As the fourth episode of The Suspect begins, Julianne (Camilla Beeput) lulls Charlie to sleep while Gerald ‘Jack’ Owens (Adam James) watches from a distance. Dr. Joe O’Loughlin (Aidan Turner) lures Jack outside to confront him about lying to the police. Joe doesn’t believe his affair with Catherine ended two years ago. He explains the cops think he killed her because of the affair written about in her journal as JO. Joe says his friends call him Jack so they have the same initials and he knows Jack is involved in Catherine’s murder. Jack insists he had nothing to do with Catherine’s murder, but Joe refuses to believe him. Jack admits to getting Catherine to apply for a job at his practice and giving her a good reference. Joe shows him all the pictures he found of Julianne and accuses him of being obsessed with her, but Jack quickly denies it.

When Julianne enters the room, Jack confesses he has never fallen out of love with her. Jack says Joe never showed any remorse for the way he betrayed him back then. He goes on to say Catherine came to see him years ago to talk about Joe. They never attended for anything to happen. When it did, they kept it secret only for it to end two years ago. They saw each other a few times after that, but Jack didn’t know anything about her journal. He didn’t speak up because he didn’t think it’d help for him to wade him. Jack insists he didn’t know Joe would be caught having an affair with a prostitute. Their argument continues until Joe tells him to get out of their house. Later, Julianne says she didn’t think Joe had been having an affair with Catherine when he found out about the journal.

Even though they had proof and said it with such conviction, Julianne didn’t think for a minute that he could’ve done those things to her. She doesn’t think Jack could’ve done it either. Joe believes whoever called the police knew they would be at the cemetery and few people know them that well. Joe is allowed to see Charlie. DS Riya Devi (Anjli Mohindra) gets a call about Jack walking out of the O’Loughlin house a few minutes ago after being inside for a few hours. She confirms that airports, ports, and railways are on alert for Joe. DI Vincent Ruiz (Shaun Parkes) believes Joe switched to blaming Dr. Owens after blaming Bobby didn’t work, but that didn’t work either. He mentioned the article Joe wrote about delusional behavior in certain criminals. A cop from Montana was investigating his own crime and trying to convince everyone he is trying to get to the truth.

He lives the part and tells everyone around him that he is being set up. He follows all kinds of leads and even convinces himself he is in real danger while hunting down the killer. They only found out about his guilt after he died. Ruiz wonders what Joe’s next move will be. Joe talks to Julianne about how he managed to get past the police. Joe knows about the baby. Julianne talks about how it makes her feel dizzy sometimes. She agrees to let Joe stay for a few hours as long as he tells the police that Cara is his alibi. Although Joe says he will, he wants to warn Cara first because they might consider her an unreliable witness. Julianne gets upset and tells him to go to her before they can talk. Joe leaves to visit Cara (Bronagh Waugh) only to find her dead. Devi alerts Ruiz that there has been a break-in at Cara Velasco’s flat. They agree to go check it out immediately since Joe might’ve broken in to find a place to hide.

Joe takes Cara’s keys and flees in her car. Once the police find her body, Ruiz says it looks like she was strangled. The neighbor who called it in saw a man flee and drive away in Cara’s vehicle. Ruiz wonders if they were more than just a therapist and an ex-client. Devi believes so. Vincent argues they have to find him because he has just killed again. The next day, Jack goes to the station to tell Devi and Ruiz that he continued to see Catherine a few times. He isn’t sure how many times it’d be, but he believes she could’ve written about him as JO in her journal. He goes on to tell them about being with Joe last night. Jack thought Joe would be coming in this morning so he came in to back him up. Ruiz believes Joe put him up to this since he was a character witness for Joe when Catherine accused him of sexual assault. Before Vincent leaves, he tells Jack that they may need to speak to him again.

