As the third episode of The Suspect begins, Dr. Joe O’Loughlin (Aidan Turner) tosses and turns while remembering everything that happened with Bobby Moran. He surprises the woman staying with Jack (Adam James) who comes down to explain. Joe is introduced to Sarah. Julianne (Camilla Beeput) walks her daughter to school and talks to her about when daddy might be coming home. She says some people are talking about daddy because the police made a mistake. She talked to the teacher to make sure she’ll sort it out if any of the kids tease her. When the school bell rings, Julianne has to take time to collect herself. DI Vincent Ruiz (Shaun Parkes) tells his team that Catherine (Tara Lee) was supposedly seeing a man in London while Joe denies having any contact with her in the last five years. DC Wallis (Imogen Daines) says they pulled their found records but found nothing. Vincent encourages her to go through them again in case he has slipped up.

He mentions what Carl Ashley (Richie Bratby) said about Catherine keeping her affair close to her like a comfort. Vincent suggests Joe used the secret to manipulate her. They might’ve used burners to talk, but Catherine broke the rules when she applied for a job at his office and called the office that night. Devi (Anjli Mohindra) gets a call from one of the door knockers who learned from a neighbor that Joe was burying something in his back garden a couple of nights ago. Ruiz says they should break out the shovels. Joe visits Cara (Bronagh Waugh) and admits he told Julianne. He doesn’t blame her for throwing him out so he is going to give her some space. Cara won’t agree that they did anything wrong because she liked being that close to him. She wonders if they can tell Julianne that she took advantage of him. He explains that he hasn’t told the police so only Julianne knows they were together that night. She is the only alibi he has and he wants them to rule him out of the investigation.

Cara doesn’t want to go back into an interview room even though Joe promises to make sure they’re aware of the trauma she’s been through. She asks if he is talking about fighting off the six men who raped her or being sent to prison for hurting one of them. Cara isn’t sure they’ll believe her anyway before reminding him that he was gone by 12:30. Joe claims he was outside on the steps because he was trying to get his head together. Cara makes it clear that she didn’t see any of that. Joe insists he isn’t asking her to lie to the police. Julianne makes it home and finds the police in her backyard so she tells them that Joe buried the goldfish back there. DJ (Tom McKay) warns her that he’ll have to turn off the water for a few hours. He offers to fix the mess they’ve made outside, but she says it is okay. She drinks some of his coffee to see why he always turns down her coffee. The detectives find the goldfish. When Julianne comes out, they ask if she had more thoughts about the time Joe came home that night.

She only tells them that she has nothing more to add. Vincent suggests Joe played them again. He might’ve buried the goldfish at night to make sure the security light came on and the neighbors heard him. Now, they’ve proven to everyone that O’Loughlin is just an innocent, hounded victim. He’ll be manipulating everyone around him in hopes of convincing them of his innocence. At work, Joe tells Dr. Rachel Fenwick (Sian Clifford) that he is looking through Bobby’s files. He believes Bobby has Dissociative Identity Disorder, but he thinks someone is manipulating him. While looking through the files, Joe finds that Bobby has also been using the name Bobby Morgan. Rachel suggests it could be a typo, but Joe believes there is a pattern to his lying. He’s seen patients do it before to keep their lies in order. He also finds that he is from Liverpool leading him to believe that is his connection to Catherine McCain.

Joe thinks some of the names and places Bobby talked about might be real. He wants to go there and speak to some of the people Bobby knew to see if there is a tangible connection to Catherine. Rachel warns him that it could make him look even more guilty. Joe doesn’t think the police are looking for the truth so he’ll have to find it and prove Bobby is lying instead of him. When Joe contacts Jack, he learns the police came around wanting to talk to him. Joe tells him about Bobby being Bobby Morgan and his family living in Liverpool. He believes someone helped Bobby con his way to Jack because he was a route to him, but Jack thinks that is farfetched. When Joe is asked what he is going to do, he says some basic psychology. He is going to talk to all the people Bobby talked about from his past. Jack doesn’t think this is a good idea, but Joe isn’t going to listen to him. He asks Jack not to tell the police where he is if they call.

