As this episode begins, Ray Levine (Richard Armitage) breaks into Megan’s house by busting out the window. He takes a picture of Megan’s contacts including the phone numbers for her mother and father. He finds RSVP cards for their upcoming wedding. He looks at a picture on the fridge of Dave (Daniel Francis) and Megan (Cush Jumbo) that causes a flashback of Ray pushing Dave to the ground. Ray heads upstairs where he looks through a desk and finds a plastic engagement ring of sorts. A flashback shows Ray giving the ring to Cassie before the police arrive outside. Despite the large police presence, he manages to sneak out and join Fester (Youssef Kerkour) who is waiting for him in a car. Fester wants to know what is going on and what he remembers, but Ray only says he needs to talk to Cassie. After the intro, Rudy (Aidan Kelly) is shown outside the police station.

Inside, Megan complains to Michael Broome (James Nesbitt) and Erin (Jo Joyner) that they haven’t found Ken and Barbie yet. She can’t imagine what they might’ve done to Kayleigh (Bethany Antonia). Michael believes it would be beneficial to know why they were after her, but Megan only says she came home and found a note. Erin suggests they’re missing something since they wouldn’t kidnap a kid for fun. She is asked where she was last Friday when the young man, Carlton Flynn (Connor Calland), disappeared. Michael says it was exactly 17 years after Stewart went missing so they believe they two are linked. They also suspect what happened to Harry and Kayleigh is linked to that too, but Megan claims to know nothing about Flynn. Leanne Morgan (Steph Lacey) interrupts when she strolls in on her wheelchair. She shows Michael CCTV footage they found of the kidnappers’ vehicle with a license plate registered to a rental company.

Leanne says they should have their names soon. When Michael watches Kayleigh leave with Megan, he says Kayleigh looks familiar. Dave reunites with Kayleigh and Megan who says the police are going to put them up for a few days while forensics check over their house. When Kayleigh leaves to get chocolate, Dave tries to find out what happened although Megan doesn’t know or won’t say. She admits they were likely going after Kayleigh to get to her since she hasn’t always been Megan. Meanwhile, Fester complains about Ray not having a proper coffee machine. He takes Ray’s phone to stop him from calling Cassie and recommends staying out of it. He wants to know what Ray remembers. Fester says she is what the kids like to call a crazy bitch, but that upsets Ray who asks if he knew she was alive. Ray believes Fester covered up Cassie being alive and they need to work it out together.

Fester says he and Cassie are over with and finished. As Ray storms out, Fester screams that Cassie is never coming back to him. Leanne tracks down the rental IDs. Although they used fake names, they had to use their real pictures. Of course, it is Ken (Hyoie O’Grady) and Barbie (Poppy Gilbert). Michael doesn’t believe they were involved in Stewart’s disappearance since they would’ve been twelve back then. He looks at the orange jacket that belonged to Kayleigh and was found outside the cabin. He has another picture of Kayleigh wearing the jacket and hanging out with Carlton Flynn. Once Megan and the family move into the house the police set up for them, Kayleigh walks down to the beach and holds the necklace that Flynn was wearing. Megan calls her name. Then, she sits down with Michael who says she is a key witness in Carlton’s disappearance.

After being confronted with the evidence, Kayleigh admits to going to Vipers with Flynn. She claims they didn’t know him because they were only going to use him to get inside. However, Flynn tried to spike their drink. Bea (Rachel Andrews) has a nail varnish that shows when your drink has been spiked. She claims they ditched Flynn and went straight home as soon as they found out what he had done. She didn’t know about Flynn. When she did, she didn’t think they had anything useful. Then, she reveals Carlton was arguing with some guy in a pink hoodie at the club and the guy was east Asian. Michael asks if there is anything else Kayleigh thinks they should know as we see a flashback of her running through the woods and Flynn chasing them.

Regardless, Kayleigh says nothing about it. When the police leave, Megan confronts Kayleigh to find out what she lied about and why she did it. Outside, Erin admits she believes what Kayleigh said about their drink being spiked. Michael isn’t sure why they’re only hearing about this and the pink hoodie guy just now. He doesn’t think the kidnappers knew anything about Kayleigh being at the club since they just found out and they didn’t have access to information they didn’t have. He asks about Harry’s death which took place on the 21st of April. It happened five days after Flynn went missing and a day after Harry contacted them. He realizes it happened with Megan too since someone broke into her house and took Kayleigh after she spoke to them. They believe they have a leak. Del Flynn (Ross Boatman) tries to contact Brian Goldberg (Jack Shalloo) to tell him he isn’t paying him to ignore him.

