As this episode of The Tower begins, DS Sarah Collins (Gemma Whelan) meets PC Lizzie Adama (Tahirah Sharif) at the crime scene. Lizzie asks her about Marley Daniels (Shonagh Marie) who grew up in foster care with Brannon. Lizzie explains that she thought Matthew was using Marley to stop Georgina from talking. Sarah wants Lizzie to look around inside with her. DI Kieran Shaw (Emmett Scanlan) learns about Lizzie being sent to the crime scene. He tells his wife what is going on and promises that it is over. Mary (Laurie Delaney) warns him that it better be over or she’ll damage him in ways he can’t even imagine. At the crime scene, Lizzie is told that Matthew came home after being out late drinking.

There was a fight with Georgina’s arms having defensive wounds. She was stabbed several times before bleeding to death. They find Georgina’s things scattered around the bedroom although it was immaculate when Lizzie was there earlier. CCTV shows that Matthew has a small suitcase. Lizzie says it was Georgina’s bag because she intended to leave. He must’ve packed Skye’s stuff and left Georgina’s stuff. Lizzie argues that Georgina didn’t think she had a way out until it was too late. Jim Fedden complains about Sarah picking up this new job when she could’ve ignored it and the team is already so busy. The Tania Mills case has blown up a storm because Ray Walker (Brian McCardie) was beaten up by her father. Jim tells her to send someone else to notify Georgina’s next of kin. She asks Lizzie to handle it.

Sarah calls Elaine Lucas (Ella Smith) to see if the results have come back from the cameras. She pleads with Elaine to call the lab and get them to speed up. PC Arif Johar (Michael Karim) and Lizzie Adama meet Neve and ask if they can come inside. They speak to Cathy who knows it is about Georgina. Lizzie breaks the news about Georgina’s death. Cathy believes that Matthew killed her because he was always going to. They’re working to find Skye. Georgina texted her late last night six or seven times. She wanted to come over and said Matt was out. Cathy didn’t say anything because she had forgotten to charge her phone. Matthew bangs on the door and yells that they need to talk. Cathy believes he wants to hurt her because he hates her. Arif requests immediate backup. Lizzie decides to sneak out of the window so she can keep an eye on him.

When Sarah arrives, she finds Mr. Mills being arrested. He admits that he doesn’t have much faith in their investigations. Then, Sarah approaches Ray and says she is sorry that this happened. His attorney complains about the police realizing his client’s name. Ray doesn’t want to move and suggests this will be the gift that keeps on giving. Kieran learns what is going on with Lizzie and Arif. When he couldn’t get in, Matthew fled and Lizzie is following him. Lizzie follows Matthew to a car park. She ends up right in front of him and Arif overhears it on the radio. Matthew insists Skye is okay. He wonders if she is trying to turn Skye against him like she did with Georgina. Other officers arrive causing Matthew to run for it. Lizzie tries to collect herself. Kieran approaches Sarah to tell her that Matt nearly killed Lizzie about an hour ago.

He accuses her of putting two officers’ lives at risk because she is incompetent. Sarah wonders when people will stop using Adama’s inexperience as an excuse for everything she does. Sarah returns to Jim Fedden to tell him about it. She explains that Walker’s injuries aren’t serious although they’ll be hearing from his solicitor. Jim doesn’t think they should get Mr. Mills charged with assault. Instead, he’ll try to get his lawyer to squeeze a couple of words of remorse out of him. Sarah is beginning to think Walker could be responsible for Tania’s disappearance. Elaine interrupts to say there were three prints belonging to Tania on one of the cameras where you load the film. Sarah has Walker on tape saying he never knew Tania so he was obviously lying about that. Jim isn’t ready to bring him in because he needs Sarah to be there when they enter Marley’s house.

Kieran goes to Lizzie’s place to complain about her going after Matthew alone. Lizzie explains that she was thinking about Skye. Kieran questions what he would’ve done if she had died before they begin making out. Police raid Marley’s flat. Jim and Sarah approach Marley to say they’re looking for Matthew Brannon. She claims that Matt hasn’t been there before changing her story. Marley admits he was there with Skye and the dog, but she didn’t know about Georgina at the time. He left Skye with her for a bit. Then, he came back and took them away. Skye was fine and didn’t have any injuries. Marley doesn’t know where Matt could be nor does she know who he is close to. When Jim has her arrested for assisting an offender, Marley calls them pigs. Jim knows that Sarah didn’t want to arrest her.

