As this episode of Unforgotten begins, DI Sunil ‘Sunny’ Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) sits alone at a restaurant. Before he can order, he receives a call from DS Fran Lingley (Carolina Main) who says they’ve found suspected human remains in Whitney Marsh. DCI Jess James (Sinead Keenan) returns home and yells for the kids. Steve James (Andrew Lancel) has cooked, but Jess might have to leave when she gets a call from Sunny. Jess arrives at the Whitney Marsh in East London. Sunny and Jess are told that the body belonged to an adult although they’re not sure whether it’s male or female. The victim had a Harrington rod which was used to treat scoliosis. This is likely in the last 50 years or so. Dr. Leanne Balcombe (Georgia Mackenzie) points out the cut marks. Later, Jess says she’s thinking about why her husband cooked her sea bass. They talk about that and the body. As they walk away, they continue talking about the sea bass.
Jess goes home and finds herself alone. She tries to access Steve’s phone, but she doesn’t have the PIN. In County Cork, Ireland, Melinda Ricci (MyAnna Buring) rides in a vehicle. She speaks to a man on the phone about a girl being groomed. Gabriel (Oliver Lansley) argues she was watching her new husband decapitate British citizens within weeks. The call ends a short time later. In Deal, Kent, Martin ‘Marty” Baines (Maximilian Fairley) walks down the street. Asif Syed (Elham Ehsas) prepares for his UK citizenship test. At the Central London University, Juliet Cooper (Victoria Hamilton) speaks to someone on the phone about her daughter being in a fight. She’s told that Taylor Cooper (Pixie Davies) made a completely unprovoked attack on another pupil. Juliet says she’ll be there at two since she has lectures. Marty apologizes to his dad and throws roses into the water. He says happy birthday.
Melinda arrives and finds Patrick (Emmett J Scanlan) going through rehab with Dr. Clacy (Paul McQuaid). Once Patrick sits down, Melinda kisses him and tells him he’s doing great. Hassan (Ahmad Sakhi) and Abdul (Samir Arrian) speak to each other in the back of a lorry. Marty asks a woman an inappropriate question about her dog. He goes on about taking pictures of dogs until the woman begins ignoring him. Sunny invites his friend to the ABBA thing. Dot Baines (Michele Dotrice) calls Marty to say the clinic just rang. She reminds him he’s supposed to be there. The migrants are let out of the back of the lorry. Hassan and Abdul say goodbye. Asif picks up Hassan. Sunny tells Jess that the marsh was drained once before in 2009. It remained drained for nearly two years before it was flooded again in 2011. That narrows their window to the last 13 years. Sunny says they should dig into the car park’s CCTV. Sunny asks her about the fish. Jess says it was delicious. Paul Merrick (Adrian Rawlins) pulls Juliet to the side.
He says there’s an issue with the union and one of her students. Juliet agrees to speak to him later about it. Marty finally makes it to the clinic and apologizes to Claire (Jennifer Aries). Marty learns he’ll have to come back the day after tomorrow. The search team finds something. Juliet picks up Taylor from school. In private, Taylor says she attacked the girl because she made a joke about Juliet and her dad. She wasn’t surprised he killed himself after seeing Juliet at parents’ night. Juliet recommends speaking to a therapist, but Taylor doesn’t want to do that again. Juliet offers to do it together. Taylor asks her mom if she would tell the truth. Juliet asks what that means. Patrick tells Melinda he’s going to walk into the church unaided. She worries he’s going to push himself too far. Melinda leaves for work a short time later. Dr. Balcombe talks to Sunny and Jess about the discovery.
She explains that nothing got in to assist decomposition. The doctor says the victim is a man. Balcombe can’t tell them how the victim died. Asif talks to Hassan about being able to find plenty of work. He questions whatever happened to Chullam. Hassan says he went north a week after the Americans left and got work in Mazar-i-Shariff. After his mom got sick, he went back to Kabul. The winter was brutal. Hassan says they think his brother took the reward on his head to buy the family food and fuel. The Ministry of Vice came for him. His body was later dumped outside his mother’s house. Asif says he didn’t want the translating job. He only took it because some British colonel convinced him. Asif blames himself for saying he could trust them. Juliet is told that Liz Jones has made a complaint. Liz came to her three days ago to say she thought the reading list for the Death of the Empire module was too white. She was talking about the authors. Juliet claims she didn’t really offer an opinion on this.
