As the finale of Temple’s second season begins, Daniel Milton (Mark Strong) walks the streets and imagines seeing Rob Moloney (Ryan McKen), but it is someone else. A taxi driver urges him to get out of the road before he approaches the nearby police station. Meanwhile, Eve (Lily Newmark) is questioned about being the last person to see Rob alive. DI Kam Skinner (Mandeep Dhillon) listens as DI Len Ambrose (Garry Cooper) asks Eve about throwing away the trash bags that held bloody towels. Daniel waits in the lobby while a man nearby watches a news story about a whale stuck in the River Thames. When his name is called, he learns that they’re still processing Eve so he won’t be able to see her just yet. Eve is led through the hallway as Daniel promises her that he is going to sort this out. Len asks him to wait a bit because they might have a few questions for him.

Daniel walks out of the police station seconds later. After the intro, we see Lee Simmons (Daniel Mays) sitting outside in his white van. Daniel is inside talking to Gubby (Rhys Ifans) because he is about to do something that may have a degree of blowback in his direction. Gubby’s son (Roman Strong) listens as Daniel says he is going to hand himself into the police over the body Gubby picked up for him. Gubby leads him downstairs and warns him not to mention dead bodies in front of his son because he is at a very impressionable age. Daniel admits he needs the body back. Gubby steps into a room where people are sewing and tells everyone to leave. When Gubby asks why that would get Eve off the hook, Daniel believes they could use ballistics evidence to see where the gun was fired from and such. Gubby tells him to sit down before explaining it has entered his organization and would leave it exposed to risks.

He can’t have that so Daniel can’t have the body. He understands where Daniel is coming from since he is a father as well. Daniel returns to Lee and says they’re going to need to steal the body back, but Lee isn’t interested in helping because he has other things to do. Since Daniel can’t do it alone, he pleads with Lee for help. Lee relents and agrees to give him an hour. Meanwhile, Anna Willems (Carice van Houten) meets with Peter (Ciaran Owens) to say she had a breakthrough on the testing with Lancaster’s. She is very positive about it. She is taken to a room where Beth Milton (Catherine McCormack) is waiting. Daniel and Lee check one of the secret hospitals. As the garage door rolls up, Lee hides and Daniel confronts Dermot (Michael Smiley). They walk to the other side to enter another building while Lee sneaks into the building. Beth tells Anna she knows she is responsible for completing the treatment although that was only part of it.

While she says the main body of it was her work, Anna reminds her that she worked pretty hard on the treatment as well. Beth knows what Anna did saved her life and she is grateful for it. She admits she could live with sharing the research so they could work on it together. When Anna asks about Daniel, Beth says she is over him. Dermot tells Daniel that Gubby told him no and the body isn’t there. Dermot doesn’t want to betray Gubby because he would take his balls. Lee finds the body and sends Daniel a text message about it. He apologizes to Dermot who offers him a drop of Irish whiskey. Ash flies a drone as she receives a call from Lee who wants to delay for an hour or so, but she says no. Lee says they might have to delay until he can get underground. He pulls off a tarp and finds another body under it.

While Dermot goes to get water, Daniel poisons his drink. He gives it back to him while pretending to go to the bathroom. Dermot curses himself and chugs the whiskey. He goes outside and finds Lee and Daniel talking. Lee tells Daniel it is the whole body. Dermot collapses to the ground while Lee says he didn’t know it didn’t match the description. Dermot tells them they’re screwed. Eve learns they’re going to get her a duty solicitor and she can tell them something more meaningful then. Once Len steps out of the room, Kam asks Eve about the activities that were going on under Temple station that Rob was investigating. Eve tells her she knows nothing about her. Kam threatens to get it out of her one way or another.

She warns her that she is going to prison and she is going to be owned by an older, bigger woman. Lee tries to get a drugged Dermot to tell them where the body is while Daniel searches for it. Daniel finds the body and they leave with it moments later. Daniel explains he is going to turn himself into the police so they can run the tests on the body and clear Eve. He wants to go to the bunker first because they’ll need to run ballistics tests there. Lee doesn’t like the fact that they might have to give up the bunker. Lee gets upset because they could send him down for a long time for the things he did in the bunker. He reminds Daniel that he has something else to do and intends to leave with the van. Daniel claims it is about Eve although Lee doesn’t believe it and says it is always about Daniel. He calls him selfish among other things. Lee drives away in the van and leaves Daniel with the body. Dermot warns Daniel that Gubby is going to come after him with everything he has.

