As the fourth episode of The Boy That Never Was begins, Harry Lonergan (Colin Morgan) thinks about Dillon (Emily O’Neill). Harry looks at his painting featuring Dillon. He removes Robin’s face. He wakes up Robin (Tony O’Rourke) and says he made her a cup of tea. Harry reminds her it’s her big day. Once Robin joins him, Harry has to get her phone. He checks the recent calls only to find none. Later, Harry keeps watching the video of the boy at the train station. When the taxi arrives, Robin has to rush to leave. Once she leaves, Harry goes out. He returns to the place he believes he saw Dillon. Harry goes to the Rent N Drive Car Hire to see if he can get their records. The clerk seems to remember the red-headed woman with the boy, but he doesn’t want to give Harry her address.
Harry just wants to know if a boy and woman came in there around four and got a car from him. The man says he was a porter in John of God’s Hospital. Harry reminds him of the people who used to come in there. Harry offers the man 50 euros. He’s told to leave. Meanwhile, Robin prepares for her speech. She speaks to Ollie (Kerr Logan) who says the bruising has gone down. He might start seeing students again next week. Robin knows Harry has been hanging around the train station again so she’s worried about him. She asks Ollie to help her with him and make sure he’s okay. Harry decides to break into the car rental shop later that night. Ollie sneaks up on him and asks what he’s doing. Harry tells him that he saw Dillon. Robin saw it and deleted it.
Ollie gets upset and says he’s done enough before leaving. Harry decides to break in anyway. He barely nudges the door and breaks through. The man from the car rental place gets an alert. He gets a weapon and rushes to the scene. Ollie pleads with Harry to leave. Ollie helps him look. He eventually finds a woman by the name of Eva Doyle (Kelly Campbell). She stopped in around four. Eva was staying at Kelleher’s Inn in Saggart. As they flee, the clerk arrives and bashes Harry. Ollie helps him and they flee. Harry says he’s going to the location to see what he can find out about Eva. Ollie calls Robin to ask why she hid the video of the woman and the kid. Robin insists it’s not Dillon. Robin pleads with Ollie to stop Harry because he cannot speak to Eva Doyle. Ollie says he’s done before hanging up. Harry drives to the hotel and ignores Robin’s call.
Harry goes inside and asks about Eva. He asks the bartender, Frida, if she could call Eva’s room for him. She doesn’t want to help so Harry decides to have a drink. Frida (Milka Ahlroth) tells him that they left. She doesn’t want to help Harry, but another worker may. The woman’s daughter translates for her. She wants money. Once he pays her, the woman, Marketa (Natallia Bulynia) tells him something about a white house. The little girl, Eliska (Molly McCann), says Casablanca in Morocco. At home, Harry tries to find out more about Eva by researching her online. He sees a picture of Eva and the boy on a seahorse. Harry believes Cozimo (Simon Callow) knew. Robin calls Harry to ask what he’s doing. He says he’s trying the truth that she’s been trying to hide from him. Robin insists it’s not Dillon. He knows where Dillon is and he’s going to get him. Robin tells him he cannot go to Morocco. Harry hangs up on her.
Robin calls Alia (Soumaya Akaaboune) to tell her Harry is on his way back to Morocco. Alia has someone she can ask. Once Harry arrives at the airport, Fadoul Kadiri (Mansour Badri) stops him and reminds him he told him not to come back. At the station, Harry tells Fadoul that he saw his son 11 days ago. Harry tells him what he knows about the woman. Fadoul can’t arrest him since he hasn’t done anything wrong yet. He admits he’d keep looking if it was his son and they hadn’t found the body. Harry goes to Cozimo to tell him he found the seahorses with the horns. He explains they’re in Casablanca. Cozimo remembers seeing them there as well as following Dillon and the woman. They went to a big house with a white façade and tall trees. If he goes to the seahorses, he might be able to remember from there.
Harry thinks it’s too far for Cozimo to go. Harry tells him they’re going to have to be very quiet if they’re going there. They go there and see the seahorses. Then, Cozimo says he remembers and begins leading Harry somewhere. Alia calls Robin to tell her that Harry arrived this morning. Fadoul tells her that Harry mentioned the Irish woman, Eva Doyle. He checked and she doesn’t live in Essaouira. Fadoul doesn’t know why Harry is there. Cozimo seems lost. Harry asks him to think about it. Cozimo admits he doesn’t remember before he begins crying. He pushes Harry and apologizes. Cozimo remembers his appointment with Dr. Youseff. Harry says he’ll take him to the doctor. Later, Harry calls Robin and asks where Eva lives. Robin tells him to go home because this has gone too far. Harry believes he can find her anyway. He suspects Robin is already there.
Harry checks her location. Robin visits Dave Garrick (Cillian O’Sullivan). She tells him that Felix and Eva were in Dublin recently. Eva’s mother died. Robin says Harry is obsessed because he thought Felix was Dillon. Harry arrives and interrupts her. He asks why Dillon looks so much like Dave’s son. Robin insists she was going to tell him, but he was so happy when he found out she was pregnant. Harry learns that Dillon isn’t his. He asks about Dillon being dead and whether he saw Felix. Dave reminds Robin they made a promise. Eva enters seconds later with Felix. Robin calls him Dillon. She asks what they did and if they took her son. Dave says it’s his son. Next, Dave tells Eva that the Emerson and Courtney deal is about to go to crap. She comes over to see if she can help.