She says they’re all terrified of them and getting something wrong. Juliet says the two books she gave her were entirely her own idea. She gave her Imperial Measures by Linford Kobi Mackenzie and another. Juliet believes she knows what the problem is. When Marty gets home, Dot asks for a sandwich. Balcombe tells Jess and Sunny that the victim was below average height and between 40 and 60. She found a puncture wound in the upper thigh. It was about an inch and a half deep and it had cut through a section of the adductor longus. Balcombe says it had also cut through the superficial femoral artery. The artery responded to the injury so it may have happened before the was dead. Someone with that type of injury would’ve suffered catastrophic blood loss. Juliet tells Paul Merrick why that author picked that title. Paul says she should’ve warned the student.
Juliet says Liz Jones is white although Paul doesn’t think that’s relevant. Liz wants an apology and the union wants Juliet to take a micro-aggression course. Juliet isn’t happy with that. Melinda looks at a bridal magazine at home. Meanwhile, Jess goes home and learns that Steve is out with dinner. Her mom asks if she’s thought about last week. Jess asks if Steve is also invited to her sister’s birthday. Her mom urges her to think about it before she leaves. In Barnstaple, Asif takes Hassan inside. Melinda gets ready for her show. Geoff Parker and Vita Montgomery speak at Britannia Studios. Melinda tells them they’re going to be discussing compliments and flirting on Going for Woke this week. Geoff says it’s time for Mel’s Minute. Melinda says European courts are set to decide the fate of ISIS bride Areesha Arshad who is in Turkey after losing her UK citizenship. Melinda goes on a rant against Areesha. After Mel’s speech, Geoff says they’re going to talk about trans pets.
Juliet speaks to her daughter who is looking at trans videos online. Taylor agrees to do the therapy again if they can do it together. Sunny tells Jess they didn’t find anything else and a sample is going to the DNA database. Jess wants the search stood down for now. Omar (Sharif Dorani) apologizes to Hassan because the room is not ready. Hassan mentions that Asif said Omar was a doctor in Kandahar. Omar claims he worked 15 years in cardiology. Hassan says he qualified last year. Now, Omar is a delivery driver. Dr. Clacy tells Melinda that Patrick will never regain meaningful function in his legs. He believes it’s likely that Patrick will need a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Clacy says Melinda is going to have to help Patrick understand that. Hassan tells Asif he believes he should make a proper formal application for asylum. He doesn’t want to end up delivering pizzas like Omar. Hassan says he’s better than that. Asif says he was too. He risked his life for them and they still stuck him in a detention center.
Marty seems to be talking about conspiracy theories online. One person claims it’s a false flag operation to fire up BLM. Marty says Lanesse needs raping. Sunny rushes into the police station because they have a match. The victim’s name is Gerard Samuel Cooper. He was reported missing on February 24, 2021 when he was 58. His wife, Juliet, reported his disappearance to the police. Although a body was never found, the police concluded that he took his own life by jumping into the Thames. Sunny reveals that the OIC on the case was jailed in 2022 on corruption charges. The officer was a guy that Sunny charged himself, Ram Sidhu (Phaldut Sharma).
Unforgotten Review
The opening episode of Unforgotten’s sixth series left a lot to be desired with lots of general silliness throughout. Early in the episode, Jess questioned why her husband cooked for her. I’d have to question that too considering how unlikable that character is in general. It’s hard to overlook her hideous behavior in the fifth series.
As for Sunny, the somber portrayal has grown stale at this point. How many more moody scenes are we going to get with Sunny just sitting around being sad? We’re still waiting for them to actually investigate something instead of worrying about their personal issues. Murray, Fran, Karen, and the others may have been seen for a brief second but that amounted to little.
As for the suspects, they’re pretty much as divisive as one can expect and possibly a bit more. We have immigrant doctors who are going to be delivering pizzas for a living. Another was betrayed by the British but is still adamant about remaining in Britain. In the real world, it’s easy to remain in the United Kingdom if your son doesn’t like foreign chicken nuggets.
Melinda is the right-wing talking head, Juliet is the right-wing teacher, and Marty is probably an autistic right-wing incel. Although many will complain about these additions, this really isn’t anything new because they were present in the last series. However, there are levels to that and this certainly feels like a massive overstep to the point of being preachy with its messaging. Nevertheless, it really is more of the same. Every series has had a character just like each of these suspects.
Based on the opening episode, none of the suspects are particularly interesting and even the detectives feel dull. We’ll get all these stories and all this jumping around to have some cockamamie ending that doesn’t really make any sense. We’ll see as the story progresses, but the opening episode did very little to inspire confidence that this will top the dud that was series five.
It would be hard to fault anyone who watches the first and last episodes while skipping all the nonsense in between. The dull opener receives a 5 out of 10. Recaps of Unforgotten can be found here. Find out how to support our independent work at this link. Learn more about advertising with us here. Join the discussion here.
Jay Skelton is a fan of all television shows and movies. He tries his best to keep up with the latest foreign television shows and movies. Jay loves skinny dipping in the dark too.