may have written down and it works. John finds the case file for Roger Sinclair. It’s an investigation into a murder and attempted burglary. At the bottom, John finds Ziegler’s name as well as that of DCI Kakkar. John prints the file, but he doesn’t know where the printer is. He begins searching for it elsewhere around the station. Once he gets the papers, Alice stops him to ask about it. John prepares to hide the papers in the notebook until he notices something with the wallpaper. John looks at the two pictures again.

He thinks it’s odd that there isn’t any money coming out on the bank statements even though Lady Bryce said he paid in advance. John asks them to go back more than two months and to get the telemarketers to join them at Bryce Manor. He already knows what’s going to be on the statement and where to find Peter Williams. At the motel, John tells Russell that the wallpaper shifted slightly. Camilla insists she has no idea what he’s talking about. John has a big section of the wall cut out. They find a hidden room. John suggests the dead body of Peter could be back there. Sure enough, they find Peter’s body. Then, John questions the suspects again. John says Camilla was a silent partner who bought in for a lot more than 500 pounds. Camilla admits John approached her about a “zero-risk investment opportunity”.

Camilla says she was desperate and wanted her home back so she believed Peter. John doesn’t think she killed him since it took two officers to remove the panel from the wall. He isn’t sure who the killer is though. John says it probably doesn’t matter because they’re all involved. He goes through the details and explains how everyone was involved. Peter tried to leave but he didn’t get very far. Hannah reveals that John was pushed into the urn outside and killed. Camilla went outside and found them with the body. She helped them deal with the body and hide the camera footage. John admits he doesn’t know what Mr. Barclay is even doing there. Later, Russell tells John that he had him worried back there. They visit Debbie Williams (Alison Pargeter) to tell her about her husband’s murder. John returns and tells Lucy that James didn’t just vanish.

He left breadcrumbs and a puzzle. John knows his brother isn’t dead. He mentions the name Roger Sinclair who disturbed a burglar before being killed. Lucy finds out that Roger was a blogger. Henry joins them and says James still has a fax machine. Lucy can’t find much about Roger Sinclair online. If he had a blog, it’s been taken down. John checks a picture of Roger’s house. He has a picture of Ziegler outside the house. Henry gets the fax machine working. They receive another copy of the Sinclair crime scene but something has changed. It’s dated a day earlier and James is named as the lead detective. Shaw signed it off. Then, there was a break-in, a different detective, and it was signed by Ziegler. There is even an arrest. John knows that Ziegler is certainly not DI Carter’s niece.

 

Ludwig Review

The second episode of Ludwig wasn’t as fun as the first. The opening episode was really just okay until it reached the conclusion and got stupidly fun. The second episode was pretty much just a repeat of that and didn’t do anything different. The episode was fairly dull to be honest.

It’s trying really hard to be funny, but a lot of viewers aren’t going to like that aspect of the series. The first episode was somewhat different and even clever with the way the case was resolved. Sadly, that same feeling just wasn’t here.

Ludwig is decent as a way to kill an hour while burning a few brain cells, but it really doesn’t do anything spectacularly either. Once viewers have seen John Taylor’s puzzle solving once, it won’t have the same impact the second time around. The second episode was okay, but it certainly wasn’t anything to write home about either.

The episode scores a 5.5 out of 10. Recaps of Ludwig can be found on Reel Mockery here. Learn more about supporting our independent voice here. Find out about advertising with us here. Discuss Ludwig with others here.