As the finale begins, DI Sunil ‘Sunny’ Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) rushes to the hospital to check on Cassie. Anna Sidhu (Clare Calbraith) asks Ram (Phaldut Sharma) where he has been immediately after he enters the door. Sunny asks the receptionist where Cassie is while Fiona (Liz White) and Geoff (Daniel Flynn) wonder what they should tell the kids. Sunny calls Adam (Jassa Ahluwalia) to tell him about the vehicle accident while doctors and nurses work on Cassie. When Dean (Andy Nyman) enters the home, Marnie (Lucy Speed) asks him where he went. Dean explains he needed space. John Bentley (Alastair Mackenzie) rushes to the hospital while Janet (Amanda Douge) asks Liz (Susan Lynch) what is going on. Sunny talks to Dr. Leanne Balcombe (Georgia Mackenzie) who says there was only one witness a hundred yards away.

They aren’t sure what happened and only heard the crash before the other vehicle drove away. Leanne says they’ll check the CCTV footage. Sunny asks if Cassie was okay when she left Leanne but Leanne doesn’t believe she would’ve done this. Liz tells Janet about the terrible mistake she made. She says it happened in the blink of an eye and changed her life forever. Liz explains it stopped her from doing so many things and getting close to so many people. Liz says it took her life so she only had her job left and she is telling Janet because she changed all of that. She claims Liz helped her forget her past and stop running from it. She wanted to tell Janet who she is. Adam, Martin (Peter Egan), and Jenny (Janet Dibley) arrive at the hospital and Sunny shows them up. Meanwhile, Ram tells Anna he thinks the police are going to come for him because the others will blame him.

He says they might even believe it was him. He intends to fight them to prove he didn’t kill anyone because he didn’t. He admits he is tired of fighting and he might not win this time. He breaks down before Anna comforts him. Meanwhile, Cassie’s family learns the doctors are preparing for an involved operation right now while Sunny sits in the hallway with Sal (Michelle Bonnard). He pops the question and asks Sal if she would marry him. She says she would. Anna and Ram talk about their baby and whether she could be happy with it. She admits her opinion is changing and she has stopped thinking of him as a baby with Down’s syndrome and has started thinking of him as their baby. No matter what has happened with Ram, she is already starting to fall in love with the baby.

John makes it to the hospital and gets a quick update from Sunny. In the morning, John returns with drinks and gives one to Adam. John reveals that he spoke to one of the nurses and Cassie is out of surgery and on her way to ICU. The nurse thinks it went okay. Adam agrees to let Dan know since he is about to get a flight. Sunny talks to a colleague, DI Mike Carter (Vinta Morgan), about the possibility of one of the suspects running into Cassie’s vehicle. Sunny admits it sounds nuts but suspects sometimes do nuts things. He recommends asking them where they were when Cassie was hit. When the call ends, Sunny interrupts everyone and says Cassie would want them to carry on with their jobs and do everything they can to find Matthew’s killer. He admits he doesn’t see any reason to go against her wishes.

Seconds later, Jerome Walsh (James Craze) visits Clive Walsh (David Schofield). He introduces himself by calling Clive his uncle. Next, Fran (Carolina Main) tells everyone about Dean’s brother Stephen dying in August of 1989. He was found in the street with a fatal knife wound. Nobody was ever arrested and there were no witnesses. The original report suggests the Quinns likely knew who was to blame and closed ranks. Sunny learns that the attack took place on Ellerfield Road in Colindale close to where they lived at the time. He wonders why that rings a bell before Fran says Stephen wasn’t like the other brothers because he was quiet, academic, and not a fighter. Murray (Jordan Long) tells them about Dean’s accounts. He has three for business and one personal joint account with his wife. He also has three others for bills, current, and for savings, but there was nothing of interest in any of the accounts.

Then, Murray found one more account but it was not in his name. Instead, it was in the name of Georgie Graves. Dean set it up, he is the signatory, and the account identifier is godson. Dean makes regular payments of 40 quid a month into that account. That was the only activity on the account until nine days ago. There was a lump sum payment in and quickly out of 10k. The money was deposited in cash at a branch in Rochester High Street and it went to an account in the name of Grace Williams. Murray found out that the name happens to be the maiden name of Ram’s first wife. The accounts go back five years so Sunny wants him to check them out further. Martin sits next to Cassie and talks to her about things going back to normal. Next, Ram and Dean get visits from detectives.

