Broadchurch - S1E2 - Episode 2
Read our overview of the pilot of Broadchurch here.
DS Miller and her husband comfort their son in the morning. He was having nightmares the night before and crying out in his sleep. They couldn’t make out anything but Danny’s name.
At the newspaper, townspeople are signing a condolence book for Danny. Karen White, the journalist who swiped the stuffed animal Danny’s sister left him, enters and she’s looking for a spare desk to use. Ollie says yes, but his aunt (the editor of the paper) says no. When Karen leaves, she texts Ollie and asks if he’ll show her around town.
Hardy notices a house on the beach has a security camera. He consults a hand-drawn map of the area. When he leaves, he has a run-in with Karen and refuses to talk to her. Then he gets a call that the man who runs the newspaper stand, Jack Marshall, remembers something important. He tells Hardy that the day Danny died, he saw him arguing with a postman.
The Latimers are given a family liaison whose job it is to keep them informed about the investigation. They’re all being fingerprinted and things get tense when Miller tells them that they cannot have a funeral for Danny until after they catch the murderer as the body remains in evidence. Mark, the dad, gives Miller a list of suspects and she’s shocked to see the list is filled with the names of their friends. During a search, the cops find $500 in cash under Danny’s bed and cocaine in Chloe’s room.
Ollie walks with Karen and gives her a bit of info about the town - one road in and one road out; very little crime; Danny’s was their first murder.
Miller confronts Chloe about the cocaine. She says she had it for Kerry, who works at the hotel, but won’t say who gave it to her. When Hardy and Miller question Kerry, she claims a couple staying there a few weeks ago wanted cocaine so she asked Chloe, who was working for her, where she could find some. By the time Chloe got it, the couple had checked out so Kerry gave it back to Chloe.
Later, at the police station, Hardy has some kind of dizzy spell and rushes to the men’s room to pop two pills.
Next, they question the postman who gives them an alibi for the night Danny was murdered. When Miller tells him that he has nothing to worry about, Hardy tells her later that she shouldn’t have done that. Meanwhile, at home, Beth decides she has to get out of the house and goes to the market for chips. She has a breakdown in the parking lot and is comforted by Father Coates. She tells him she found out something two weeks ago, but we’re not told what. Whatever it is, she admits that she hasn’t yet told her husband.
Chloe meets her secret boyfriend on the beach and tells him about the cops finding the cocaine. He’s not pleased seeing as how he supplied her with it. She feels like he’s making the tragedy all about him in that moment so she sends him away. On her way home she’s approached by Karen who presents her with the stuffed animal. She says she was returning it to her because someone would most likely steal it, which is exactly what SHE did. Anyway, it seems to work and while Chloe still doesn’t want to talk to her, she allows Karen to program her number in her phone.
Over dinner in the office, Hardy and Miller discuss the list of suspects the Latimers gave them. She says they’re not thinking straight. Hardy says it could be a ruse to get them to look in another direction.
The next day, he goes to the trailer of the woman who works as the groundskeeper for the beach house. She gives him a hard time about giving him the key to the place, even though the owner said it was okay. When she goes inside to get the key, we see there’s a skateboard in her closet.
A telephone installer at the police station claims to be getting messages from Danny and says that Danny says he was put into a boat before he died. Hardy is NOT amused. He is shaken when the psychic tells him that “she forgives you for the pendant.” When Mark sees Father Coates on the news, he rushes to the church and grabs him, yelling that “your God left my boy to die.”
Hardy and Miller look at the video taken from the security camera at the beach and see that Mark Latimer was there, waiting for someone. The tape ends before they see who, but they know he wasn’t working like he said. While Hardy confronts Mark, who claims he met a friend whose name he can’t remember, Miller and the forensics team are going through the beach house. The house has been scrubbed clean, but they find Danny’s fingerprint in blood by the door and they find Mark Latimer’s print on the sink.
