Broadchurch - S2E2 - Episode 2
Previously on Broadchurch, Episode 1
Confrontations and Confession
Claire gets a call from her husband, Lee. She doesn’t answer, but he leaves a voicemail and when she listens to it, she bursts into tears. She immediately calls Alex, and he reassures her as he stares down Lee from across a field. Lee demands to know where Claire is, and of course Alex won’t tell him. Lee makes a smart remark about Alex’s health issues before walking away.
The crime scene tech who asked Ellie out before is working on getting prints of Alex’s place since it was burglarized last episode. Ellie, inexplicably, asks him out for a drink but now he’s seeing someone so it just ends up being a ridiculous awkward exchange I didn’t want to witness. She spies a file on Sandbrook in Hardy’s drawer and starts thumbing through it. He walks in and loses it, snatching the file out of her hand.
Jocelyn calls Alex and Ellie to her office where she basically breaks down how trials work before calling out Ellie for assaulting Joe in the police station. Because of this, the confession might get thrown out. Later, Ellie worries about Tom finding out she beat up his dad. This kid has enough troubles.
Paul visits Joe in jail and says it’s not to late to do the right thing. Joe is not listening and instead asks Paul to sneak him a picture of his youngest boy and to pass a message to Tom. Paul, of course, refuses.
Alex wants Claire and Lee to meet, but Ellie doesn’t think it’s a good idea. She bonds with Claire a bit over how they met their husbands - and tries to convince Claire to meet with Lee - while Alex goes through Claire’s belongings and finds the pressed bluebell flower in an envelope addressed to her.
Jocelyn is invited to the Latimer’s house to give the witnesses an idea of what to expect. Even though she says it’s inappropriate for her to be there, she does give them a few words of advice including: don’t lie. Beth insists no one has anything left to hide and then everyone looks around at each other like they all have something to hide.
Ellie visits Alex with the news Claire has agreed to meet with Lee, and she makes him promise Claire will be safe. Later, Alex tells Ellie he’d like for the meet to take place in her empty home. She’s not thrilled at the idea since she hasn’t been back to the house in a long time. When she finally goes inside, there’s mail piled up in the foyer and crime scene tape hanging from the walls. Memories of happier times haunt her as she walks through the rooms.
On the stand, Beth is forced to admit that her husband had an affair with Becca and that her husband once hit Danny. It doesn’t go much better for Alex as he has to testify about Ellie attacking Joe in the interrogation room. End result: The judge rules to throw out Joe’s confession .
The Meet
Nigel rushes into Beth’s house to tell her Ellie is spotted back at her house and Beth runs out. I’m not sure why Beth thinks it’s appropriate for her to keep Ellie from her home, but okay. Of course she arrives and starts yelling at Ellie just as Claire is meeting with Lee inside the house. Lee is suspicious anyway, and pats Claire down before he’ll talk to her. This is just an excuse for him to open her shirt and put his hands on her.
When Lee hears Beth outside with Ellie, he takes off with her and in the confusion Beth’s water breaks and Alex loses Lee and Claire.
Overall Thoughts & Questions
- After leaving the Latimer’s house, Jocelyn is walking with Maggie and she asks her to come over and read to her. Were these two lovers? I feel like everyone else has probably already picked up on that, and I’m late to the party.
- Mark is still meeting with Tom, Ellie’s son, and ignoring calls from home to do it. Though, in this episode he admits to feeling guilt about what happened to Danny and I’m no longer convinced he means Tom any harm. It’s still inappropriate and unhealthy.
- Why would the confession be thrown out? The defense says it’s possible that the bruises on Joe were made when Alex arrested him and not when Ellie kicked the shit out of him AFTER he confessed. Wouldn’t you be able to tell during the taped confession if Joe had his ass kicked?
- We learn that Beth’s mom died three months prior to the season starting. Beth has been getting on my nerves these past two episodes, but learning this about her mom has made me sorry for her.
- Alex sucks at his new job, which looks like handling the orientation for new officers.