He wants her to arrest Ray Walker and crack him this time. Claire Mills (Niamh Cusack) meets with Sarah to talk to her about the case. Sarah admits Mr. Mills could ruin it. Claire insists Tania never mentioned Ray Walker. She shows Sarah a picture of Tania and explains that is the Tania she wants to remember. Tania gave up the violin and said she didn’t love it anymore six weeks before she disappeared. Mary calls Kieran while he is in bed with Lizzie. He pretends he is elsewhere. After the call, Kieran tells Lizzie that he lies well. Later, Sarah gets a call from her dad who wants to know if she can make it to Susie’s memorial. Sarah already told her mom that she wouldn’t make it. Sarah tells him about Tania’s family. Matthew pushes Skye on a swing. Then, he puts her in the trunk of the car with the dog, Candy.

The following day, Kieran tells Colin Ryle (Jack Shalloo) and the others to be on the lookout for Matthew. Lizzie is told she is going to go with the mom to identify the body before taking her to a motel. Sarah tells Steve (Jimmy Akingbola) that she is going to arrest a creep named Ray Walker. DCI Tim Bailie (Karl Davies) joins Kieran to see if he wants to leave early. Tim talks to him about the chicken shop shooting and the guy who put the gun in the kid’s hand. They’re setting up a taskforce to bring the man down. Kieran wants to run the taskforce so he asks for three months before leaving his current position. He wants to choose his own team though. Tim says okay. When Tim mentions Steve, Kieran says it isn’t happening because they don’t like each other. Kieran believes he is the man to bring Shaquille down.

He insists he doesn’t have baggage. Tim tells him to prove it by getting Steve to work with him. Ray Walker and his attorney speak to Sarah and Elaine. Sarah says she watched the victim statement for the offense Ray was convicted for. They play Ray the video of the victim who claims he punched her in the face and told her to say she liked it. Sarah reminds him that he said he didn’t do violence. Ray claims it was just the once. Then, the conversation turns to the fact that Ray said he had never met Tania. Sarah says Tania attended college for photography classes and Ray worked there as a technician. Ray and his solicitor are told about Tania’s prints being found on the camera. When Sarah accuses him of killing Tania, Ray immediately denies it.

He wants to stop the interview. Sarah tells Jim about the interview with Ray. Tania came to Walker’s flat on the morning she disappeared. She was wearing a skirt and jacket so she had already been to McCarthy’s hut. Walker said she seemed to be in a funny mood and was distracted. She asked for a phonebook and looked through it. Walker took photos of her lying on the floor. She ripped a page out of the phonebook and left. Jim thinks they have enough to charge so he congratulates Sarah. Sarah doesn’t want to celebrate because she is worried he could be telling the truth. She believes Tania expected to meet someone. When they let her down, she went looking for them. Elaine says they have to get to the morgue because Georgina’s mom is coming to identify the body. They meet Cathy moments later.

She quickly begins breaking down. After that, Cathy (Tamzin Outhwaite) gets checked into a motel. She admits she’d like a fix although those days are long over. Lizzie learns that Georgina was born addicted too. Cathy tells her how she had to hide her smoking from Matt. When he walked in, it was like her sins had come back to haunt her. She knew him from her junkie days. She would always see him around and he was neat like stuff couldn’t touch him. After she had Skye, Matt started hitting her. Lizzie calls Sarah to say Cathy knew where Matt used to hang out when he was working for the young family. She suggests detectives might want to question her. Matthew records a video saying Georgina was perfect and he’ll never give up Skye since she is the only thing he has left. Lee Coutts (Bobby Lockwood) tells Sarah about a music teacher at Tania’s school who had a green Jaguar.

The man’s name is Adrian Stephenson. Sarah goes to the school to speak to someone about Tania. She is told that Adrian was a brilliant teacher. Sarah asks if there is any talk of him being involved with some of his students. There wasn’t. Adrian was married to a young, pretty wife at the time. Sarah looks at pictures of Adrian and Tania. The school decided to mark Diana’s passing with a memorial garden. It was Adrian’s idea. That was odd because he usually never thought about anyone except himself. Three days after Tania went missing, Stephenson dug up the local park. Lizzie learns about Matthew’s video when it is played on television. He blames the police and says this isn’t over.

 

The Tower Review

The second episode of The Tower’s second series was equally as compelling as the first. Sarah Collins is slowly uncovering information about Tania’s disappearance while Lizzie works on Georgina’s case and worries Matthew could come after her. The pacing is good enough that the show doesn’t drag or become tedious.

The performances are solid and that adds some authenticity to the story. There are many side stories so the writing will need to be tight enough to tie everything together in the end. Kieran is likely going to have problems with his wife and Lizzie still seems haunted by the past.

The series has been watchable through two episodes and it could potentially get better as the story progresses. Matthew may get more desperate so it’ll be interesting to see what he is willing to do. The episode was enjoyable overall. It scores a 6 out of 10. Recaps of The Tower are available on Reel Mockery here.

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