Devi gets a knock-back. They won’t go for a court order to give them access to Joe’s past client list unless they get more evidence. Vincent doesn’t think Catherine was the first victim because what was done to her was done with a practiced hand. He also finds it odd that no one is crying out for Catherine and no one demanding justice. She was an only child with no close friends and both of her parents are dead. Jack steps away from Sarah to call Vincent so he can tell him where Joe is. The next day, Joe meets with Miss Elwood. She tells him she has a duty to confidentiality since she is a teacher. Elwood eventually remembers that Bobby had the voice of an angel. When he was in the choir, it was heaven so everyone would stop to listen. Joe learns that Bobby’s father wasn’t allowed in the school. At the time, she was Bobby’s former teacher and he’d wet him. She took him to the school nurse to get a fresh pair of trousers. The nurse saw the welts proving he had been beaten badly.

The nurse told the deputy head who told the Social Services. Eventually, a court order stopped Bobby’s father from having any contact with his son. There were allegations that he sexually abused Bobby who became withdrawn. His father was killed in some type of industrial accident at work. Julianne learns from DJ that someone was in her front room. They don’t understand how he got in since the front door was shut. DJ doesn’t think he stole anything. Later that night, we see Hegarty watching someone from a distance. Joe tries to contact Julianne only for Jack to pick up her phone. Jack tells him that Julianne doesn’t want to talk to him. Since someone broke into the house, she doesn’t want to be alone. Joe gets upset because Jack won’t let him speak to Julianne. Later, Joe calls back and Charlie picks up. He admits it is his fault and he has things to sort out with mommy before he can come home. Charlie says people at school are saying that he does bad things, but he claims there has been a mistake.

Charlie reveals her mother told Uncle Jack that she was late and she was also sick twice. The next day, Joe meets with Melinda (Angela Giffin) who has been in children’s court. They discuss the police thinking Joe was involved even though they’re not bringing charges against him. He calls it a stupid mistake. Melinda never believed a word of it before revealing that Boyd died about a year ago. She didn’t tell him because she was angry at him. Melinda wanted to hurt him for leaving and never looking back. When Boyd invited Joe to his 40th birthday, he didn’t even reply to him. Boyd got hit by a big SUV when he tried to walk across the pedestrian crossing. After Joe apologizes, Melinda tells him that Bobby was abused by his dad. Then, she put him into care and took out a court order to keep him away from his dad. Bobby went back to his mom. She won’t let him see the red edges because he doesn’t work for them anymore.

Melinda asks why he needs to know about Bobby. Later, she changes her mind and lets him look at the files while she is working. DC Hegarty calls Vincent to tell him he followed Joe to the Liverpool social services office and he is there with Melinda Cossimo. Vincent orders him to wait for Joe to come out and find out what he was doing in there. He tells Hegarty to keep on him until they get up here so they can be there when he slips up. Joe quickly snaps pictures of the documents before Melinda returns. He believes the father was sexually abusing him even though he didn’t get any hint of that during any of his sessions with Bobby. He adored his dad so that might be why Bobby needed so many different personalities to survive. He says Lenny Morgan’s first wife died and they have a son that never came to the attention of social services. Melinda admits they tried to interview him, but he was 16 at the time and had left home. He was tracked to a backpacker’s hostel in Southern Australia but had disappeared.

Joe would like to know about his mother. Melinda can only say that Bobby showed all the classic signs of being abused. She shows Joe one of Bobby’s filmed interviews. Joe is shocked to hear his voice questioning a young Bobby. It wasn’t his case and he doesn’t remember him. Melinda suggests he sat in for someone just for that session. She finds that the case belonged to Erskine. Joe can’t believe he was involved, but Melinda thinks he would’ve been another face in the crowd with everything going on. She makes it clear that he cannot use anything he found out today. Joe says he knows. Joe visits Lenny’s old workplace at the bus depot to see what he can find about him. He is told he’ll need to talk to Bert McMullen since they were great mates. Joe finds him at the pub in hopes of asking some questions. He claims he is trying to help Bobby who might go to prison for assault. Bert hasn’t seen him since he was a kid. He calls him a clever little boy.

Lenny used to bring him to the depot and they could tell that Bobby worshipped his dad. Joe knows his dad was killed in a fire or explosion. When he says he is a psychologist, Bert tells him to go home. He insists they were all traumatized by Lenny’s death. James asks about Bobby’s family. Bert describes Lenny as a lovely man. He was an engineer who used the depot workshop on the weekend to build his inventions. The blast knocked an eight-ton bus on its side. The acetylene tank blew a hole through the roof while Lenny died on the way to the hospital. Although it was written up as an accident, Bert thinks he was hounded to death and he killed himself. He knows he should’ve helped him, but people don’t help someone when they get labeled a pedo. Bert insists he didn’t do it. Joe spills a drink on another patron who headbutts him. Later, Joe watches a video about the incident while remembering asking Bobby if his father abandoned him. Bobby told him that he knew nothing about it.

