As this episode of Shetland begins, a young Calder (Rosie Graham) sneaks out of the house and asks her brother not to say anything. Outside, she meets Cal (Gregor Milne) on the beach. Cal jumps into the water. After the intro, DI Ruth Calder (Ashley Jensen) speaks to DCI Thomas Coombes (Karl Collins) on the phone about going away. She receives a call from Janes Innes (Kevan MacKenzie) who tells her something happened to Cal Innes (Jamie Sives). Two cops arrive at the door before Ruth goes to the scene of the crash. Calder is told there was nothing they could do for Cal. DC Sandy Wilson (Steven Robertson) gets a call from Tosh who asks why he let her near the body.

Sandy tells Tosh (Alison O’Donnell) that he tried to stop her and she is in shock now. He goes on to say Cora believes she smelled alcohol on the body. Tosh asks Sandy to get Ruth away from there. Tosh talks to Azir (Bamshad Abedi-Amin) and Farida Sadat (Manjinder Virk) about Ellen who was struggling emotionally before she left for London. She believes the partying was a symptom and not the cause. Tosh wonders if the cause might’ve been Akmal’s death. She asks whether Ellen met Akmal while she was working there. Farida says she must have, but she only did a couple of shifts. Azir admits she still could’ve been impacted by it though. He insists she never mentioned Akmal to him though.

Sandy apologizes to Ruth Calder in the vehicle. Calder listens to Cal’s last voicemail saying something is going on with Bobby Bain. Bobby Bain (Russ Bain) hangs out with Rory. Kieran (Barry O’Connor) tells Stella (Dawn Steele) he forgot how comfortable the bed was before asking if she is okay. Stella was thinking about the day she was born. She asks if he was shocked when he was told Ellen was dead. Stella admits she wasn’t. She felt all the things she was supposed to feel but she wasn’t shocked. Kieran insists she didn’t deserve to die. Stella agrees although she says Ellen was reckless. Ruth arrives to speak to Bobby about his night with Cal. Stella and Bobby learn about Cal’s crash and death.

Bobby says he arrived about seven and left around eleven. They mostly talked about Calder. Cal had a few before he left. Bobby invited him to stay the night but Cal wouldn’t. He claims he crashed in the workshop once Cal left. Calder asks if he has someone to vouch for him before storming out. Once they’re alone, Stella asks Bobby what Cal was doing there. Calder tells Sandy she wants to go to the station. He says they can call in. Tosh arrives at the station where she speaks to Sgt. McCabe (Lewis Howden) about Calder. The Shetland Chronicle runs a headline about a satanic cult terrorizing the Isles. Tosh learns that Rosemary was bailed this morning while Ayre is going to Peterhead. He’ll stay there until his trial. Harry Lamont (Tibu Fortes) asks to speak to Tosh.

She goes to his office and talks to him about Cal. Harry wants to know about her conversation with the Sadat couple. The solicitor called because they felt she was aggressive in her questioning. The solicitor is threatening a formal complaint so all future contact must be made through her. Tosh wants to see the report on the Akmal Sadat accident because she believes they’re hiding something. Azir tells Fardia that Caroline fixed it. He believes it’ll blow over in a couple of weeks, but Fardia doubts that’ll happen. She refuses to take pills because she doesn’t want to be calm. Azir asks how he is supposed to get them out of the mess she put them in. He goes on to say he has done things to protect her. While he goes to a meeting, he wants her to remain there and do nothing.

Donnie (Angus Miller) speaks to Tosh on the phone about the Sadat couple’s loss. She is adamant that she can’t drop this. The call ends when Calder arrives and tells Tosh to bring in Bobby. Calder tells her everything that has happened. Tosh thinks she should talk to James, but Calder would rather focus on Bobby. Tosh encourages her to stay out of this. Calder tells her to forget it before leaving. Sandy tells Billy McCabe that the pills were high-grade and that’s unusual for up there. Tosh asks Sandy to keep Calder out of trouble. Neil Bain tells Heather that he isn’t hungry. He asks if she can transfer some money. She agrees to ping over 50. Once she leaves, Bobby calls Neil to tell him about Cal. If the police speak to Neil, Bobby wants to make sure he doesn’t mention him or the money.

