With Or Without You – The episode begins at Titus Monroe’s (Steve Pemberton) farm where a family of 4 tries to adopt a dog. Not only does Titus deny them the dog but he unveils the mother ass an adulator. After the family leaves disappointedly, Titus goes to check on Rishi Magari (Rudi Dharmalingam), who appears to be held captive.

The following morning after her visit with Monte LeBurne (Marc Warren), DI Kat Donovan (Rosalind Eleazar) storms DCI Ellis Stagger’s (Richard Armitage) house like a raving lunatic with her new theory. As if storming his houses wasn’t enough to make him mad, learning that she went against his work and visited Monte does the trick. A huge argument ensues and ends briefly when Kat blurts out the news of Josh Buchanan’s (Ashley Walters) visit. Despite the discovery, Stagger assures Kat that Monte killed her father. Before leaving frustrated, Kat tries to get Stagger to speak with Mote. He doesn’t agree or disagree at the moment. After leaving Stagger’s house, Kat leaves Stacey Embalo (Jessica Plummer) a message asking for help finding Josh.

Kat is at home daydreaming about the day Clint Donovan (Lenny Henry) helps her and Josh move into the flat when Aqua Vanech (Mary Malone) shows up. They briefly speak about Josh and Monte, but Aqua has nothing new to provide. Later that day on the public bus, Kat tries to confirm Josh only to learn that she’s still muted. At the same time, a young man, Brendan Fells (Oscar Kennedy) not only watches her but appears to have a photo of her on his phone.

While Kat holds a press conference about Rishi, he is shown being forced to take a garden hose shower and changed into what resembles a prison jumpsuit. Shortly after this, he is taken to meet with Titus. After Titus shows Rishi what appears to be a spy camera of Vanessa (GK Barry) in her apartment, Rishi begs and agrees to do whatever Titus asks.

At the station, Charlie Pitts (Charlie Hamblett) tells Kat that forensics found a laptop in Rishi’s garage and he is going to give breaking into it a shot. The conversation doesn’t get much further thanks to a coworker telling Kat that she has a visitor. Kat’s visitor turns out to be the young man from the bus, Brendan. He claims he needs help finding his mother, Dana Fells (Lisa Faulkner), who he hasn’t heard from since she went on a trip she met with a man online. Before Kat can agree or disagree to help, she is called out to look at some messages pulled from Rishi’s hard drive. From the conversation, it would appear that Vanessa and Rishi met online. Kat returns to Brendan to discover that he is gone.

Titus gives Rishi an account number and demands that he is going to transfer 25,000 pounds into it. Apparently, this is just the start, but after several more calls and transfers, Titus promises Rishi that he and Vanessa will be free to go.

While Rishi makes the first payment, Stagger calls Kat into his office to tell her that Monte died. She isn’t happy to hear this and is even less happy when she learns that he didn’t go see Monte as she asked. Stagger maintains his belief that Monte was lying and tries to Kat the day off, and she surprisingly uses it to share the news with Odette Donovan (Brigid Zengeni). By the time Kat tells Odette about Monte, she’s already heard from a journalist. Odette doesn’t appear to be too hurt by the news and steers the conversation towards Josh. She also mentions Stagger calling but Kat doesn’t get much time to respond thanks to Flo (Naomi Wirthner) interrupting to announce that the pizza is there.

Kat returns home that evening to discover that Brendan has broken into her apartment. Although he doesn’t stick around to chat, Kat catches up with him. She tells him that she’s spoken to his aunt Clara, who has spoken to his mother. He tells her that his mother would have never called his aunt instead of him. He keeps denying and she keeps pushing until he tells her that his mother’s boyfriend is Josh. He claims he broke into her apartments in hopes of finding an address for Josh where he could track his mother down but Kat keeps denying the facts until she leaves.

The next morning, Kat receives a text from Stacey, requesting a meeting. When she meets her, Stacey tells her that she can’t find Josh, but what’s strange is that he is completely wiped from the Internet, except for the dating app. This leads to Kat sharing her news about Brendan but maintains the claim that there is no evidence of anything amiss. The conversation ends with Kat asking Stacy to send a photo of Josh to Tamsin (Alice Offley) to see if she recognizes him.

Later that day, Terrence Khol (Simon Kunz) stops by Kat’s desk to not only tell her a horrific childhood story about Dominic Calligan (James Nesbitt) but to invite her to his retirement party. As soon as this conversation ends, Kat receives a call from Brendan who wants her to check the ATM footage from a petrol station in Parkchester. Apparently, this is the last place his mother’s ATM card pinged. Kat is in the process of assigning this task to Charlie when she receives a text from Stacey, saying that Tamsin remembers Josh and can help her.

Tamsin did remember seeing Josh but didn’t go in with him when he talked to Monte. She did, however, remember seeing another man go in with Josh, Stagger. Stagger is already delivering his farewell speech when Kat arrives at the retirement party. At the same time, Titus learns that Rishi’s accounts have been blocked and orders Reynaldo (Felix Garcia Guyer) to deal with him. Rishi makes a commendable effort to escape but is eventually overcome by Reynaldo.

Kat confronts Stagger just as he steps outside at the retirement party. He doesn’t deny accompanying Josh to see Monte, but instead, he claims that Josh’s boss convinced him that he might be able to get a big investigative scoop from Monte. Kat doesn’t believe it and says Josh would never have done this because he knew it would have made her mad. Stagger says that is probably why Josh left afterward. After learning that Kat used unofficial means to get into the prison to see Monte, he suspends her.

While Charlie and Nia Emine (Catherine Ayers) locate Dana on the ATM footage, Stacey calls someone and tells them that they need to come clean to someone. Reynaldo is shown dragging Rishi’s body to what looks like an incinerator of sorts. Rishi is clutching, in his dead hand, the dress that Dana had on in the ATM footage.

The episode ends with showing Calligan attending Monte’s funeral.

 

Missing You Review

I feel that this was a much better episode than the first and it wasn’t because of the acting or the story. It was simply because of the introduction of two polarizing characters, Calligan and Titus. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying the acting was bad or the story wasn’t good, I am just saying that it wasn’t much better compared to the first episode. That said, I am enjoying watching the case unravel while Kat’s life crumbles. For that, I’d have to give the episode a 6.1 out of 10.

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