As this episode of The Tower begins, DS Sarah Collins (Gemma Whelan) watches a news report about the inquiry into the Tower incident. She attends the inquiry into the actions of PC Lizzie Adama (Tahirah Sharif). Sarah admits that crucial evidence went missing because they had to spend so much time looking for Lizzie. DI Kieran Shaw (Emmett J Scanlan) speaks on Lizzie’s behalf. After Lizzie speaks, she comes out and asks what it feels like being cleared. Kieran asks Sarah if she is satisfied. She reminds him that she is working homicide now. Sarah points out the tower and says she hopes it haunts him. At home, Kieran speaks to his wife about Lizzie being cleared. Lizzie’s father spoils her because he thinks she deserves it after everything she has been through.

DS Collins goes to her new workplace and meets Jim Fedden who tells her about a kid killed in a chicken shop shooting. DS Collins is going to be working on the case of missing girl Tania Mills who went missing in 1997. They have someone who claims to know what happened to her, but Lee is in charge of interviewing the witness. She is tasked with reading through the files. Before she goes, she learns that Steve Bradshaw (Jimmy Akingbola) is working on the shooting case. When Lizzie goes back to work, she is surprised by her coworkers. Elaine Lucas (Ella Smith) brings Sarah more files to look through. Sarah learns that Paul Stokes (Alexis Platt) was the SIO on the case. Although he is retired now, he has agreed to come in and walk her through it. Paul arrives just in time.

Lizzie enters Kieran’s office and speaks to him briefly before leaving with PC Arif Johar (Michael Karim). Paul tells Sarah that the girl disappeared on the day of Prince Diana’s funeral on September 6, 1997. The 15-year-old said she was going to watch the funeral with a friend named Katherine. Tania never made it to her friend’s house. Tania would’ve walked through a park to reach Katherine’s house. The park keeper named Robert McCarthy saw her that day. Tania allegedly changed her outfit in McCarthy’s hut because they found her jeans there. Robert said that he and Tania were friends. Peter admits they arrested him because they thought he was the murderer, but they never found a body. Robert had no car and no way of moving the body so they let him go. He always claimed that Tania took the photo of them together.

Paul doesn’t take the new lead seriously and considers it one prisoner telling another their sex fantasies. He has chased weaker leads so he wouldn’t hesitate to chase this one. When Sarah asks if he thinks Tania could be alive, Paul says no. He explains that to leave and to vanish wasn’t who Tania was. Lizzie and Arif go to the residence of Georgina Teel and Matthew Brannon. They approach Matthew (Charley Palmer Rothwell) to ask about reporting a disturbance. He denies it and doesn’t want to let them come inside. Once Lizzie goes inside, she finds a little girl, Skye (Faith Delaney), with a dog named Candy. Lizzie notices a bandage on the dog’s leg. A woman comes out to confront Lizzie before Georgina (Rosa Coduri) joins them. The friend, who won’t disclose her name, tries to answer the questions and refuses to leave.

Georgina eventually tells Marley Daniels (Shonagh Marie) that she’ll be okay alone. In private, Georgina says Matthew was drinking and they got into an argument. He tripped over the dog and hurt it. Lizzie questions whether that is true. She reminds Georgina that she’ll have to make a report and include everything that she saw and heard. Georgina asks her not to go to social services because Matthew loves Skye and would never hurt her. Sarah visits Claire Mills (Niamh Cusack) who tells her about Tania. When asked about Tania changing her clothes, Claire says she suggested that her skirt was too short. She changed out of it, but supposedly changed back into it in Robert McCarthy’s hut. Claire finds it hard to believe that Robert knew Tania, but she was kind to people. Claire hopes she isn’t trying to blame something on Tania. She should speak to her ex-husband because he was always ready to think Tania was up to something.

Sarah knows how she feels since her sister died in a car crash when she was young. Lizzie and Arif end up arresting Matthew for assault. Sarah wants to speak to Robert McCarthy so she visits him. Robert asks if he needs a lawyer. Sarah says no because she believes he was Tania’s friend. She suspects he knows things others don’t. After they sit down, Robert eventually admits that he met Tania about a month before she disappeared. He heard shouting. When he went to look, he saw Tania with a man and they were arguing. Once the man saw him, he said blood hell and walked away. Robert says the man was white and normal. He never told the police because Tania asked him not to say anything. Robert did not see the man in the park again, but he saw him when he dropped her off outside the park. Robert remembers that the man had a green Series 3 XJ6 Jaguar.

