As the Vigil finale begins, Amy Silva (Suranne Jones) struggles to breathe while Prentice (Adam James) approaches Doward (Lorne MacFadyen). Prentice quickly hits the button to stop flooding the tube and Doward pretends nothing is going on. Gary Walsh (Daniel Portman) washes Doward who is worried about the others finding out about Silva and what he has done. Prentice orders Walsh to get a Hazmat suit and work on the comms wire. He will stay behind and clean up. Despite Amy’s desperate pleas for help, nobody hears her. Tara Kierly (Lois Chimimba) tells Captain Newsome (Paterson Joseph) about the ships following them. He knows they’ve tried to disable Vigil and they’re hunting them. He admits they’ll have no intel on the ships until the comms wire is fixed.

Gary Walsh works on the wire while Tiffany Docherty (Anjli Mohindra) takes care of Elliot Glover (Shaun Evans). Silva continues struggling while stuck in the tube. Prentice returns to the captain and claims DCI Silva is getting cleaned up. Newsome gives permission for the engineer to commence the decontamination process. Prentice warns him there is no guarantee it’ll work and suggests limiting access to the floors in question. Tiffany returns and informs Newsome that Glover is going to need special treatment. He tells her to look at the screen and reminds her they cannot send or receive messages. Plus, they can’t deal with a civilian evacuation so Glover is likely out of luck until they get a handle on the tactical situation. A distraught Tiffany leaves once she hears everything Newsome has to say.

Doward approaches Glover with bad intentions before trying to smother him. Glover tries to fight back and that gives him enough time to hold out until Tiffany and Prentice enter. Doward tells them it sounded like Elliot was choking. While Tiffany works on Glover, Doward returns to the command center. Ben Oakley (Cal MacAninch) approaches the Chinese consulate but stops when he sees police officers out front. Kirsten Longacre (Rose Leslie) pulls up and arrests him on suspicion of murdering Jade. He sits down and is promptly questioned by Kirsten who wants to know about Ingles. Ben says he’ll talk to anyone who is against nuclear weapons and Ingles claimed he wanted Russia to denuclearize. They can’t do that until they get rid of Vigil. Ben says he only told Ingles about a few people he might want to talk to and nothing else.

Then, Kirsten confronts him about the photo and the fact Jade is the one who took it. Ben breaks and says he wants to be clear with her about what happened before giving her his phone’s PIN. Porter (Reuben Joseph) uses the PIN to open the phone and finds the picture of Matthew Doward. Kirsten quickly calls in the new evidence. Branning (Lolita Chakrabarti) tells Shaw (Stephen Dillane) that the Russian operative is the sonar operator Matthew Doward. Gary continues working on the comms wire while Silva remembers spending time with Kirsten who says she loves her. She remembers Kirsten using morse code on her back so she uses it to send a message to the crew. Tara hears it and immediately tells Prentice about the banging. Prentice quickly recognizes it as morse code and wonders where it is coming from. Prentice tries to find out where it is coming from while Doward learns about it.

Matthew becomes concerned and tries to make an excuse to leave his watch immediately. He easily fools Hennessy (Dan Li) who tells him to get out of there. He rushes down and causes water to flood into the submarine. Hennessy and Newsome learn what is going on and try to do something about it. Newsome realizes they’ve been sabotaged so everyone is ordered to their emergency stations. Adams (Tom Gill) finds out what is going on and radios it in immediately. Shaw and the others learn there are signs that Vigil might be in distress. Shaw listens to the audio and finds out that several Russian ships are nearby. They also find that the USS Delaware is nearby. Shaw goes to his room and requests assistance since it is an attack on Britain. He hopes the Russians will crap their uniforms when the USS Delaware prepares to fire.

He says they believe they’re unopposed, so they need to change that perspective. Captain Newsome consults with Hadlow (Connor Swindells) and the others about the ship’s weight and pressure due to the water flooding inside. Hadlow believes they have 10 minutes or less before they’ll be too heavy to get back up. Amy remembers her argument with Kirsten who leaves her. Prentice finally finds Amy and pulls her out. She tells Prentice that Doward is the reason Burke was killed because they wanted to get him on the boat. The line is dead so Prentice can’t notify the others. Instead, he is going to help Silva leave through the missile deck. Doward approaches with a knife, and he knows Prentice hasn’t reported him because he cut the wiring. He claims they’re going to save the boat and some of them will evacuate before walking closer.

Prentice sends Amy to get help while he fights with Doward. Amy lags around long enough to watch Doward overpower Prentice and drive the knife into his chest. Matthew stabs her a few more times while Amy makes a run for it. Doward begins chasing Amy before stopping to pick up a mash. Newsome learns they’re 350 meters down. He wants to get on the hover or something that normally only works at 150 meters. Since they have no other option, Hadlow agrees to try it. They turn on the hovering system while Amy continues hiding from Doward. Matthew warns her that she can’t hide here forever because the bleach will burn her lungs. Adams tries to stop the water from flooding through before telling his partner to open the valve. Meanwhile, Walsh continues working on the comms system. He manages to get it sorted out so Vigil can receive messages.

Newsome receives the messages about Doward being a Russian spy. He immediately stops what he is doing to tell everyone that Matthew Doward is a traitor. They’re ordered to find him while Silva tries to hide from him. Silva tries to defend herself and hits Doward a few times. He removes his mask and goes after her once again. Tara gets the door open just in time for Silva to slip out. However, Doward jumps on her and holds the knife close to her neck. Tara tells Doward she’ll kill him for this before he orders her to move to the control room. Adams manages to get the water to stop flowing into the submarine. Hadlow warns Newsome that the submarine is still dropping. Doward makes it back with Silva and says the chain of command is changing. He is going to give orders and they’re going to follow him. He wants to surface and make contact with one of the Russian vessels.

