As this episode of The Tower: Gallowstree Lane begins, there is a news report about Lexi’s death. Tia Kennedy (Rawdat Quadri) tells Ryan Kennedy (Lamar Waves) that their mom is out. He goes outside and retrieves the knife he’s hidden in the drain pipe. Ryan sticks it in the front of his pants. When he comes back in, Tia says she hopes they find whoever killed Spencer. Ryan doubts they will. Once Ryan is alone, he can’t stop thinking about what happened to Spencer. Sarah Collins (Gemma Whelan) and DC Lee Coutts (Bobby Lockwood) arrive at his door. Sarah tells him they know he was there when Spencer was murdered. Ryan doesn’t want to tell them anything. He flinches when Lee approaches leading Sarah to believe he has a weapon.

Sarah manages to convince him to hand over the knife. She says it’s illegal because it’s a zombie knife. They’re going to have to keep it. Ryan still refuses to talk about Spencer and his murder. Lizzie Adama (Tahirah Sharif) tells Kieran Shawn (Emmett J Scanlan) that Sarah visited last night wanting to talk about Ryan Kennedy. Lizzie didn’t tell her anything about Perseus, but she gave Sarah the VRM of the car that picked up Ryan outside Farlow Station. Kieran insists she should’ve given Sarah that information. He claims calling him at home didn’t cause any problem. Elaine Lucas (Ella Smith) calls Gemma to tell her about Lexi’s death. Lexi was hit by the same type of vehicle that picked up Ryan after his arrest. An hour before Spencer was killed, Lexi called the same number that Ryan did after Spencer was killed.

Elaine is heading to the scene. Ryan speeds past Lee and Gemma on a bicycle. Kieran tells Lizzie that Ryan Kennedy is the son of Aaron Kennedy. Aaron and Shakiel were mates who started out as baby drug dealers. Aaron was killed by Daniel Harris. They didn’t know until Harris was killed two years later. Harris was stabbed in a night club and everyone claimed they didn’t see anything. Kieran says Shakiel waited two years to kill Harris in public so everyone knew. Since then, no one has crossed him. Shakiel has two kids in private school, yet he has children dealing his drugs. Lizzie asks if he has something to help Sarah find Spencer’s killer. Kieran worries that would jeopardize everything he’s worked for. Lizzie suspects something is wrong with Kieran who admits he’s been kicked out.

Lizzie offers to leave since he promised not to work with her again. Kieran doesn’t want her to. Sarah and Elaine inspect Lexi’s body. A witness saw a car keep toward Lexi, hit her, and speed away. Sarah speaks to PC Arif Johar (Michael Karim) and DS Ash Curran (David O’Reilly). Sarah hopes Arif didn’t take a picture of the girl’s body. He insists he’s not an idiot. He has identified the girl as Alexandra Moss or Lexi. This wasn’t her usual patch. She was living at flat 76 at Portland Tower. Sarah and Elaine go to Lexi’s flat where they learn she was abusing drugs. Sarah tells Elaine about two people falling right past this window three years ago. Lee interrupts to say he got a number plate for the Touareg but it’s false. The vehicle is sitting on a teacher’s driveway in Cardiff. The VRM Lizzie provided is a rental.

The guy who rented it used a fake name, but he called again to ask if he could keep it for another day. Lee goes over to see if he can find the man on CCTV. Mary Shaw (Laurie Delaney) calls Sarah to say she needs to speak to her. Ryan catches up with Jodie and Shell. They tell him that Shakiel killed Lexi before he rides away on his bike. Steve Bradshaw (Jimmy Akingbola) calls Kieran to tell him about his meeting with Shakiel Oliver (Daniel Adegboyega). Ryan arrives at the door. Kieran calls him a pain in the backside although Steve reminds him Ryan was his foot in the door. Ryan comes in and tells Steve that he can’t stop thinking about Spence. He says it was a setup. Lexi asked Shakiel for a fix so he sent them down with the food. She wasn’t there. Two guys approached and stabbed Spence. Steve comforts Ryan and tells him to let it out.

Ryan told Shakiel they needed to do something for payback, but he did nothing until today. He says Lexi was killed. It was as if Shakiel wanted everyone to know. Steve asks if he knew the guys who killed Spence. Ryan says one of them was black and tall with a tattoo on his neck like a bird. At the station, Sarah has a picture of Ujal Jarral (Omar Malik) thanks to Lee’s work. They discuss whether Jarral could’ve killed Spencer too. Lee goes through the details precisely as Ryan told them. He says Lexi called her fixer and Ryan and Spece were sent to deliver the drugs. Lexi wasn’t there though. Instead, Spencer’s killer was. Mr. Big deals with Lexi. The next will probably be whoever killed Spencer. Sarah and Elaine will head to Dalton Tower since it’s the source of most of the calls. Archie and Lee are asked to return to the scene of Lexi’s murder to talk to the girls and their punters.

Elaine and Sarah find the spot where Shakiel and Steve shared a drink. Victor Grimes (Ged McKenna) arrives and asks Sarah if she’s going to solve this. He reveals the man uses this like it’s his office. Sarah says they’ll let someone know at the station. Elaine believes this is their guy. Sarah tells her about a poem about smugglers her dad used to read to her. She stopped Elaine from questioning Victor because they just walked into an undercover police operation. Lizzie watches the video of Ryan talking about Lexi’s murder and Michelle knowing. She calls Arif who confirms it was murder. Lizzie won’t tell him what she knows. She approaches Kieran to talk to him about Lexi’s death. Lizzie thinks they could’ve done something to protect Lexi. Kieran argues that they really don’t know Shakiel did this. Lizzie says he’s sitting on stuff that could help Sarah’s cases.