Daniel calls Gubby to tell him he is going to take the body and do what he said he’d do. Dermot tells him he is dead as Daniel takes the keys from his pocket. Gubby returns Daniel’s call and recommends going over his options first. Daniel asks what those options are. Later that night, he drags the body toward the sports car. He gets a call from Anna who tells him she is going to be working on Beth’s team. He realizes it is everything she wants, but she says it is almost everything she wants. They tell each other they love them before Anna pleads with him to come visit her regardless of the time. The call ends when Anna’s taxi arrives. Daniel gets in the car and hears that the whale disappeared and might’ve drowned. Daniel asks Siri to call Beth while driving away from the hospital. He picks her up moments later and asks her to go to the police station right now.

He wants Beth to tell Eve to lead the police to him in the bunker. He promises to put things right from there although Beth believes he is just playing games. When he says there are no games, she encourages him to walk in there right now and confess. He can’t because there are things that he has to deal with first. She eventually agrees to do it for Eve but can’t believe she wasted 25 years on him. Ash and the others suspect that Lee isn’t coming. Lee makes it down there and cuts the chain off. He tries one of the keys and it doesn’t work. He tries another and it works. He begins cutting the wires. One of them nearly blows up. Ash says they need to call it off until she finds out that Lee has come through for them. They take the drone up in the air to see what has happened. Daniel drags the body down into the bunker while Beth tells her daughter to think about herself and nobody else.

She wants her to show them the bunker. Daniel works quickly to deal with the footage of himself and Anna while heavily armed officers rush toward Temple station. He begins burning evidence. Meanwhile, Lee learns that he pulled it off as he hears the chaos above him. Once Lee makes it to the bunker, he hears the breaking news about the climate change advocates sending in drone footage of the standstill they caused in London. Daniel interrupts to ask him what he is doing down there as the police officers move in. After Daniel finds himself surrounded, he tells Kam that Eve has nothing to do with this. Then, he agrees to show Kam where Rob is at. Lee hides as Daniel shows them where Rob’s body is. Kam checks the body as Daniel says he doesn’t know how Rob found the place. He locked him in. When Rob tried to shoot his way out, he was shot in the head with a ricochet.

Daniel explains he set all of this up to try to save his wife and Beth corroborates his tale. He mainly operated on criminals down there to pay for his wife’s treatment, but he operated on ordinary people as well. Kam asks him about Lee Simmons and Jamie Harris. He says Lee was one of his patients and he told him about spaces like this, but he doesn’t know where he is at now. Kam tells the officers to take Daniel up to the van right now. One officer stops and asks how far the tunnels extend. Then, he asks Daniel if he thinks he can go around shooting officers because Rob was his friend and he killed him. He tells Daniel he is going to have a hard time where he is going.

One officer says he has a gun and shoots Daniel multiple times. Lee comes out of hiding and sees it on the camera before running and turning off the lights. The officer tells Kam that Daniel was going for a gun so he didn’t have a choice but to shoot him. She orders him to get in the water and find his body. Lee escapes the tunnels while Beth comforts Eve. The officers get into the water in hopes of finding Daniel’s body. Ash catches up with Lee and celebrates because they’ve finally done it. Lee tells her about Daniel’s death. He climbs into his van and she joins him. We see water flowing into the storm drain. Next, Gubby approaches Daniel who is wearing a bulletproof vest. Daniel asks if he can get a message to Eve, but Gubby says absolutely not. Gubby tells him he doesn’t exist so there won’t be any complaints, games, or complications.

Daniel will work for him from here on out although Daniel thought it was a partnership. Gubby explains his life just went from very complicated to nice and simple. He tells the officer to come along so Daniel is left by the water alone. Daniel looks at the water and sees a whale which is likely the one that was stuck earlier in the episode. He leaves with Gubby and the other man as the episode ends.

 

Temple Review

Temple’s second season was pretty good overall although there were a few weak episodes. The finale stayed focused on what mattered from start to finish keeping viewers on the edge of their seats. Sure, it wasn’t the most realistic ending, but it was still entertaining nevertheless. It proved that Daniel wasn’t as selfish as everyone was making him out to be since he covered for his daughter, Lee, and others.

I also appreciate that they didn’t just kill Daniel off at the last minute. In the long run, he might’ve received an even worse ending although it was one he accepted beforehand. I suppose working for Gubby forever wouldn’t be too terrible since he wasn’t violent or abusive to his workers. It also leaves the door open for another season of Temple.

If we’re fortunate enough to get a third season of Temple, I’d watch it. Otherwise, I think this was a satisfying ending for a man willing to throw everything away to protect his daughter from a life behind bars. The finale deserves a 7.5 out of 10. All Temple recaps can be found on Reel Mockery here.

By the way, I am assuming Gubby arranged for the police officer to shoot Daniel to help him escape. After all, they were with an officer at the end and Daniel never pulled a gun on them.