Meanwhile, Joe goes to his dad’s house while the police search Julianne’s house. She tells Devi and Ruiz about last night and Joe leaving to see Cara. She hasn’t seen or heard from him since he went to warn her that he was going to use her as his alibi. Vincent tells her about Cara being strangled last night and a man matching Joe’s description being seen leaving her house. Julianne doesn’t believe Joe would do something like that. She doesn’t think Joe would lie about sleeping with Cara because it drove them apart. Devi tells her that Joe has killed two women. Vincent wants to know where he could go. Joe talks to his father. They discuss Joe’s book before he claims psychology is still a branch of witchcraft. Ann is supposedly out complaining about noisy neighbors even though they don’t have neighbors. Then, his dad learns about his Parkinson’s diagnosis that he got a few weeks ago.

Joe believes he is in so much trouble. He tells his dad about finding Cara. Joe isn’t sure what to do now that traces of him will be found around the home. He doesn’t understand who would hate him enough to do that. Later, he overhears Joseph and Ann talking about him running from the police. Joe interrupts to tell them about Julianne’s pregnancy and how difficult it has been lately. He needs to move because the police are going to be looking for him. Ann says “ven a ver el jardin” before asking him to come look at the garden. She takes him outside and hopes he’ll tell her something, but Joe claims he doesn’t know anything. She asks why he didn’t answer his dad’s calls because he has worried himself into a ditch. Ann insists his father never blamed him for not getting his mother out of that house, but Joe says he never looked at him the same way.

Ann says she went to protest the wind farm they want to put on the ridge. She listened to the turbine and it sounded like the air was screaming in pain. Joe finds that strange. He also notices she has a carving like the one Bobby gave him. Ann says Bobby gave it to her and he is their odd-job man. He was here about a year ago and sent the carving in the post. He is the one who got Ann to start learning Spanish. Joe runs back inside so he can use a phone. Julianne works in class and asks Kam (Francesca Knight) if she can translate her words. She gets a call from Joe’s dad and ignores it. Bobby (Bobby Schofield) raises his hand to answer her question. He jokes that he was up to no good. After class, Bobby approaches Julianne who is in her car considering calling Joe’s dad. She agrees to give him a lift since he claims he hurt his ankle.

Joe learns that Bobby stayed in his old bedroom. He tells Ann and Joseph about Bobby asking him whether a lion or tiger would win in a fight. He thinks it was from one of the books upstairs. Joe believes Bobby is playing him. Ann admits his dad likes talking about him so he could’ve told Bobby all kinds of things. His dad talked to her about Catherine McCain too. Joseph says he talked to him about it because he was proud of how hard his son worked to get Catherine to stop self-harming. Bobby tells Julianne about his mother dying and only being 42. She used to think speaking Spanish made her sound exotic and she used to flirt with other men. Bobby wants to tell his mom how much he hates her in Spanish and what a nasty, horrible b!tch she has been. He grabs her seatbelt so she can’t leave before saying her husband was supposed to help him.

Her husband lied to the police and said he killed someone when he didn’t. Julianne begins blowing the horn to get help from DJ (Tom McKay) who rushes over to them. DJ makes him get out before Julianne threatens to call the police. Bobby doesn’t care, but he leaves. Once Bobby is gone, Julianne admits she doesn’t want to call the police. Julianne goes inside where she calls Joe to tell him about Bobby who has been attending her classes. She tells him what Bobby said about visiting his mother. Joe tells her to take DJ and pick up Charlie from the school. As a car approaches, Joe learns that Julianne told the police about Cara and how they didn’t believe her. Joseph tells his son about Jackson’s Wood. Joe runs out the back of the house and hides until his dad picks him up moments later. Vincent and Riya visit Bobby who insists he didn’t mean to upset Julianne.

When asked, he tells them that he was born Bobby Morgan until he changed his name to Bobby Moran. He wanted to become someone else because he didn’t have a great childhood. Bobby tells them about Julianne being his Spanish teacher and how Joe convinced him to take up lessons. They learn about Bobby scaring Julianne and how he stayed with Joe’s father and stepmother about a year ago. Bobby says this is how it all started. He met them on a walk and Joe’s dad kept going on and on about how good of a psychologist his son was. Bobby got himself referred to Joe. He says he was here yesterday evening because he doesn’t go out much. He only went out to the Spanish lessons. As they leave, Devi says she thinks Bobby is telling the truth since he has cast-iron alibis for both murders. Joseph gives his son the vehicle and money. Ann was left to tell the police that Bobby tricked his way into their family.