Hegarty follows Joe and informs Vincent as he visits Carl. Joe insists he didn’t do anything to Catherine who was ill. He was trying to help her then and wants to help her now. Although Carl says it is a little late for that, Joe suggests otherwise because she deserves some dignity. He asks Carl about Catherine’s journal because she used to write in one religiously. Carl explains that the police turned the house upside-down and never said anything about finding a journal. Joe asks if it was a London agency that dealt with the recruitment of the receptionist job. He wonders how she found out about it since she was in Liverpool. Carl says there was a letter, but he isn’t sure who it was from. She wasn’t sure about applying until the guy she was seeing convinced her to do so. He only knows it was her secret London lover and he thinks he wanted her to move down there. They had met a few years ago when he was working at a hospital up here as a doctor. When Carl says she joked that he was good with his hands, Joe thinks he was a surgeon.

She’d meet him at hotels so he was probably rich. Since they met on weekends, he likely didn’t have children. Vincent and Devi arrive. Hegarty tells them that Joe walked past the house three or four times before going in. Once Joe leaves, Hegarty is told to follow him everywhere he goes. The detectives go inside to talk to Carl about Catherine religiously writing in her journal. He told him he knew nothing about it because he doesn’t. Vincent asks about the last image he has of Catherine and whether she was smiling. Carl says she was over by the window arranging flowers. Vincent says the last image they have of Catherine is lying dead on a mortuary slab. Vincent thinks there would be a journal if she was religious about keeping one. Vincent warns him that perverting the course of justice is an automatic prison sentence. Carl says he didn’t think it was important before admitting she hadn’t paid her share of the rent.

She was always late. He took her laptop but was going to tell her that she could have it back if she just paid up. He tells them the laptop is in the cupboard outside. They retrieve it moments later. Rachel catches up with Joe later. He tells her that Catherine applied for a job as a receptionist and he shredded her application without reading it. She admits that Meena kept copies of everything so she was the best receptionist to ever walk out on them. She looks through the references and sees a ward sister named Alison Kingsley, a medical technician named Carl Ashley, and a consultant neurologist named Dr. Gerald Owens. It surprised Joe that Jack was one of her references. Rachel calls him a bit handsy. Joe believes Jack has been lying to him all this time and he has been having an affair with Catherine. He thinks Jack was joking when he had her apply for the job. Although Joe isn’t sure he killed her, he thinks Jack met up with Catherine that night.

He sent Bobby Morgan so he might be the one manipulating him. When Joe returns, he begins yelling for Jack who doesn’t seem to be around. He looks through papers and finds pictures of himself with Julianne as well as pictures of just her. Sarah is shocked to see him. She tells Joe he should hang a sign around Jack’s neck saying, “Warning: Incapable of love or affection”. Joe calls Vincent while his location is tracked. Vincent says they found the journal and he understands why he was desperate to have it. They want him to come in because he is being charged with her murder. Joe insists he didn’t kill her or have an affair with her. Vincent says the journal contains the dates and times they met. Jack tells him that she met with Jack that night and he was having an affair with her. Vincent admits they know about his relationship with Catherine which ended two years ago. He called to tell them about Joe being in Liverpool because he was worried about his state of mind.

He also claimed he arranged to meet with Catherine that night, but didn’t go. Vincent says they know Jack didn’t meet her that night. When Joe asks how they know, he is told to ask his wife. Joe throws the phone in the water and walks away. Joe walks to his house and sees Jack with Julianne through the window. He continues watching them until the episode ends.

 

The Suspect Review

At points, this episode of The Suspect did everything right and managed to connect the viewer to Dr. Joe O’Loughlin. It is sometimes possible to genuinely feel sorry for Joe and the situation he is dealing with. The camera work was good and the soundtrack was great for setting the mood in certain scenes. On the other hand, certain aspects of the series have been done numerous times before. It almost feels like The Fugitive and other similar shows.

There isn’t a lot of action in the episode, but there were plenty of revelations. Some were more surprising than others. When all is said and done, there is a risk that this will turn into an unbelievable drama involving a complex conspiracy against Joe. While not perfect, it is fun to see Aidan Turner tackle another role and its engaging enough to hold the viewer’s attention through each episode.

The third episode of The Suspect scores a 7 out of 10. Recaps of The Suspect can be found on Reel Mockery here. Learn how to support our work at this link.