As the finale of Unforgotten begins, Dr. Leanne Balcombe (Georgia Mackenzie) confirms the body is male and points out the two bullet-shaped holes in the skull. She confirms the body could’ve been there as long as Precious Falade. DCI Jess James (Sinead Keenan) wants to find out who has lived there. She also questions what they haven’t done to put Tony Hume at the scene of Precious’s murder. She is convinced he was there. DS Murray Boulting (Jordan Long) approaches Tony (Ian McElhinney) who is loading his stuff on an airplane. Fran (Carolina Main) and Karen (Pippa Nixon) talk about the 2k Karol took out of his savings on the 27th and put it right back in on the 28th.

They wonder what he did to get his laptop back without handing any money over. Jess finds Steve (Andrew Lancel) asleep when she gets home. Emma (Hayley Mills) finds Ebele (Martina Laird) sleeping outside in her vehicle. She knocks on the window and tells her they have nothing to say to her. Emma believes she is working for a newspaper, but Ebele exclaims she is Tony’s daughter. Steve tells Jess that he only kissed her sister and never slept with her. He explains that he felt abandoned and he wanted her to hurt like he did. That’s why he said he wanted to leave, but he knows he doesn’t want to now. Jess isn’t sure she believes a word he says. She leaves. Ebele tells Emma that she found out on her 18th birthday and contacted him when she was 23.

Emma asks what kind of relationship they had since then. Ebele says he has given her reparation and it has been almost entirely financial. She came because there are things she’d like to say before it becomes impossible. Ebele asks Emma to tell Tony that she loathes him and always has. Emma says she took his money despite all of her loathing. Ebele argues that they screwed over multiple generations of her family. She blames Emma who has privilege, comfort, and happiness. Ebele claims all of that was built on the bones of people like her. She thinks Emma knew what he did, the policies that he espoused for decades, and the millions of lives it ruined. Ebele curses her before saying she loathes both of them.

Karol and Tony are shown locked in jail. Leanne recovers what appears to be bullet fragments. Murray tries to get a list of the tenants from the past ten years. After the call, he tells Fran that the tenant of the flat from May 2015 to August 2016 was Ebele Falade. She learns about the discovery on the radio. When Karol (Max Rinehart) is interviewed, he says local authorities were dealing with huge budget cuts so they were doing the jobs of two people. They were dealing with people who had been abandoned, people who were angry, and people in contact crisis. It began to take its toll because those people blamed them. Karol felt isolated so he started to fixate on some really bad thoughts about women and taking certain photos.

He was attacked in late 2015 and again in February 2016. About a week after that attack, Karol took his first photo on the tube. Karol says you grow up being made to feel different and then you’re physically attacked for being different. Karol explains he kept taking the photos because doing something wrong provides momentary relief that is better than nothing. As something else is found in the house, Karol is asked about June 26, 2016. Karol admits that Precious found the upskirting photos on his laptop and blackmailed him. Jess points out that he deposited the money so he likely didn’t pay Precious. Jay (Rhys Yates) goes to the hospital to drop off flowers for Sophie Coulson. Karol says there was a car parked outside the driveway.

He went in and called out her name because he didn’t see anyone. Karol entered the sitting room and noticed that the floor was wet all over. His laptop was in the corner so he took it and left. As he was leaving, he saw an old man at the end of the corridor with a mop and bucket. The man was surprised to see Karol who told him he was there to see Precious. He describes the man as being in his late 60s or early 70s. Karol decided to leave England because he thought Precious had downloaded the images and would use them to extort him. Karol goes into a pity party about how much he hates himself for doing it and whether he is messed up.

He insists he never saw Precious after the 26th. Later, Karen says DNA confirms Jay is the father of Precious and Eric Royce. The body in the garden is Joseph Bell who is the son of Precious and David Bell. Jess suspects Ebele might not have known about having a second grandson, but she is more interested in finding out who Jay knows. Murray says the bullet found at Waterman Road was fired from the same gun used to kill Precious. Fran says they want to put Hume at the murder scene on the 26th. Ebele tells Dave that Tony likely had keys to the flat and even paid for her to go away for a few days. She believes her father put Joe there as well. Dave thought she never knew her father. She runs off without answering. Hume is questioned about killing his granddaughter.

When he says he doesn’t have a granddaughter, Jess says Precious Falade. She mentions the standing order he has been using to pay Ebele for 30-something years. Tony says he didn’t kill her or Joseph Bell. He denies being at the house and claims he never met either of them. He is shown the payment to the Esso filling station in Hammersmith on June 26. Sunny says it was on the road at the bottom of Waterman Road. Then, he is asked about being at the house with a bucket and mop on June 27. Jess says they took a covert ID of him that was identified by Karol. Graham Saville (Mark Oosterveen) gives his client advice before Tony says no comment. Jess urges him to give them their side of the story. Karol informs his parents there is something he needs to tell them about.

Cheryl (Hebe Beardsall) tells Jay that she is going to go stay with Jordan for a bit. She tells him he needs to sort his life out. Tony says he only found out about Ebele when she was in her early 20s. She was the result of a very brief relationship he had with her mother in 1963. When he found out he had a daughter, he offered her financial support. There was little further contact as was Ebele’s choice. He knew Ebele had a daughter, but he had no contact with her until late 2015 when she called out of the blue wanting money. A few weeks before she died, Tony got a call from Ebele saying Precious was homeless. Waterman Road was empty at the time so he met her, gave her some keys, and let her in. On the night she died, a man identifying himself as Precious’s son called Tony from Waterman Road.