Bobby hangs up and jumps in his truck. Sandy tells Calder how he felt when his dad died. Ruth goes inside where she approaches James (Kevan MacKenzie) and Reverend Alan Calder (Steven Miller). She ends up turning around and leaving without saying anything. Tosh finds something in a picture so she asks Billy for Heather Bain’s number. Once they meet, Tosh shows her a picture of Azir and Farida’s kitchen. Heather suggests she left the cleaning caddy there. Tosh explains that the photo was taken on the day of Akmal’s accident. Heather denies being there that day. She doesn’t think Ellen would’ve been there either. Tosh believes Akmal’s death has an impact on Ellen. It might’ve been the reason she was struggling. Heather claims Ellen wasn’t the type to dwell on sad stuff.

Tosh believes she was deeper than people think. Heather promises to check for a missing caddy when she gets home. Tosh calls Billy to say she wants him to pull some call records. Alan joins Ruth Calder outside where she admits she can’t do other people’s grief. He says James is wrecked. Ruth insists she is fine. Amma has gone to stay with a pal. Alan apologizes for the other night. He admits he thinks she might be right about their dad and Stella Quinn. Sandy looks around inside. He finds something under the bed that looks like drugs. Tosh looks at the call records. She tells Harry that she pulled the call records for the Sadats and Heather from around the time Akmal Sadat died. The day after the accident, Ellen called Heather seven times.

Before that, she was lucky to get a call from Ellen once a week. Azir’s records show that he and Heather talked 16 times in the days after Akmal’s death. Some of those calls lasted more than an hour. Heather claims neither she nor Ellen were working at the Sadat’s place at the time, yet her cleaning caddy was at the scene. They discuss the investigation into Akmal’s death. Harry suggests Ellen felt sorry for Akmal, but Tosh thinks she might’ve felt guilt. Alan tells Calder about something that happened at uni with Stella. Jean told him that she walked in on Stella and their dad once. It lasted for a few months until Stella just stopped coming. Then, she was at the church marrying Kieran. They hear James yelling inside because he is accusing Sandy of trying to blacken his brother’s name.

Sandy asked him about the pills he found in Cal’s room. The new drugs coming onto the Isles are using the same bags. Sandy says the pills are sourced in Aberdeen and they come in regularly every month. Calder asks James how often Cal was taking his stock to Aberdeen. James says not often. Calder knows Cal was up to something. She insists none of this is important right now. James thinks she should talk to Neil Bain because he was always hanging around. He mentions Bobby as well. Ruth Calder tells Sandy they need to find Neil Bain. Sandy eventually agrees, but says he is going to do the talking. When Grace Bain (Phyllis Logan) tells Bobby about the satanic news headline, he tells her not to worry about it. He insists Ellen wasn’t into that kind of stuff. Grace asks him about last night.

He changes the subject to Stella and Kieran who seem better. Grace thinks she needs to be reminded who her family is. She goes on to say she had no right to break bread with the Knoxes. Bobby doesn’t think it is a big deal. After a brief argument, Bobby tells her there’s nothing left to hand over. Donnie runs into Farida while taking Lou for a walk. Tosh receives a call. Neil tells Ruth and Sandy that he knew Cal although they weren’t friends. He heard that Cal died in an accident. Neil claims he hadn’t spoken to Cal in ages. Calder says Cal’s brother said they were dealing together, but Neil says he knows nothing about that. Ruth Calder threatens him with a witness. Neil argues that he didn’t sell pills, but Cal is the one who brought them there.