At the jail, Matthew apologizes to Lizzie and admits he can be mean when he drinks. He goes on to say he loves Georgina and Skye before Arif warns him he is still under caution. Matthew gets upset when he learns he is being taken back to the cell. They manage to cuff him and return him to the cell. Matthew says he knows Lizzie is the copper who let the little girl fall off the roof. Sarah is told that the prisoner’s cellmate was a registered sex offender named Ray Walker. Ray had fantasies about Tania and he lived three streets from her in 1997. Steve interrupts to say they got an address for the person of interest in the chicken shop shooting. What Lee got should be enough for a section eight on Walker (Brian McCardie). Sarah believes they should do more background work first, but Lee admits it is too late. Sarah asks them to delay the warrant only for DCI Fedden to say it should be executed today.

He tells Sarah to try to dig into Walker’s background and see if anyone is willing to talk. Sarah wants help running down the new lead she got from Robert. DCI Fedden says she can have Fatty Elaine. Sarah insists he can’t call her that. Then, she tells Elaine about the green Jaguar and asks her to find out if anyone Tania knew had one. Sarah suspects Tania was going to see someone in a green Jaguar and that is why she changed clothes. Kieran tells Lizzie she is needed in court because Matthew’s sister is making an application to dismiss. When Ray’s property is raided, a bunch of camera equipment is found so Sarah wants to seize it all. Ray is arrested. In court, Lizzie is told Georgina said she put undue pressure on her to testify against Matthew. Lizzie denies that. She is asked about getting Georgina’s friend to leave and the two prior deaths.

Lizzie is reminded that she asked Georgina if she’d be hiding Skye’s bruises with makeup too. Lizzie admits to saying it although she agrees that Skye didn’t seem like an abused child or unloved. At the station, Fedden and the others celebrate the arrest of the shooter. He accuses Sarah of letting Ray Walker go. When she says she had nothing to hold him on, Fedden suggests she could’ve found something. Sarah argues that she learned things about him. She thinks it is possible that he killed Tania because he is dangerous. Sarah is worried about putting his face out there because someone may come after him. Fedden isn’t worried about some pervert’s human rights. Steve tells Sarah that Fedden is alright once he gets to know you. Sarah says he obviously knows Steve because he got to homicide before her. She wonders if that was the plan all along.

Matthew approaches Lizzie to say there are no hard feelings. Julie Woodson (Camilla Beeput) runs into Sarah at a store. They talk about how Sarah never got who was responsible for Farah’s death. Julie heard that the young policewoman has been cleared too, but Sarah doesn’t want to talk about it. Julie apologizes for putting her on the spot and says she is sure she did her best. She offers to buy Sarah a drink and they can talk about anything besides the case. Sarah gets her number before going home. At work, Sarah asks Elaine to get the cameras checked. Elaine thinks it is a long shot just like the Jaguars because so many were sold in the UK. Sarah tells her to get the cameras to the lab. Elaine refuses to answer the phone. After Sarah answers the phone, Elaine asks Archie to help with the cameras.

They head to the newest murder scene. At the scene, DS Collins learns that the victim is Georgina. Lizzie learns about the murder which is already being blamed on Matthew. As for Skye, she is missing. Sarah learns how Matthew was in custody, but was released because the court said his girlfriend’s evidence was unreliable. She also finds out that Lizzie was involved.

 

The Tower Review

While I wasn’t a hardcore fan of The Tower’s first season, the second series started off well enough to get me remotely interested. However, that isn’t to say that the episode was free of problems. The story could be interesting as it develops and DS Collins learns more about Tania who disappeared in 1997.

It will likely link up with the murder of Georgina which is now connected to Lizzie Adama. Certain characters are at least easy to care about while others are easy to hate already. One major issue with the second season is that almost everything seems like a cliché at this point since we’ve seen the same scenes in other recent shows.

Even the animal abuse stuff has been in at least two other recent shows so it seems like all writers are getting together to compile a list of required topics to cover. It is also a little worrisome that the series is going to be juggling so many cases and topics at once. It’ll cover Georgina’s death, Tania’s disappearance, and everything from the last season so it might be a little messy at times.

Other than that, the first episode was easily watchable and the story was good enough to keep me interested. It may not be revolutionary, but this could turn into an enjoyable season. The opening episode scores a 6 out of 10. Recaps of The Tower are available on Reel Mockery here. Find out how to support our independent site at this link. Find out more about advertising on Reel Mockery here.