He was threatening all sorts of things and wanted money. Tony says he rang Ebele who agreed to drive there immediately, but he also decided to drive there himself. Tony got there first and found Joseph in a very bad way. He was threatening violence against Tony and Precious unless Tony took him to a cash machine and gave him thousands of pounds. Without warning, Joseph pulled out a gun and pointed it at Tony. He claims Precious lunged at him and the gun went off hitting him in the head. When Tony went to help him, he heard another shot. He looked around and found that Precious had shot herself in the chest.

Tony says they died right away so he never got the chance to call for help. Then, he explains how he told Ebele. He agreed to dispose of Joseph’s body before leaving Ebele with the body of her daughter. After he is asked why he called the station and told them where the body was, Tony admits he panicked. He denies knowing Precious was hidden in the fireplace because Ebele told him she was buried somewhere in the woods. Tony swears he is telling the truth before he is taken to a cell. Jess tells Sunny they need Ebele. When Jess gets home, her mom tells her that Steve loves her. Ebele is arrested. She tells Sunny and Jess that her parents came over after the war and she was a second-generation Nigerian.

When she was 17, she got a job as a cleaner at the city stockbroker’s where her parents already worked. The son of one of the directors was working there. One night after drinking with work friends, he went back to the office late and encountered her mother. He pressured her to have a few drinks with him and raped her. When she told her parents, they blamed her. She didn’t go to police and eventually found out she was pregnant so she wrote to the son. When he didn’t reply, she wrote to his father, Henry Hume. She went to his office only to be told she and her parents would be sacked if she pursued this any further.

After Ebele was born, her mother wrote her a letter that was supposed to be given to her on her 18th birthday. Her mother gave it to a local solicitor before jumping in the Thames. Ebele’s grandparents saw her as a child of evil and filled her with shame and self-hatred. Ebele gives them a letter and explains that Tony wasn’t decent about it when she finally approached him. She got his DNA, did a test, and threatened to go to the news about it. Ebele claims nothing about Tony is as it seems. Whatever he told them about that night won’t be what actually happened. Sunny asks her to tell them what she witnessed there. He called to tell her that Joseph had called and threatened him.

Joseph likely knew Tony was his great-grandfather. She only told Precious a few months before because she worried she’d mess up the financial arrangement. When Ebele got to Waterman Road, she walked into a vision from hell. Tony told her that her daughter had shot her son accidentally and shot herself. Ebele did not question his version of events. She had only met Joseph a few times and already knew he had been in a young offenders institute for assault using a gun. Although she believed Tony at the time, she doesn’t believe it now. She doesn’t know what happened, but she thinks Tony is an evil liar who could’ve done anything. Tony told her the police might not believe it was an accident because of her criminal record.

Ebele told him she’d look after Precious. In the morning, she went to her car and saw workmen in the street. A few weeks later, she had a friend put up the plasterboard. When asked about Jay Royce, Ebele doesn’t seem to know who he is. Sunny and Jess approach him to talk about that night. Jay isn’t sure why since people like him don’t win against people like Tony Hume. Sunny insists they will change that if he trusts them. At the station, Jay tells them he was one floor up because his mom didn’t want him to meet his nan or him. He saw Hume arrive ten minutes before Ebele. He was waiting for them to leave when he started hearing shouting from Joe and Precious.

He saw his brother off his face. He was pointing and jabbing at Tony. Suddenly, Tony has his hand around Joe’s neck. He slammed him against the wall and warned him he could make him disappear. Joe pulls out a gun and Tony backs away with his hands up. Precious made a grab for the gun and started wrestling with him to get it. There is a bang and Precious goes down. Tony asks for the gun so Joe gives it to him. When Joe kneels by Precious to take her hand, Hume shoots him in the back of the head. Ebele came and started wailing. Jay used the noise to go upstairs. He found a place to hide and stayed there for two days. When he came down, the bodies and blood were gone. His mom’s laptop was in the drawer.

He just ran. As Jay leaves the station, Jess talks to Sunny about how kids like Jay turn out like they do. They question Hume again. He discusses the lies they tell themselves, including that it wasn’t rape and that she liked him. He couldn’t bear to see who he truly was so he snuffed it out. Tony admits to shooting Joseph Bell. He has tried so hard for the last six years to make some amends. Jess claps and tells him he wasn’t trying to make amends. She says he was the catastrophic effect of his life’s work and realized that was how he’d be remembered. She says he’ll only be remembered as a rapist who murdered his own great-grandson.

Ebele visits Jay at his apartment and introduces herself. Jay says he told them that he did it. Then, he admits to lying because Precious killed Joe trying to get the gun off of him. Jay says it was all his fault what happened to their family. Jess apologizes to Sunny for being unprofessional earlier. Sunny says they can charge him with the murder and rape. They head to the bar.

 

Unforgotten Review

The fifth series of Unforgotten is a leap back in terms of quality to the point that it is questionable whether the show should’ve even returned after Cass’s departure. The highlights of this season were the intro as usual and some decent performances, especially from Rhys Yates in particular. However, it is hard to be thrilled with anything else that happened up until this point.

The series was far too predictable and unrealistic in so many ways. It was always clear that Tony would go down for the murder although the final twist attempted to breathe life into the gimmicky ending. Many storylines that were focused on heavily throughout the season were dropped at the last moment leaving many doors open. The believability took a major hit while the main investigators have become unlikable and unprofessional.

To put it plainly, the series was ultimately very disappointing and comes nowhere close to the quality of the ones before it. Truthfully, the series feels like a political tirade trying to shame politicians into giving more money to social programs. If that was the goal, it did a good job in that area.

At this point though, it is hard to say it was a good idea to create a 5th season. The investigation ended in the most ludicrous way, none of the characters were relatable, and there were too many unbelievable twists. Viewers should just stop after the fourth series because this one isn’t really worth the time. The finale scores a 4.5 out of 10. Recaps of Unforgotten are available on Reel Mockery here.

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