As the opening episode of Payback begins, Lexie Noble (Morven Christie) speaks to her husband about Esme and the babysitter. Jared is just glad that he gets to spend all day working with his beautiful wife. He is working from home this morning and needs to take a call. DC Jibran Khan (Prasanna Puwanarajah) arrives for work at the police station. Cal Morris (Peter Mullan) talks to Connie (Julie Graham) the Isle of Eris. He says money goes in at the start of business. Connie wants to make sure the purchase can’t be linked back to them. A couple is shown loading money in a briefcase before locking it. Lexie checks on the kids and Doris Szabo (Eileen Duffy).

She asks Doris if she is okay taking the kids to the park while she goes to the gym. Jared gets ready for a run. He receives a message saying they’re on their way before Lexie leaves for the gym. DCI Adam Guthrie (Derek Riddell) talks to Jibran about the island deal which is expected to close at 9:30. The money may come from anywhere because they move it through many offshore accounts. Once it is in Scotland, they can try to trace it. Lexie watches Doris leave with the kids while Jared leaves for his run. A man counts 2.5 million. Another message is sent saying okay. Jared gets the message while picking up cigarettes. Lexie follows Doris to the park. She turns around and walks away.

Moments later, she sees Jared trapped in a fight. It appears that Jared is stabbed before he falls to the ground. Lexie rushes over to check on him while asking others to call for an ambulance. A man watches and listens from outside as Cal learns about Jared. Inside, Aaron Morris (Jack Greenlees) tells Cal what he saw. Cal tells him to go and get Malky. DC Khan and DCI Guthrie learn that it didn’t happen and there was no sign of the funds in the solicitor’s account. Guthrie reminds Khan that claimed this would be their big break on Cal Morris. Khan says it should’ve according to the intel they had. He can’t understand why they’d pull out at the last minute. Guthrie believes they’re done.

He tells Khan that he is a financial investigator and needs to find a lead that goes somewhere. Cal and his man try to find out where the money has gone. Khan speaks to DC Alice Hardy (Grace Chilton) about Cal who was likely using dirty cash. DCI Guthrie wants him back on general audio surveillance now. Khan complains he finally got Guthrie interested in a financial lead and it was all for nothing. DI Jean Royce (Andi Osho) and DS Rob Livingston (Steven Miller) speak to Lexie about Jared’s movements. Lexie says she didn’t see the faces of the attackers. Before the detectives leave, Lexie tells them that her husband was an accountant.

Malky Roberts (Steven Mackintosh) tells Cal that the courier withdrew the funds in cash from the bank in Malta and paid them into the second account as arranged. Jared was going to make the transfer to Dimitri’s holding account in Cyprus. There might’ve been confusion with Cyprus being two hours ahead. Cal tells Malky to call the Scottish solicitor and tell them they need a few more hours. Malky believes there could be a bigger problem because Jared set up the second Maltese account. Cal realizes the money is in an account they can’t access. He asks how he can get his money. Lexie speaks to Rowena Hayes (Anneika Rose) and others about Jared’s attack.

She admits that Esme doesn’t know yet. The police told Lexie she has to go to the morgue today for a formal identification. Rufus Hayes (Henry Pettigrew) offers to be there as a friend instead of a solicitor. Cal believes someone is screwing with him. He wants Malky to speak to his PI to find out who is behind this. He also wants to speak to Lexie Noble. Malky argues she won’t know anything because Jared didn’t want her involved. Malky relents and agrees to confront her although they can’t approach her directly. Lexie goes to the morgue for the formal identification. At home, she breaks the news to Esme. Lexie agrees to let her go to school tomorrow if she wishes.

Lexie tells Doris she’d understand if she can’t stay with everything going on here. Doris says she’ll stay anyway. Lexie receives a letter about an overdue bill from her daughter’s school. Rufus comes over to talk to her about it. Lexie explains that the direct debit didn’t go through so there might be a problem with the bank. It went through Jared’s account but she can’t access it. Rufus asks if Jared liquidated a lot of his savings. He is pretty sure Jared remortgaged the house as well. Rufus wants to look at the details of Jared’s life insurance first. Lexie speaks to Jason Perry (Levi Brown) at Jared’s workplace and asks for a client list. He doesn’t remember Jared keeping personal papers around the office.

She finds passwords written down in a drawer. Jared always used a cipher by adding two to every number. As she leaves, two men on a motorcycle steal her purse. Malky rushes over to check on her. Cal looks through the files she had. He asks his man to take pictures of them anyway. Malcolm introduces himself to Lexie before saying he is sorry for her loss. Malky says Jared spoke about her a lot. He questions whether Jared ever talked to her about a deal he was doing for a client. Lexie says he really didn’t talk about his clients even though she is a partner in the firm. Cal comes in to tell Lexie that Jared was an associate of theirs. He gives her the purse back before asking about a Maltese account.