Newsome cooperates and tells them to go up. They pull up quickly and that causes Doward to trash to the ground. Doward is subdued, Newsome tells them not to surface, and Silva says she is arresting him. Shaw learns the Russian vessels have started to disperse. He orders them to send the information to Vigil. Ben says Jade came to him with the picture and he recognized Ingles. Jade thought he was MI5 and wanted to make a big story out of it. He told Ingles to be more careful about it and he agreed to arrange a meeting with Peter who wanted to see Jade. Ben admits Peter grabbed Jade and drowned her in the water during the meeting. It was too late to stop him. Ben says he wanted to help her and call an ambulance but didn’t. He claims Jade wanted the photo out there and he wanted to at least do that since they would’ve covered it up. Kirsten accuses him of selling Jade out to a Russian spy before saying he’ll go to prison for a long time.

When Elliot wakes up, he learns from Tiffany that Doward has been arrested. Newsome approaches Prentice’s body before the bag is zipped. Silva tells Newsome how Prentice saved her. Then, she tells him what evidence she’ll report about Burke and Doward so the crown can make its case. They’re interrupted and learn the helicopter will be around in five minutes. Tiffany tells Newsome she has treated Silva and the others. Despite everything, Tara and Walsh want to stay on Vigil. Silva follows Doward who is led away in chains. Newsome acknowledges her hard work and she tells him good luck. They leave on a plane with Elliot Glover who needs urgent medical care.

We jump forward and see Amy in a hospital room. Later, she goes to the office and runs into Kirsten who welcomes her home. Porter and Robertson (Gary Lewis) talk to her briefly before she learns MI5 is in and they’re ready to have a crack at Doward. She wants to watch the interview although Robertson thinks she should rest. MI5 tries to get Doward to cooperate by offering him a comfortable place instead of a cage where he has to use the bathroom in a bucket. He says he was told what Jackie was going to do in exchange for getting her son out. He says a guy at the peace camp told the Russians to approach Burke. Since Burke turns them down and could’ve told others, they likely needed to shut him up. Laura claims Jackie set it off accidentally when Doward threatened her after she didn’t deliver as he ordered. She opened it because she didn’t trust Matthew and wanted to protect the crew.

He says it would’ve been a few photographs and a tour back home. Silva can’t believe the entire thing was a PR stunt, so Kirsten explains it was an attempt to make the deterrent look bad. Doward knows they don’t want a trial and him giving evidence. Jay (Parth Thakerar) warns Matthew that he’ll be locked away and forgotten about. When he refuses to say why he worked for Russia, Silva says he is a narcissist. She claims it made him feel special and gave him power before deciding to leave. Silva tells Kirsten she wants to see Poppy (Orla Russell) and learns about Kirsten dropping her off the present. Amy invites her and they agree to go together. Shaw asks what he is going to say before being warned he likely won’t get them to approve the deterrents now. Shaw believes they should let the navy get away with it since it’d be a win for Russia to say they got a spy onto Vigil.

He is told they should own up to what happened starting with the five men on the trawler who drowned. Shaw fires back by telling Patrick Cruden he held onto the photo of the Russian spy on Vigil and never turned it over. Shaw wants to get it wrapped up today since it doesn’t benefit anyone except Russia. Patrick agrees to keep the information hidden from the press. Patrick says they will get nuclear weapons out of Scotland in his lifetime. Kirsten stops Amy to tell her Poppy’s grandparents know they’re no longer together. Silva knows she owes her an explanation, so she says she got scared. Kirsten insists she never just wanted the easy parts of Amy. Amy apologizes for hurting her and says she didn’t know how to bring Poppy into this. She finds it hard to say she loves her, but Kirsten does not. Amy wants to try again. However, Kirsten doesn’t want to go back to the way things were.

Amy says she could only think about Poppy and Kirsten when she was trapped down there. She finally tells Kirsten she loves her. Next, Shaw holds a press conference and tells everyone about the trawler. He says it is more evidence of Russian aggression and Russian incompetence. Elliot watches Shaw speak from his motel room. His wife is standing nearby so he turns off the television. Porter watches Burke’s video in which he tells Jade he wants the world to be safe so they can be in it together. Branning goes to Prentice’s house and tells them about his passing. He talks about how beautiful the world is while Amy and Kirsten approach Poppy who is playing nearby.

 

Vigil Review

Vigil is finally over, and my opinion hasn’t changed much. Unfortunately, Vigil never lived up to its potential or the hype surrounding it. The accuracy of the show is questionable and that hurts, but it always had much bigger problems. Even during the finale, the writers refused to take any real risks and stuck with the easy path of blaming the Russians and making Matthew Doward the man responsible.

Everyone is different obviously, but I personally could never feign interest in Vigil or its characters. None of the characters were interesting or likable enough for me to care about the outcome of Vigil, and it never felt like Britain’s future was in peril. Without these emotional connections, Vigil fell flat at every turn, and I found myself sinisterly cheering for Doward near the end. If the show was well written and skillfully executive, this wouldn’t have happened.

I hoped for more or at least a satisfying finale, but it really just fell flat. On the plus side, Vigil is over and we can spend time watching something else. The finale scores a 6 out of 10 which might be too generous. All recaps of Vigil can be found on Reel Mockery here.