Kieran believes this is the only way to bring Shakiel down. They’re going to catch him in possession of a car boot full of automatic weapons and he’ll go to jail for a long time. Mary meets Sarah to say she has evidence about the Portland Tower case. Sarah reminds her the Crown Prosecution Service said they weren’t taking the case to trial. The evidence would have to be overwhelming. Mary says it is. Sarah warns her she could be in trouble for concealing this information for so long. Sarah will speak to DSI and have them speak to Mary. She gives Sarah 24 hours before she calls The Guardian. Lizzie approaches Michelle Jones to talk to her about Lexi. Michelle refuses to cooperate and sends her away. Shakiel drives by Steve and asks him to come for a drive. Steve rushes in to supposedly put up the ice cream.

He grabs something and takes it with him. Elaine tells Sarah that Farlow hasn’t done anything about the CCTV at Yilmaz. Sarah asks her to follow up on it. Lee calls to tell Sarah that the girls didn’t hear or see anything. He mentions that Michelle said a young, black detective came by and spoke to her previously. Sarah confronts Lizzie who doesn’t want to speak to her. They go inside and Sarah asks about Michelle. Sarah mentions Steve Bradshaw being involved in a secret operation. Lizzie suggests life is so simple for Sarah, but life is never black and life. She argues the law sometimes doesn’t work and people just can’t talk. Sarah thinks right is always right. She thinks Lizzie talked to Michelle because someone’s priorities are messed up. Sarah asks her about Jarral. Lizzie tells her Jarral’s name. Shakiel tells Steve about wanting his boys included.

He’s got a big move coming and it’ll be a game changer. It makes everything up until now look like kids playing in a sandbox. Shakiel keeps wondering if he should keep pushing his luck. He asks if it’s time to get out. Steve admits this is way over his time. He asks about Jarrel. Shakiel says Jarrel is dumb so he does the stuff he won’t go near. Steve tells him he should listen to his gut. Shakiel asks if he minds making his own way home. Steve gets out before telling Shakiel that he can try walking away from the street. He warns Shakiel that the street won’t walk away from him. Sarah and the others prepare to arrest Jarral. Lee warns Elaine that he could be coming her way. She asks what she’s supposed to do. When Jarrel runs by, Elaine hits him with the door. Sarah speaks to Jarral’s family and says they have a search warrant for the home.

Jarral’s wife doesn’t want to cooperate so his daughter brings out the key to the garage. They find the damaged Touareg. Kieran learns Jarral has been arrested and charged with Lexi’s murder. Steve uploaded a voice file of himself and Shakiel talking about the big move. Shakiel is having big thoughts. Mark asks what they’re going to do if Shakiel pulls out of the deal. Kieran tells him not to jump to conclusions. Sarah goes home and tells Julie about her day. She says the Portland Tower case came up at work out of nowhere. Kieran listens to the voice file. He calls Lizzie to ask if she identified Jarrel for Sarah. Lizzie admits she did after Sarah barged in. She has a CCTV photo and would’ve found out who he was anyway. Kieran suggests it’ll be fine. DCI Tim Bailie (Karl Davies) visits Kieran who says Steve is now the guy Shakiel really trusts.

Tim tells him that Sarah informed DSI that Mary contacted her about having evidence in the Portland Tower case. Kieran insists he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. He suggests Mary is just trying to hurt him. Kieran pleads with him not to ask him to step aside because he can sort this out. Tim tells him that Sarah’s girlfriend is Farah Mehenni’s teacher, Julie Woodson. Kieran visits Sarah and barges into her home to show her what it feels like. He asks why she didn’t shut down his wife. Kieran says hello to Julie before asking Sarah how many lines she’s crossed. He leaves. Mitko (Petar Cvirn) wakes up Steve who has a gun to his head. They take him out.

 

The Tower Review

This episode of The Tower was okay although nothing special either. The series is pretty cliché in the sense that everyone is bad or shady except for Sarah Collins. The subject matter is pretty similar as well with the same topics constantly popping up throughout each episode.

It’s a big ask for viewers to bring up the storyline from the first season which was released three years ago. Most viewers aren’t going to remember exactly what happened back then and most won’t care enough to go back and find out. The series is trying a bit too hard to be complex and sophisticated.

The lead character of Sarah Collins lacks any personality whatsoever and is often the least likable character. Her no-nonsense approach is unbelievable when there’s no one else like her. At the very least, Kieran Shaw is more grounded in reality and believable. Although there are only four episodes, this seems like a heavily bloated cast with many characters that matter very little.

The portrayal of some characters is cartoonish and the same can be said about Sarah’s handling of those characters. In this episode, she talked down to multiple coworkers, including Arif and Lee. In return, the writers made Elaine look like a buffoon even if only temporarily. The whole show has an attitude problem, yet it’s trying to be this big politically motivated thriller.

There won’t be any lessons here, but Steve and Shaw’s side of the story is actually interesting as long as Sarah stays out of the way. The episode scores a 5 out of 10. Recaps of The Tower can be found here. Learn how to support us at this link. Find out how to advertise on Reel Mockery here. See what others are saying here.