As this episode of Unforgotten continues, Sunny (Sanjeev Bhaskar) briefly speaks to Jess James (Sinead Keenan) before getting a call from Leanne Balcombe (Georgia Mackenzie). She tells Sunny she found a pub where you can actually hear yourself talk. Martin ‘Marty’ Baines (Maximilian Fairley) tries to get a job. Jess tells Juliet Cooper (Victoria Hamilton) that there was a cash deposit in Markaj’s account that confirms the money was repaid. The deposit was made eight days before Gerard went missing. Jess says Sidhu considered that the attack outside the pub was carried out by a disgruntled employee, a lad not given furlough. Juliet claims not to know anything about that. Jess asks if she ever thought her husband was having an affair. Juliet gets upset before saying no. Once they’re alone, Juliet tells Taylor (Pixie Davies) that she might postpone tonight. Taylor asks about a possible affair.
Jess says she wasn’t meant to hear that despite Taylor sitting in the other room during the interview. She is adamant that Gerard wasn’t cheating. Juliet tells her daughter she’ll pick her up at seven. Paul Merrick (Adrian Rawlins) calls Juliet who finally agrees to meet them. Melinda Ricci (MyAnna Buring) reads about the discovery of the body. A news report explains that police have identified the body as belonging to Bow Publican Gerard Cooper. Hassan (Ahmad Sakhi) and Asif Syed (Elham Ehsas) hang out on the beach. Asif tells Hassan about the first time he saw the sea and wanting to cross. He talks about his journey. Asif says his brother and one of the kids didn’t wash up for a week. Karen Willetts (Pippa Nixon) looks through an evidence box. Fran Lingley (Carolina Main) speaks to Alice (Sabrina Wu) about working for Gerard. Alice says he was a good employer although he was an old white guy. She doesn’t think Juliet was okay with Gerard running a pub.
Alice believes Juliet thought Gerard was stupid although they never fought in the pub. Martin was the guy who didn’t get furloughed. They called him Marty Baines. Dr. Clacy (Paul McQuaid) tells Melinda that Patrick will never ejaculate again, but every case is unique. He mentions sperm harvesting. Fran and Sunny speak to Jess about what they’ve found out. Alice said a coworker, Brianna West, saw Martin get physical with Cooper. She thought Marty had some kind of disability such as ASD. Murray Boulting (Jordan Long) hasn’t got the original assault files back yet. Jess believes Gerard had an affair based on Juliet’s reaction this morning. Sunny reminds them that infidelity is regularly a motive for murder. Asif talks to Hassan about being assaulted in the detention center. He just needs to pass his citizenship test to get his passport and have a legal right to settle and work there. Asif insists Hassan should do it the way he’s telling him though.
Sam (David Witts) arrives and says he’s early because the exercise got snowed off. Hassan listens to them argue about Asif’s actions. Sam complains that he walked into his house and found an illegal immigrant living there. He understands how terrible it is to have to cross the channel like that, but he reminds Asif that Hassan is illegal until he formally seeks asylum. Asif argues that they owe Hassan because he saved their lives. After Sam figures out Hassan’s plans, he says he cannot be there. He’ll stay at his sister’s tonight. Sam says Hassan needs to be gone by tomorrow. Doreen (Lisa Davina Phillipa) speaks to Marty about having to look after Dot (Michele Dotrice). Natasha Findlay (Shreya M. Patel) insists none of this has to be permanent. She wants to get Dot walking so she can return home. Marty wants to remain there with his mother. Karen continues looking through the files and finds a USB drive. Juliet and Taylor speak to the therapist. Juliet says she wants Taylor to be happier.
She’d like the same for herself. Taylor wants honesty between herself and her mother. Sunny catches up with Leanne at the pub. Marty listens to someone talking about the Protocol of the Elders of Zion. Dot yells to check on him. Marty takes some kind of pill. Sunny and Leanne talk about their parents. Jess visits her sister, Debbie (Grianne Keenan). She offers to help clean up. Debbie says she’s started some new medications and they seem to work better than the last ones. Jess asks if she needs anything. Debbie claims she’s good. Jess wants to see if they can move forward. She isn’t sure she can until she’s sure Debbie is being completely truthful with her. Jess tries to find out whether she just kissed Steve or whether it was more. Debbie says it was some weird kind of emotional thing. They just connected for a few months. Debbie admits it wasn’t just a kiss and they did sleep together. It was more than once. Leanne and Sunny kiss at the end of their date.