Then, he approaches Ken and Barbie to complain about them being in his home even though he told them to never come here. They argue briefly before Barbie says they want the next payment in their account in an hour. Del agrees and recommends going back to Vipers since it all started there. Lorraine Griggs (Sarah Parish) runs into Michael as he is coming out of Vipers. He admits he thought Rudy could identify someone for him, but he couldn’t. When he asks about her doctor visit, Lorraine jokes about being cured. He tries to convince her to become a part of a trial, but she isn’t interested. She says these girls are her family and she doesn’t want to die alone on the other side of the world. Lorraine says Michael is her last hurrah and she picked him because he knew the deal and made her laugh. She insists they’re done here if he wants to ignore reality.

Michael follows her inside and plays a song for her on the piano. Outside Vipers, Barbie gets a message confirming the money has been deposited. She says they can finally go on their dream honeymoon to Galapagos Island. Barbie contemplates not coming back from honeymoon and just keep traveling. She thinks early retirement might be a good idea. Ken doesn’t like that idea and says all couples need their thing. He believes this is their thing. When they see Lorraine leave with Michael, they say she is the boss and the detective might’ve told her something useful. Ray watches the forensics team search Megan’s place while he plays around with the toy ring. Meanwhile, Dave complains that Megan brought a psycho into their lives and lied to him for 17 years. She tells him about Cassie although she wasn’t pretending about anything else. She says she was young when she got caught up in a crappy situation with a man who used to hurt her.

When he was found dead, Megan worried people would think she did it so she ran away. He accuses her of skipping town and coming to screw with him for nearly twenty years although she denies being involved in the man’s death. He isn’t sure how he can believe her after she has hidden this from him. Megan says it wasn’t about hiding it from him. Instead, it was about being with him. She loved being Dave’s Megan so she shut Cassie out, but she doesn’t even know if he is dead. She worries he might’ve sent people after her. He thinks they should take some time apart. She knows she needs to fix this because this family is all that matters. A flashback shows Dave asking Ray if he knows Megan. He says no. Dave wants to know how many times she has been engaged because a weird guy said something that makes him believe she was engaged before. She doesn’t want to answer so Dave knows she hasn’t been telling him everything. When Dave walks away, Megan checks her voicemail and finds a message from Ray saying he knows what happened to Stewart.

He asks her to meet him tomorrow at the head. Rudy watches Megan from a distance. Erin finishes singing to her son before contemplating who might be leaking information. She gets a call from Broome who admits he can’t find anything about anyone in a pink hoodie. He asks for footage from vehicles near the Vipers on the night Kayleigh was there. When the call ends, Leanne tells Erin they’ve tracked down doorbell footage from the Harry Sutton crime scene. Erin tells her to go off and she’ll look at it alone. When she checks the footage, she sees Brian Goldberg hide evidence in his pocket. She asks Leanne if she knew why Goldberg was at Harry’s place, but Leanne didn’t know he was and Erin didn’t either. Erin tries to find the evidence he took while Michael finds a video of the man in the pink hoodie. She finds a list of evidence which includes a strap and a hair strand. Meanwhile, Michael finds more about Benedict Chen (Jeremy Ang Jones) before Lorraine arrives with alcohol.

In the morning, Erin calls Michael to ask about Brian before he agrees to meet her. He meets Erin who tells him about her suspicions. They go inside and check his apartment. As they search it, they say nobody has heard from Brian since yesterday and his phone has been quiet. Erin finds some of Brian’s magic items while Michael finds the evidence hidden at the top of a door with a cellphone. The phone contains a message to someone saying Megan is Harry Sutton’s witness. Megan walks downstairs and joins Kayleigh who says it didn’t hit her until today that they really wanted to hurt her. She can’t imagine what would’ve happened to her if Bea hadn’t been there. Megan admits some scary things happened when she worked at Vipers although it wasn’t like this. She remembers being one big family and looking out for each other during her time at Vipers. Megan says she loved it. She goes on to say there are good people out there and people who want to do crappy things to you.