When Ram is arrested on suspicion of murder, he attacks the arresting officer. Alfie Birch (Harry McEntire) calls Karen (Pippa Nixon) while trying to contact Sunny. He says he has run several tests on the pen. Suny interviews Ram and tells him they have a witness who can confirm he was the man who got into a fight with Matthew Walsh. He thinks Suzie Montgomery was wrong though and says it wasn’t him, but Sunny reveals they have another witness who says otherwise. Sunny confirms it was Fiona and says she has given them a lot of detail about what happened. Ram asks what she told him, but Sunny says he would rather hear Ram’s story. Ram begins by saying Rob spotted Matthew because he was half asleep at the time. He claims Rob was in the pub that night and he encourages them to attack him. Ram is forced to admit he got out of the car that night too.

When asked if he ran after Matthew, Ram says he walked. Ram says he didn’t find him and never found Rob or the others after they got out. He claims he headed home. He went back to the main road hoping to find a night bus but Rob pulled the car up. He says he got in and everyone seemed weird. Then, they were pulled over a few minutes later. Sunny refutes that since Fiona’s version of events was completely different. Ram claims she would try to save her back like everyone else and Sunny believes Ram would do the same. Next, they find that the pen’s serial number is H3-2967. Sunny begins asking Ram about his possible meeting with Dean but Ram denies meeting him. He claims he went for a walk to clear his head. Sunny confronts him with the evidence that Dean transferred money into a bank account belonging to Ram’s ex-wife.

They checked with Grace who had a vague recollection of Ram opening an online account with her. Ram is also told about the other lump sums paid into the account in question. Ram is told about Dean’s account before he is asked why he called the desk line of Andy Renfold who is a customs office at the Port of Fenmarsh. Sunny wants to know about the relationship between Ram and Dean. He suspects it has something to do with drug importation and bribery. He wonders what Dean would have over Ram that would make him vulnerable to bribery. Ram eventually comes out and says he didn’t kill Matthew Walsh. Ram claims he found Matthew on the ground bleeding from the head next to a wall and he tried to save him. He tried CPR and did everything he could to save him. Sunny shows him the pen that they found at his desk and asks how long he has been using a fountain pen.

Adam tells John he has thought about apologizing to him because his mom hasn’t been herself over the last year. He believes they’ll see another side of her when she is out of this job. Adam has seen how happy John makes his mother so he thanks him for that. John says no thanks are needed because he won the lottery when he met Cassie. Next, Karen goes to the Cigne office so she can find out who purchased the fountain pen. Meanwhile, Sunny and Fran interview Dean. They ask him if there is anything he’d like to change and Dean says yes because he went back over the night when Sunny’s colleague left. Dean claims he slept for most of the journey but Sunny doesn’t buy that. Dean suggests someone is covering their own back and says he was asleep when someone stuck the body into the trunk of the car.

Sunny asks Dean how long it took him to convince Ram to become a part of his cocaine smuggling operation. Dean plays stupid before he is shown evidence regarding the bank account and transactions. Sunny wants to know if Dean had some unique kind of leverage over his old friend. Dean says no comment over and over again until Sunny decides to take a break. Then, he steps out of the room and wonders why Dean won’t throw Ram under the bus. He says it felt weird as if something was missing while Adam talks to his mother. Something clicks for Sunny who notices the Yardley Crescent sign behind Walsh and says that is where he lived. It is NW9 just like Colindale which is NW9. As for Stephen Quinn, he was killed right in between. He wonders if Matthew Walsh killed Stephen Quinn.

He contemplates whether it was two criminal families residing nearby going after each other. Stephen was stabbed in the head as well. They wonder if Stephen was stabbed in some sort of territorial dispute and the others did not know that Dean believed Walsh murdered his brother. Karen enters and tells them she got the result with the pen. Dean is questioned about the pen immediately after that. He claims he doesn’t know who bought one of those pens before he is told it was his brother Stephen. The evidence shows that Stephen bought the pen and had the initial DB engraved into it a week before Dean’s 18th birthday. Sunny claims Stephen bought the pen for his brother who he thought would have a better life. The brother Dean adored and encouraged him to escape was murdered not long after that. Stephen was allegedly stabbed through the eye with a knife by Walsh.