Jess calls her mom to see if she can come over this evening. Sunny calls Leanne to ask if she’d like to go out again. During a meeting, Fran says she spoke to a man who said Gerard was always a bit of a rascal. He said he had seen Gerard with another woman a few months before he disappeared. The woman’s name was Melinda. They want to check Gerard’s phone records and social media posts. Karen says the PAYE recorded ended in 2021. They have an M Baines who has addresses in Ilford and Deal, Kent. Karen also found three USB sticks for the car park. Murray says Cooper claimed he was hit from behind and his assailant was wearing a hoodie. CCTV shows a man walking away from the direction of the Three Crowns car park heading toward Bow tube. The footage was timed at 10:33 which was believed to be half an hour after the attack. When Juliet found him unconscious, she assumed the attack had just happened.
They watch the CCTV videos. Sunny believes the suspect may be stimming which is something some autistic people do. Fran finds out that Gerard was arrested for the assault of David Prentice at a rally in Westminster Square. Murray speaks to a woman about Gerard’s properties and managing them. She says he was a nightmare to work with. He never wanted to spend any money on anything. Gerard managed them after that and he was combative. They terminated their contract with him in September 2020. Murray asks about particular disputes in 2020. She suspects there were several. She reveals that most of the tenants were asylum seekers. Marty sees Jess and Sunny arrive outside. Murray is told about an Afghan family who had a long-running dispute with Gerard. She tells him about Asif who interpreted for the family. Asif speaks to Sam about being tired of feeling like he should be grateful. Sam asks if he ever thought about the implications for him.
Asif reminds him that his government doesn’t want to execute him for being gay. Sam says it’s his house and that makes him a party to a criminal act. He could lose his entire career. They continue arguing about it. Marty tells Jess and Sunny that he doesn’t want to speak there. Sunny calls to arrange for an appropriate adult. Fran speaks to David Prentice (Andrew Paul) who admits Gerard was an old friend. David says they ran into each other at a rally around the time of the big Brexit vote. David wanted to remain and Gerard supported Brexit. It got unpleasant when they started talking about the vote. David says Gerard punched him in the face. Leanne ignores a call from Sunny. Jess tells Sunny there was an arrest for burglary of a dwelling seven years ago. David tells Fran that Gerard increasingly came across as a bitter man. He believes Gerard felt he was owed more and that people like him had been abandoned politically.
In 2016, Gerard created an online forum called UK United. David describes it as low-level racist wank. Liz Jones (Ezra England) and others express their concerns to Juliet. They end up arguing. Juliet ends up cursing her and storming off. Fran manages to find a video of Melinda who is salivating because Boris Johnson retweeted her. She messages Jess to say she’s identified Melinda. Marty talks about getting the job from Gerard Cooper. He talks about all the things they discussed. Sunny asks about getting furlough. Marty says Gerard applied for it and got the money, but he never paid him. When he spoke to Gerard, he said he’d pay him but he was in a pickle. Marty admits that he argued with Gerard about money and it got physical one time in the pub. He says Gerard pushed him inside the pub. Marty pushed him against a wall and walked away. Sunny tells him about the CCTV footage and the person who looks so much like him.
Marty wants to take a break so he can get his story straight. Fran looks at pictures of Melinda who is called Melinda “Preachy” Ricci. She is a former nun who turned into a columnist. Dot calls Marty and says she isn’t sure if they’re listening to this, but she asks him not to say anything about daddy.
Unforgotten Review
The third episode of Unforgotten was pretty dull because so much of it felt repetitive. It seems like Jess’s scenes with her sister and Sunny’s date with Leanne matched up exactly with what happened in the last episode. Those scenes even happened around the same period in the episode and they’re not that interesting.
We’ve been through this once before with Sunny and it’s becoming the cliché of “will they”. Asif is flip-flopping about his reasoning for fleeing from his home country so he’s really hard to believe. At one point, he’s blaming a British colonel for convincing him to become a translator. In this episode, he complains that his government wants to kill him because he’s gay.
We had a character just like this in series five and the character’s scenes proved to be a total waste of time. It seems like that character was Karol Wojski. There’s nothing new here in that area. The scenes when Juliet and Lizzie should be skipped without regard unless you enjoy losing brain cells. It’s questionable who the killer will be in the end, but it’s not going to be anyone in the current suspect list because they don’t match today’s requirements.
It certainly doesn’t help that the investigation doesn’t focus on the past anyone. In previous seasons, the murders had happened many, many years ago. In series six, the murder happened during the pandemic and the writers took the opportunity to fill our brains with things many of us would much rather forget. Even then, there were a lot of things going on at that time besides the pandemic, Brexit, and so on.
Most murders are not connected to those things and focusing so heavily on these topics makes Unforgotten feel just like everything else on television. It’s clear the series has lost anything that made it original and so special during the Nicola Walker years. Ending this thing after series four seems to have been a lost opportunity to spare us from more bad television.
This episode scores a 4.5 out of 10. Recaps of Unforgotten can be found here. Find out how to support our independent site 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.