Lexie insists she doesn’t know anything about it. Cal gives Lexie his number in case she comes across any account numbers or paperwork. He asks about Esme and her private school. At home, Lexie asks Doris if anyone has approached her lately. Doris says no. Lexie opens a stuck drawer and finds a manual for a home security unit. After finding the safe, she grabs the list of passwords she got from Jared’s office. Once she gets it open, she finds paperwork with the name Stuart Sheehy on it. She also pulls out a small phone with one number saved in the contact list. Lexie decides to call it. Cal gets a missed call alert on his phone. Lexie puts everything back in the safe.

Cal tells Aaron that someone has turned Jared’s burner phone on. They believe it had to be Lexie. DI Jean Royce and DS Rob Livingston interview the homeless man who saw Jared’s murder. He claims the attacker shouted Jared before he stuck the knife in. Then, the detectives visit Lexie to say they believe the attack may have been premeditated. Jean thinks someone had a reason to want Jared dead. After learning about their business, Jean says they’ll need to search the house and company offices. They’ll also take mobile phones and personal computers. Lexie can come back after they’ve finished. At work, Khan asks Alice if they can access existing recordings.

She finds one recording and sends it to Khan. He clears up the audio and hears them talking about Jared. Then, he goes to Adam Guthrie to get him to listen to the recording. The recording was made 31 minutes before the island deal fell through. 15 minutes prior to that, Jared Noble was killed in a knife attack. Khan suspects the money didn’t go through because Jared was killed. Lexie speaks to Jean and Rob about the day of Jared’s murder. She asks them about the search. Then, she goes back home with Doris and the kids. Lexie gets the phone from the safe and notices that the battery is dead. She finds Stuart Sheehy on the client list.

Lexie searches his name online and finds a picture of him with Cal Morris. When she looks up Morris, she finds out that a fraud trial against him collapsed. She also discovered that Callum was involved in a knife attack previously but was acquitted. Later, Esme picks up the phone which has been charged. She tells her mother that there is someone on the phone for her. Cal tells Lexie that she must’ve found Jared’s other phone. Cal claims he doesn’t know anything about Jared’s death. He suggests he can get her some answers so he wants to meet at the Lawnmarket tomorrow. At the station, Lexie is asked if she knew her husband had a Crestland Bank credit card.

The statement for one of the cards shows interesting charges from fancy restaurants. He also seemed to purchase expensive sapphire earrings and rented a double room at a hotel. Rob asks if Jared ever mentioned a woman named Sarah Blaine. She was booked on a flight to Miami with Jared using his Crestland Bank credit card a week before he died. They assumed it was for Jared although he used a false name. Rob suggests Jared was going to start a new life with his mistress. Jean argues that the pressure could’ve caused Lexie to kill her husband. Rufus quickly ends the interview. At home, Doris admits she and Jared talked about a trip to America to see his parents at half-term.

He asked if she’d be okay flying by herself with the kids. Doris thought he was taking Lexie somewhere. Lexie tells her to call the police if she doesn’t come back in two hours. Doris gives Lexie her alarm. Khan shows Guthrie a list of shell companies that are believed to be linked to Cal Morris. All of them were making large monthly payments to Jared Noble & Associates. He must’ve been working for Morris. Alexandra or Lexie is one of the associates at the firm. Lexie meets Cal who asks if she found anything else besides the phone. Lexie says no. Cal explains that Jared was overseeing a transfer for him and the money has gone astray. He was hoping she could help him find it.

Cal asks her to look for anything regarding foreign accounts. If she does that, he’ll get answers for her. That is more than the police will do. He believes they’ll only care that Jared was working for him. Cal doesn’t give Lexie a choice. When she gets back, Lexie learns an engineer has been in her house dealing with a faulty smoke alarm. Malky tells Cal he doesn’t like having the wife involved because she knows too much. He asks what happens if she doesn’t deliver. Khan listens to the bug they installed in the smoke alarm in Lexie’s house. Doris gives the paperwork to Lexie that Jason dropped off. Lexie finds passports with Jared’s picture but a different name. There are passports for her kids and herself. Her passport is in the name of Sarah Blaine. Khan listens to her as she begins crying.

 

Payback Review

The opening episode of Payback set up an interesting story that could become very intense in later episodes. Morven Christie stars as Alexandra Noble who is an accountant at her husband’s firm. One day, her husband, Jared, is stabbed to death setting off a string of strange events. She soon learns that Jared was involved with a crime boss by the name of Callum Morris.

Jared’s untimely death possibly prevented him from finishing a transaction for Cal who wants his money. Some of the local detectives believe Alexandra may have been involved in her husband’s death because he was cheating. However, Lexie found out otherwise when she found a passport with the name Sarah Blaine and her picture on it. The plot isn’t totally original and somewhat feels like stories from various shows thrown together.

The cast is excellent with Morven Christie, Peter Mullan, Steven Mackintosh, Derek Riddell, and others. The episode was interesting enough although a bit long-winded at times. At the very least, it was grounded without having lots of eye-rolling moments. It is just too early to tell where this goes from here and whether it’ll be a worthwhile binge, but the opening episode was alluring enough to stick around for a few more.

We’ll have to see where it goes before saying too much. The opening episode scores a 6 out of 10. Recaps of Payback are available on Reel Mockery here. Find out how to support our independent site at this link. Learn more about advertising on Reel Mockery here.