Tchaikovsky – As this episode of The Devil’s Hour begins, the Warren family packs their belongings for the big move. Once Debbie (Rhiannon Harper-Rafferty) drops off the keys, she leaves one of the Blooming Buddies toys behind too. Soon, Meredith (Talia Walker Bassols) notices that it has gone missing. Lee (Thomas Dominique) begins working on their new place. Lucy (Jessica Raine) storms in searching for Isaac. She tells Mike (Phil Dunster) that Isaac is gone and someone has been in the house before running outside to look for him. Gideon (Peter Capaldi) says he is sorry that she had to stand in the road and scream his name. He was still there because he was worried about her. Gideon wanted to help her and tell her. When she asks what, Gideon says he never touched her son. Lucy reminds him he said he would tell the truth. Although she thinks he was responsible, Gideon argues there was no evidence.

Lucy mentions the fact that Isaac’s name was all over his plans. DI Ravi Dhillon (Nikesh Patel) interrupts their conversation to ask Lucy not to let Gideon bait her. He is worried that Gideon could try something since she shouldn’t even be in there, but Lucy promises she will be okay. Ravi says he is going to come back in with her only for Lucy to say Gideon won’t like that. She thanks him for trusting her and admits she is glad he got assigned the case. Ravi says he isn’t. Back in the house, police search for evidence while Ravi asks Lucy to chat downstairs. He sits down with Mike and Lucy before telling them they’ve activated a child rescue alert. Lucy asks whether he is going to hurt Isaac. Mike believes it has something to do with her job and some psycho who had his job taken away. Ravi suggests they’ve looked into that even though Mike isn’t confident about it. He explains they were looking for Lucy Chambers and that isn’t her name on paper.

He admits they were too late, but their best chance is to identify the man who took Isaac. She knew one of his victims, Shane Fisher. Lucy is also asked about Harold Slade. She begins seeing flashbacks and says he should kill himself. Ravi gets her to expand on that so she says Harold Slade. As she comes back to reality, Lucy admits she doesn’t know while Mike blames it on shock. Lucy is shown some of the writings including the one that says Isaac is unbound. Ravi suggests he was quoting scripture since Isaac was bound to a sacrificial altar by his father in the Bible. Lucy is shocked when she finds a drawing of Isaac’s watch. She checks the bag it was in only to find that it has gone missing. He never wore it because it didn’t work anymore. DS Nick Holness (Alex Ferns) asks if there is anything else missing. Lucy questions why he’d take the watch and whether it means something.

Ravi wants a picture of Isaac so they can put it on television and elsewhere while everything else needs to stay between them for now. Ellen (Leona Allen) checks on Sylvia (Barbara Marten) when she begins laughing. Sylvia tells her to hush because she is watching the quiz on television which is actually turned off. Once Ellen turns on the television, she notices that Sylvia got the questions right beforehand. Later, Mike tries to convince Lucy to go to bed instead of working, but she doesn’t know what to do. When asked what he is doing there, Mike says their son is missing. Lucy is surprised he is calling Isaac their son now. Mike claims he is scared just like her, but Lucy doesn’t believe it because she loves Isaac. Ravi finds Nick at work still working even though it is getting late. Nick admits Bella didn’t think he’d make detective because she said he couldn’t spot a pattern in a pair of curtains.

He asks Ravi what he is missing. Ravi says there is no link between the victims and there is no pattern. He goes on to describe it as chaos. Nick says there is someone else to add to the chaos before giving Ravi a report about someone who has been dumping stuff in a ravine. A ranger spotted a car out there a couple of weeks ago and called it in. The description is consistent with their red vehicle. Nick reminds him that he said some of the sketches could match maps and one seems to match the area of the ravine. Lucy visits Ruby after noticing that they have an appointment. She just got in the car and drove. Ruby says it is okay before encouraging her to trust the police. The best thing she can do for Isaac is to take care of herself so she can take care of him when they find him. She says she knows something since she read Harold Slade’s name in the paper and remembered it. Ruby believes she wants the name Slade to mean something so she can act and help.

Being powerless is the worst. Ruby suggests it is just déjà vu. Lucy remembers that Harold has a violin above his stairs in the hallway, but Ruby tries to rationalize that. While Lucy thinks she should tell the police, Ruby thinks it would be a bad idea. Lucy mentions that she had a prescription for Temazepam a few years ago and how it helped her settle down. Ravi and Nick go to the dumping site and immediately notice that some of the stuff is really old. Ravi suggests he could’ve been wrong about there not being a link since Lucy could be the link. Although Nick thinks she is unstable, Ravi claims she could connect every victim except for Jonah Taylor. When they open an old fridge, they find a dead dog inside. Lee joins Debbie outside as she admits it could’ve been them. He reassures her that nobody is getting into the house since they’d have to get through him. Lucy attempts to sleep until she hears a thud in the house.

Once she hears footsteps in the attic, she decides to go up there to look around. She imagines seeing a man up there who resembles Lee. She leaves the attic before hearing a child laughing. Lucy shouts for them to leave her alone. When she turns around, she sees that the ladder is down even though she just put it back up. Sylvia wakes up after a nightmare. She gets the button or knob and runs outside. Lucy is relieved to see that the ladder is up so she climbs back into Isaac’s bed. She takes a pill in hopes of calming herself. As she lies back down, she sees a young girl who looks like Meredith next to her bed. Lucy decides to leave the house. She goes to a store to buy cigarettes and a lighter while telling the clerk it is her first time. While smoking outside, she decides to call Ravi to say it has been over 24 hours. Lucy learns that Ravi really isn’t religious. He guesses he believes in science, logic, and patterns. She asks about the other stuff such as ghosts, miracles, fate, and love.