Sunny says he has spoken to the CPS Homicide Unit and they’re okay with Dean being charged with murder. Dean is told this is his opportunity to tell his story. He admits he was a young man grown up drenched in violence and he was a victim of it every day of his life. He admits this is why he stayed in the car for so long and he has no idea how he found Walsh first. He had slipped while running and hit his head on the low brick wall. He claims he was trying to stop himself at first, but he couldn’t in the end. He suggests it was in his DNA before sobbing and admitting he did it. He says he did what Matthew had done to Stephen so he pushed and pushed. He saw Ram coming through the trees so he left and came back ten minutes later when Ram was giving him CPR. He admits it was appalling violence but it was who he was.

Dean explains he tried to escape his past but failed at the first hurdle so he changed his name and tried to remove himself from his family. He goes on to say you really can’t change who you are. Liz talks to her boss and says she always thought it was an accident. She hopes she can live a simpler life when she gets out of prison. She talks about helping those less fortunate than her as we see she has given Eugenia a check for 10,000. She apologizes before Robin says her reparation has been the last three decades. Fran talks to someone and tries to confirm there are no other connections he has concealed. Fran tells Sunny that the car that hit Cassie was driven by a car thief and he braked hard before the accident. He said she just pulled out in front of him. Ram is booked into the jail on charges of misconduct for facilitating the importation of a controlled substance.

Ram admits his first thought was that they needed to call an ambulance when he was giving Matthew CPR. He says he never thought what they would mean for any of them and only wanted to do the right thing. He thought they would blame him because of the way they looked at him. Fiona tells Geoff that they’re going to charge Ram, Liz, and her with preventing a lawful burial. They might get a custodial sentence. The other stuff might go away since they can’t prove she was over the limit back then. She told them about the license and her lawyer thinks it is a custodial. Geoff says he is angry at himself for not asking questions. He admits he doesn’t find himself loving her any less now. He says he wants to keep going and help the kids through whatever comes before Dean is booked into the jail. Marnie waits for a phone call from him at home.

He asks them to tell Matthew’s family that he is sorry before admitting it is terrible what he did and that he has regretted it every day of his life. Once Dean is locked away, Fran tells Sunny to go tell Cassie that she did it. Meanwhile, Cassie’s family learns that she had a bleed on her brain and it was worse than what they feared when they opened it up. It is a substantial subdural hematoma that caused extensive compression and bruising to her brain. She explains someone with that damage is very unlikely to recover brain function but they will continue monitoring her in the coming days. Martin gets up and storms out of the room. He goes outside while Sunny arrives and approaches John. He knows it is bad. Martin sits outside and listens to Cassie’s voicemail in which she apologizes again.

She admits the job has drained her and stopped her from seeing straight. However, she can get back to normal after it is over. She admits she understands the will thing and feels like a failure right now but will be better. Cassie tells her father that they’ll have many years together to try to get back to normal. She asks him to call her back so she can take him and Jen out for dinner to clear the air. He listens to the call again while Sunny sits with Cassie. Murray receives the news and lets the others know. Sunny leaves the hospital before we hear him speaking at Cassie’s funeral. He talks about her being the best he ever met before he grabs flowers and drops them off at Cassie’s grave. When his speech ends, the episode ends.

 

Unforgotten Review

I can easily say that Unforgotten has been one of the most consistent shows I’ve watched over the years. The stories, acting, and characters have always been strong and powerful. Anyone who has stuck with the show this long will agree that this was one of the most emotionally devastating television finales ever. It reminds me a bit of the 2015 show River which was also spectacular.

I am glad that they’ve decided to continue on with the show despite the departure of Nicola Walker. I guess we should’ve seen this coming considering how the season started. They could always bring her back as a ghost who communicates with Sunny like River, but I don’t see that happening. In all seriousness though, the finale was excellent although Dean’s involvement wasn’t unsuspected.

However, I think it was realistic and pretty sad. Unfortunately, some people just can’t escape their families and histories. Dean was unfortunately one of those people. I can’t wait to see where the show will go with Sunny being the lead detective and we’ll obviously have to follow Nicola Walker where she goes from here. The finale was great so I’d give it a 9 out of 10. Past and future recaps of Unforgotten will be available here.