Joe explains he is going to visit Liverpool because Bobby plans on visiting his mother. Next, Joe goes to the hospital and asks about Bridget Aherne. He manages to convince the receptionist to let him see her. Bridget tells him about her sickness before they begin talking about Bobby. Bridget says Bobby was born angry and always blamed her. Joe wants the truth about why he is so angry. When she is asked about the sexual abuse, Bridget says everyone got exactly what they deserved especially Lenny Morgan. Joe asks about going with other men. Bridget tells him that she just loaded the gun and didn’t fire it. People like him did that. Joe mentions Bobby mimicking her voice during their sessions. She says the man she was talking about was Erskine who she describes as another weakling. She says Bobby lies all the time.

When asked why he hates her, Bridget says everyone ends up hating their parents. Joe denies that before accusing her of getting Bobby to lie to Erskine. Bridget pulls out her IV and says she is dying at 42. She is paying the price for anything she has done. Bridget asks if he can say the same before he is told to leave. Joe calls Dr. Rachel Fenwick (Sian Clifford) to ask for her help and say he won’t be able to attend her wedding. He wants help tracking down Rupert Erskine. He tells her that he might be in London and working with bees. After the call, Joe takes the phone apart so he can’t be tracked. He visits Melinda (Angela Griffin) to say they got it wrong about Bobby’s father. He believes Bridget pointed the finger at him to get rid of him and Bobby was abused by someone else. While he pleads with her to let him see the file again, Devi and Ruiz visit Bridget. She tells them what Joe said before Vincent talks to the nurse to learn what she saw.

Vincent tells Devi that the nurse might’ve stopped Joe from killing again. He wants to locate the rest of Bobby’s family just in case. Devi tells him about the call from Joe to Rachel. They have Erskine’s address so they’re going to get to him before Joe does. Joe wonders if something is missing such as the report that was submitted to the court. Melinda reveals that Bobby submitted a request to view his file two years ago. He could’ve taken documents from the file. They go through the names he would’ve encountered, including theirs and Lucas Dutton. He is off sick because he never recovered from his daughter’s death. When Joe learns she died from an overdose, he wonders if she might’ve been drugged. He asks who was driving the car that killed Boyd. The police didn’t get them because it was joyriders in a stolen car.

Joe asks if there was a description since he worries that they’re all being punished. Melinda says it was an accident. She learns that Erskine didn’t sign the final report that got put in front of the judge. Once he looks at it, he sees his signature at the bottom of the page. Joe believes Bobby holds him responsible for his dad being taken out of his life and condemning his dad to be a pedophile. He even thinks he killed his dad. Job calls Louise Elwood who was one of Bobby’s teachers to see if anything happened to the teacher who referred Bobby to social services. He asks Melinda to call Erskine while he calls Louise. The detectives find Erskine’s door unlocked and the phone ringing inside. Erskine is dead at his desk. Joe learns that Eileen Gorski’s parents died in a house fire. Even though it was a fire bomb, the police said it was an accident because the wrong house was targeted. He suggests Bobby saw their names and is punishing them.

 

The Suspect Review

The Suspect is a competent thriller with many twists and turns along with some great performances. The scenery is great, the soundtrack ramps up the tension, and the camerawork is superb. The mystery surrounding the murders and someone possibly framing Joe for them is genuinely entertaining. There are some issues there that many viewers will pick out.

The biggest is likely the believability of the series since there are many farfetched things happening in this episode and others. Furthermore, the detectives are somewhat wooden when compared to the other characters. Their performances are good enough, but there isn’t enough substance there to make viewers cheer for their success.

Still, the mystery is intriguing enough to keep viewers guessing with enough turns to make them change their opinions multiple times along the way. Since this is only five episodes, it is a great binge and possibly good enough to justice the start of a long-running series. The episode scores a 6.5 out of 10. Recaps of The Suspect can be found on Reel Mockery here. Learn how to support our independent entertainment website by following this link.