While Ravi has never seen a ghost, Lucy isn’t sure if she has. Lucy eventually asks about the violin above Harold Slade’s stairs. Ellen makes it to work only to find the door open and Sylvia missing. Lucy has flashbacks and thinks about numbers. She visits Paula Slade (Caroline O’Neill) who says Harold loved Tchaikovsky. Lucy claims her son was on Harold’s rowing team and she wanted to pay her respects. She asks to use the bathroom. As she goes up the stairs, she notices the violin nearby. Then, she goes into the room where he was found and notices blood on the rug. She finds a safe near several books on a shelf next to her. Lucy manages to get the safe open and finds a key as well as documents about the Turnpike House. She leaves the house. Nick tells the other officers that the dog’s name was Milo and he was probably run over. The owners only know that he has been missing for a few days.

He argues that they need to identify the suspect’s new car first so they can track it down. They’ve hidden cameras in the woods where the dog was found since they think the man will return. Lucy calls Ravi to tell him about the Turnpike House. She believes Harold has a pseudonym and used it to buy a property near there. Again, she says he should’ve killed himself before explaining that he had secrets. Ravi asks her to stay away from the house. After the call, Ellen contacts Lucy to let her know about her mother. Lucy knows where he mom has gone so she tracks her down immediately. She warns Sylvia that she’ll have to live somewhere else if she can’t stay put. Sylvia claims she was the one on television talking about those girls. Lucy tells her about someone taking Isaac even though Sylvia doesn’t seem to know who he is. Sylvia comforts her. She promises that she’ll find him since she said on television that she hasn’t given up.

Lucy reminds her that she has never been on television. Once Lucy gets her mom in the car, she decides to drive to the Turnpike House first. Nick and Ravi talk about someone buying the house once they arrive outside. Ravi wants to get a warrant, but Nick breaks inside so they can look around without one. Nick heads upstairs while Ravi looks around downstairs. Ravi is surprised to find the anesthetic Flurane in the house. Nick finds nothing upstairs. Then, they find the boy’s watch. Lucy pulls up outside and says she has been here before. As Lucy heads inside, Ravi tells Nick to call in the watch and get a forensics team out here. Ravi tries to get her to go home, but she refuses and finds the watch. She asks if they’ve searched in the other room only for the door to be hidden behind a shelf. They move the shelf and find the door in question. Lucy uses the key she found in Slade’s safe to unlock the door.

Outside, Sylvia gets out of the car and begins walking away from the house. Lucy and Ravi go into the basement where they find a camera and pictures of young kids. Ravi yells for Lucy to go upstairs and tells Nick to come down there. Sylvia continues walking through the woods until she sees Isaac who says he is not supposed to be there. She takes his hand and begins walking with him. Lucy is shocked to see her son. In the present, Lucy and Ravi enter the interview room and sit down across from Gideon. He is asked how he let Isaac get away even though he claims to be good at what he does. Gideon says he usually doesn’t take children. When asked if Jonah Taylor is alive, Gideon says he certainly hopes so. Gideon doesn’t think a confession would help him since his conscience is black. He isn’t there to tell them what they want to know. He is going to tell them what they need to know.

Lucy asks what they need to know so Gideon says he was there when Isaac disappeared. He saw where they hid the spare key and searched the boy’s room for research. Gideon was looking for confirmation and he found it in the boy’s watch. Then, Mike showed up and smashed the glass. He was gone before Isaac and Lucy got home although he stayed close. Ravi asks what he saw. Gideon doesn’t think anyone took Isaac. He wouldn’t be sure that the boy didn’t just vanish from thin air. Lee stops to vape before Debbie comes down and mentions that the house hasn’t fallen down yet. She’d like him to sit still for a minute even though he wants to begin in the attic tomorrow. They hear Meredith screaming upstairs because Isaac is in her room with his hand against the window. Isaac leaves a handprint on the window like the one Lucy saw previously.

 

The Devil’s Hour Review

The third episode of The Devil’s Hour maintained the same quality as the previous two episodes while slowly unraveling the mysterious story surrounding Isaac’s disappearance and Lucy’s premonitions. As usual, the acting has been solid from pretty much everyone involved especially the lead characters. The camera work shined this episode thanks to some great moments with the camera focusing on one object before another.

The soundtrack amplifies that action making for some thrilling scenes. Once again though, the biggest problem is the sluggish pacing of the series. At times, it feels like large chunks of the episode could’ve been covered in a few brief moments instead of 10 or even 20 minutes. I genuinely feel The Devil’s Hour could’ve been more memorable and impactful had the episode count been cut by a few.

With half of the season over, most everything that has already happened could’ve been condensed to a single episode. Whether the series is successful may depend on if viewers feel satisfied once the final episode has been viewed because it’ll take a lot of patience to finish. The third episode scores a 6.5 out of 10. Recaps of The Devil’s Hour can be found on Reel Mockery here. Using ad blockers and still want to support us? Learn how to do so here.