Felix gets up and walks onto the balcony. It appears Felix fell from the balcony and died. Dave says Felix died and he knew he had another son. He came back to Morocco. Dave was there on the day of the earthquake and he saw Harry leave. He went into the house, saw Dillon, and fled with him. Robin asks how Dave could do that. Eva tells Robin that she doesn’t deserve Dillon because she’s a cheating liar. Eva says they’re not taking his boy. Harry reminds her Dillon isn’t hers, but she ends up saying the same thing to him. Dillon says Robin’s name before she embraces him. Harry holds his hand. At home, Robin’s pregnancy is more obvious. Harry returns with Dillon and Ollie. Dillon shows Robin his picture. She tells him he’s an artist just like daddy.
The Boy That Never Was Review
The finale of The Boy That Never Was was disappointing to say the least. The series tried to set up this big emotional reunion between Harry, Robin, and their son, but it really fell flat. A lot of what happened prior to this didn’t matter at all and the finale was rushed so many things went unresolved.
Robin’s motive for keeping Dave, Eva, and Felix away from Harry so desperately just didn’t make sense when all was said and done. Harry’s break-in at the car rental place was obviously dumb considering the door appeared to be made of cardboard. The series never explained how Robin and Harry got to keep the child since Dave was still the biological father.
The performances in the final episode were wooden although Colin Morgan did better than anyone else. The emotional scene at the end didn’t work for a number of reasons. For starters, it was easy to dislike the characters by the time we got to that point. Harry’s situation was a little more understandable, but Robin had become intolerable.
Plus, the whole reveal was pretty weak after everything that happened up until this point. Despite these issues, the series was possibly watchable overall. Viewers are likely going to get very annoyed with the characters along the way and they’ll roll their eyes regularly. They should also prepare for a lackluster, unfulfilling finale because that’s exactly what this was.
As long as viewers are willing to accept these things, The Boy That Never Was can possibly be a brainless, forgettable way to kill four hours. The finale scores a 4 out of 10. Recaps of The Boy That Never Was can be found here. Find out how to support our independent site at this link.
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Jay Skelton is a fan of all television shows and movies. He tries his best to keep up with the latest foreign television shows and movies. Jay loves skinny dipping in the dark too.
Have to agree overall. I’ve just finished watching Dead and Buried only to watch this series and end up with similar feelings of disappointment and frustration after the credits. Colin was good but he was almost sidelined towards the end as we got this supposedly super emotional scene with Robyn, her ex lover and wife but I felt nothing at all, mainly because by then I was so sick of Robyn and her behaviour that I was willing the kid to reject her lol. Harry had his reasons for his sometimes stupid behaviour at least so I had some sympathy there but the rest of them not so much.
Also the whole earlier drug business with Ollie felt like a total waste of time and I agree that Robyn was so stupid trying to keep Harry away from them.
Another issue was that I didn’t find Colin and the lead actress had that great a chemistry together, I never really ‘felt’ them as a married couple if that makes sense.
What I really couldn’t get over was how the boy was happy to go running into Robyn’s arms after a bit of tearful prompting. How could he possibly remember them so quickly? Meanwhile his ‘mom’ is howling on the floor in grief and the kid is just smiling beatifically at Robyn and Harry without a care in the world and they just take him home! He shouldn’t have been so placidly accepting of the exchange, that also added to the rather lacklustre feel of it.
Now we get back to Dublin and he’s calling her mom and him dad what about his real dad? Has he just had his memory wiped? That kid is going to need a bucket load of therapy when he grows up, jesus!
That’s now three of Colin’s recent projects which have had initial potential but then it’s been squandered. He seems to relish picking these kind of serialised psychological dramas but I wish he’d find better quality material.
Agree, agree, and agree. They really made Robin so unlikable throughout the whole thing. Right from the beginning really. I am not sure Toni O’Rourke was the best choice for it, but it could’ve been how nasty the character was in general. Almost all of it was for nothing when none of it really mattered.
If they were going to take this route, they should’ve done this an episode earlier. That would’ve at least given us time for a custody fight which was far more realistic than what happened here. Heck, the custody fight could’ve been more emotionally powerful than this ending.
At least it was four episodes so we didn’t waste a lot of time with this. I think Three Families may be the last thing Colin did that was memorable. Don’t know where you’re going from here, but the new season of Showtrial is out. It irked me a lot more than Dead and Buries and Boy that Never Was sadly lol.
As for Colin Morgan, he will be in The Gray House which doesn’t excite me too much lol. May check it out anyway whenever it airs. Guess we’ll see how that goes.
I love your idea of a custody fight which surely would have been the case, there’s no way they just get to walk away that easily.
Yeah it’s a shame that I’m not liking Colin’s work at the moment and wish he’d do something lighter and more fun. He’s got a good range, he can do comedy just as well as drama but seems fixated on playing depressing roles where his character inevitably ends up dead lol. Yeah I saw he’s in The Gray House, playing someone’s love interest I think? Which makes a welcome change, lets hope he doesn’t die in that one, and he’s in it for more than 5 minutes as window dressing.
Like you I can’t decide if it was the actress or the writing, may be a bit of both but I just didn’t like her and so it made it difficult to really invest in their relationship, to the point if they’d split up at the end I wouldn’t have been bothered.
The way she kept ordering her brother around like he was her personal servant, did the dude not have a life? He just seemed to sit at home waiting for her to call and tell him to get on a plane or get in a car and chase down her husband when she was the cause of him going awol, that bugged me. She wasn’t willing to take responsibility for her actions, even at the end she was still trying to fob him off instead of facing up to the mess she had made.
Pretty sad she became unlikable in the very first episode and stayed that way throughout. This was based on a book by the way so I guess they might’ve been limited to the story they were going to tell or didn’t want to stray too much from the original. Not sure how the book went, but there definitely needed to be more because there’s no way it would’ve ended so easily for everyone.
The Gray House is about the Civil War so there is a possibility of a death. Agree though. Would be nice to see him in something a little lighter with less bloodshed. No more crime dramas which are a bit overdone at the moment.