Summary
Zoe finds herself in a dangerous predicament, but the only person who can help is the last place she wants to turn.
This recap of White Lines season 1, episode 6, contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
Check out our spoiler-free season review.
With the calls to Joanna abandoned, White Lines Episode 6 has Zoe call someone else for help instead: Boxer, who she hasn’t spoken to for the week since he confessed how close he was to falling in love with her. But needs must. She’s dragging a boat across a field, and as the camera pans around to survey what’s inside, we see she’s also dragging several packages of cocaine and at least one corpse.
We’ll catch back up to this scene later. First, we stop in at Marcus’s house, where Zoe is staying. She’s in contact with her daughter and husband via video call, using the story of a lost passport to delay coming home. In an up-front conversation with Mike, who’s getting a bit suspicious, she says that perhaps this time apart will do them good; perhaps she needs some time alone since, after 16 years together, she’s never got to enjoy any. This hardly cheers him up, but what do you expect? She insists she isn’t just sitting around sunbathing, but continuing to investigate Axel’s murder. Apparently David has some photos from the night of his 24th birthday party — the night he died — that he wants her to see. David talks with Marcus about this and says he’s at peace with his past. But is Marcus?
Some minor points before we get into those photos. First, Andreu returns home in his wheelchair, and he seems to be handling the situation well. The Calafats don’t get much to do here in White Lines Episode 6, and their perspective is mostly put across through Kika, who is beginning to learn the real extent of the family business. Speaking of which, she finally assumes control of that business — but in an equal stake with Oriol, whom she has to learn to work together with, provided he can take five minutes away from sucking at Conchita’s teat.
Another note: Zoe’s father didn’t actually leave Ibiza as he claimed, and is in regular communication with Mike. He’s also hiding out in his camper van with Miguel, running his own investigation into Axel’s death. It seems he isn’t as content with what happened twenty years ago as he claimed.
Anyway, those pictures. They certainly tell a story — and it isn’t one that Zoe necessarily wants to hear. The absurd degree of debauchery on display paints a very different picture of her brother than the idealized one she has looked up to all these years. He wasn’t a charming Englishman having the time of his life living his dreams; he was an off-the-rails addict who could only manage to feel something by engaging his worst impulses. In a confrontation with a young Oriol, he pulls out one of his own teeth with pliers. A young David is photographed comatose, needles still hanging out of his arm. It isn’t a version of himself that David even recognizes now. And it isn’t a version of Axel that Zoe ever saw.
As ever, she has more pressing problems. Marcus owes thirty grand on his house and has a minor meltdown about it, pinning responsibility for the loss of his drug business on her. As penance, she agrees to help him retrieve the drugs that were sent overboard when Boxer killed the Romanians. They head out in a boat so she can dive for them; while she’s in the deep, Marcus gets accosted by local police in a tense sequence. She’s able to recover the drugs without getting the bends or attracting undue attention from the authorities, but in so doing she also disturbs the corpses of Yuri and Grigor. If they leave them behind, the police will find them and come for Boxer, so she has to retrieve them and take them along.
This is good thriller business and no mistake. Marcus and Zoe attempt to make a covert escape, but it’s thwarted by a religious parade. Marcus ends up re-injuring his leg and getting left behind, and when Zoe makes off in the truck, it eventually breaks down, leaving her stranded with the boat, the body, and the drugs. This is when we catch back up to the opening scene as Zoe finally gives in and calls Boxer for help.
It’s a hard decision for her to make. She has been blowing him off for a week since how does a married woman respond to another man telling her he’s close to being in love with her? But she needs him now. He arrives in the nick of time and helps her bury the bodies, and while she resists his charms for a while, she isn’t able to for long. It looks like Zoe won’t be going home to her husband any time soon.