She agrees to stay with Kayleigh until Bea arrives. Benedict is brought in and quickly admits he is studying to be a chemist. He won’t say whether he met with Carlton on April 16th to sell him drugs. Benedict says it is legal to produce gamma-Hydroxybutyric as long as it isn’t for recreational use. When asked about the argument, Benedict says he was angry about the amount or something but he only spoke to him for a few minutes. He shows Michael pictures proving he left the club and had nothing to do with Carlton’s death. When asked about Guy Tatum (Thomas Dominique), Benedict remembers seeing him before he spoke to Carlton. He claims Guy was going at it with a man who had a fancy camera so Michael suspects it was Ray. Benedict confirms it was Ray when Michael shows him a picture of him.

They raid Ray’s place while waiting for a trace on his phone. Inside, Erin finds all kinds of drugs including fentanyl, nitrazepam, and Tramadol. As for Michael, he found Flynn’s credit card under the driver’s seat of the car. He questions why Ray would have a credit card belonging to a missing man. Fester calls Ray after seeing police raid his workshop and apartment. Ray is told he can’t protect Cassie now and he should go to ground immediately. Rudy approaches Megan and accuses her of killing Stewart and taking his money. He says Stewart still owed him his cut so some of the money he hid belonged to him. Megan denies killing anyone although she took some money from Stewart’s safe to get out of town. She left the rest for his wife. A flashback shows Megan running with a suitcase and hiding it near a woodpile. Then, she realizes Rudy is the one who gave her son the old Vipers flyer.

She tells him the money is gone although he still wants his cut. When a police officer arrives, she tells Rudy to stay away from her family. Erin sends Michael information about Ray’s phone so he rushes to the location. Ray believes Cassie is going to come, but he gets a visit from Michael instead. Michael quickly takes him down and demands to know what they did. Ray says he killed Stewart because he tried to hurt Cassie and he snapped. However, he says Cassie had nothing to do with it. He denies stealing Carlton’s credit card. Before long, Ray headbutts Michael and escapes the head. When Del finds out about Brian being investigated, he tells Marlene (Lindsay Armaou) that he has done something.

When it shows Ken and Barbie on television, Marlene says they’ll do whatever it takes to bring their boy home. Del agrees to do whatever it takes. Michael tells Erin he feels like an idiot for not seeing through Goldberg and Ray since both were right in front of him. He doesn’t understand why Ray would admit to murdering Stewart yet make a big deal about not stealing Carlton’s credit card. Once Erin asks if he is okay, Michael tells her about Lorraine having cancer and it being pretty bad. Then, Erin shows him the pictures from Ray’s memory stick of pictures he took from the woods every April 16th for many years. They notice something odd in one of the pictures and decide to see what it is. They find nothing at the same spot although they do find tracks nearby. Michael believes they were created with a hand truck.

They follow the path until Michael steps on ground that has been disturbed recently. They check it more closely and find a handle. When they pull up the lid, they are hit by a horrific smell. They climb down and begin looking around with flashlights. As Erin finds something, Ken watches Lorraine tend to the plants outside of Vipers. Megan walks down to the water and throws the necklace Kayleigh got from Carlton into the water. A flashback shows Megan forcing her to tell the truth about what happened. Erin and Michael find countless corpses.

 

Stay Close Review

I really wish I had more enthusiasm for this show, but I really don’t at this point. I have no real meaningful relationships with any of the characters nor do I care who gets popped off at any moment. There isn’t a lot of praise I can throw toward this show because it is just so tiresome and messy. I’ll say I wish Netflix would keep its silly American crime dramas away from classic British actors.

Richard Armitage and James Nesbitt are too out of place here although I am not sure anyone would make this any better. It feels like Netflix knew it was going to be a flop so they took it overseas to reduce the production costs and lighten the load. Sadly, there are nearly 10 more of these types of shows being prepared for Netflix after its deal with Coben.

I can’t imagine they’re going to be any better since their predecessors have been hit and miss. It doesn’t make sense for an American writer’s book, which is set in America, to be taken to England unless the objective was to reduce the costs. Then again, there is nothing good about Stay Close so keeping it in America wouldn’t change that. Prepare for a messy, frustrating finale that you wish you could forget.

This episode of Stay Close scores a 5 out of 10 although that might be a bit too kind. All recaps of Stay Close can be found on Reel Mockery here. Find out how to support the Reel Mockery project by following this link.