He goes on to claim that Bobby didn’t have a part in this. Then, he admits Bobby got on board a few days ago. He knew someone with money and wanted them to bring in a bigger stash. Cal refused. Neil doesn’t know why Cal and Bobby were together last night. When asked about the money, he says it was a bag full of cash. Tosh meets Donnie who points out Farida who is sitting on a bench across the street. Farida wants to speak to Tosh. Donnie asks her to go easy on her. Farida tells her that Akmal learned to ride his bike there. She claims it was her fault because she fell asleep. Azir had been giving her new tablets. She struggles with her moods so Azir helps her manage them. She woke up when Ellen was screaming in the garden. Heather was leaning over her shaking her.

Then, Farida found out why Ellen was screaming. Her boy died alone in the loch and she slept through it. Tosh wants to know what happened after Heather and Ellen found Akmal. Farida says Azir came home and he was crying and shouting at her. Heather took over and instructed Azir to say he was there when it happened. They took their eyes off him for a few minutes and he must’ve gone into the garden. Heather warned them that they could lose it all because the pills Farida was taking weren’t prescribed. Farida feels like they betrayed their boy. Azir tries to get in touch with her before seeing police cars approach his home. Ruth Calder and Sandy discuss whether the money was Ellen’s. Sandy reminds her that Howell said she lost the money.

Ruth theorizes otherwise. She wants to access Bobby’s bank records. Ruth eventually confesses that Cal went to see Bobby because she needed to know something. She is pretty sure it is her fault Cal is dead. Azir tells Tosh he did what he did to keep his family. He believes Ellen wanted to tell the truth but Heather wouldn’t let her. Once they started lying, Heather had them. It started after the memorial when she said she needed some money. Tosh learns she has been blackmailing them ever since. She argues that doesn’t change the fact they lied. Azir says it was an accident that they’ll never get over. Tosh thinks he deserved better than a sordid cover-up. After the interview, Tosh speaks to Harry about what she just learned.

Harry agrees they’ll reopen the case before Tosh receives Farida’s statement. She wants the Sadat house secured and their car processed. Tosh explains Ellen was a threat to the Sadats so this is about her. She leaves to speak to Heather. Sandy gets Bobby’s bank records and confirms he is broke. Calder notices there are many London transactions with the last one being on the 18th of April. That’s three days before Ellen came back. Tosh scolds Heather for what she did. Heather reminds her that the kid was in the loch and the mother was blasted out of her mind. She denies extorting them and argues they would’ve lost everything if it wasn’t for her. Heather claims she sent Ellen to Langbank because she needed help.

She doesn’t know why Ellen left but admits she was glad to see her gone because she was a nightmare. Axel calls Tosh to tell her forensics found a blanket in the car. Calder tells Sandy that Ellen’s flatmate couldn’t confirm Bobby was at Ellen’s on the 18th. Her DC found an incident report from that day involving a domestic disturbance. Ellen was arguing with an older man who was gone by the time police arrived. A neighbor snapped a photo and Calder’s team ID’d Bobby. Tosh asks Azir about the blank found in his car. She explains it matches fibers found in Ellen’s hair. They also found blood traces in his car. Azir insists he didn’t kill her. He reveals she came to his house last and she was wet and injured.

She wanted money because she was in trouble and needed to leave Shetland. She left when he told her he’d try to get her something in the morning. Tosh asks why they have evidence Ellen was in his car. Azir says he was worried about him and drove after her when she left. He made her get in and offered to take her anywhere. Tosh questions where he took her. When Tosh meets Sandy and Calder, she tells them they’re all lying. Tosh says Ellen came home that night.

 

Shetland Review

The fifth episode of Shetland’s eighth series was an episode that never wanted to end. Tediously slow would be a good way to describe it. The series is just so lifeless, emotionless, and unoriginal that it is becoming increasingly difficult to remain interested in the characters and the outcome of the story. The script feels like the story is being pieced together at the last minute without any thought beforehand.

Truthfully, Shetland is becoming another forgettable detective drama that just goes through the motions. After the fifth episode, it’s all about braving through the finale just to find out what happens without genuinely caring one way or another. This would be a good time to put the series to bed because its best days are obviously long gone.

The episode scores a 5 out of 10. Recaps of Shetland 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. Discuss Shetland at the Reel Mockery Forum.