Summary
Down Cemetery Road finally brings all of its characters together in the same place in “Neglected Waters”, only to build even more tension by keeping their paths from crossing too much on their way to their next and final destination.
You might be surprised to learn that Episode 7 is not the penultimate episode of Down Cemetery Road, which is weird since it really feels like it is. All the hallmarks are there. Characters on both sides of the moral aisle all find themselves converging on the same location, a remote coastal town in Scotland. Some of them even run into each other. And yet for the most part, they manage to avoid crossing paths while making their way to their next — and presumably final — destination. How can the next outing be anything other than a finale?
We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, this is the rare episode that doesn’t actually reveal anything. The broad shape of what’s going on has already been revealed, after all, so what we’re left with is a couple of cat-and-mouse chases, some very funny physical comedy — most of it coming from Ruth Wilson — and a bit of amateur sleuthing. It’s a good job these characters have so much personality, since if they didn’t, “Neglected Waters” would have suffered.
But you can see that personality right away. After following Amos at the end of the previous episode, Zoe finds herself on an overnight train to Scotland with him. But since he spotted the tail, instead of keeping a low profile, he presents himself to her openly, leading Zoe to buy time by befriending the American couple sitting at the next table. There’s a lot bundled up in this. It shows how quick-thinking and personable she can be. But it also shows she’s terrified, which is a new mode for her, and helps to give Amos a bit more spooky credibility.
What follows is a taut cat-and-mouse chase through the train as Zoe tries to find somewhere to bed down for the night without Amos catching her. She’s eventually able to, mostly through luck, but their separation allows Amos to sneak off the next morning and hijack the taxi transporting the American couple she had befriended. Amos executes them both, calls the police with Zoe’s description (he describes her as having “a face of pure evil”), and leaves the Polaroid photo of Zoe posing with the couple at the scene.
Meanwhile in Down Cemetery Road Episode 6, Sarah and Downey are camping out in the woods, but during the night, he disappears, prompting Sarah to venture into town alone. In a shop, she overhears mention of an abandoned military base, and heads out there still wearing her hilarious lost-and-found attire. The base has become a haunt for local youths, and Ruth Wilson’s interaction with them is a highlight of “Neglected Waters”. Everything from her gasping run to her dropping her can of Coke is funny, which is nice since the show really doesn’t need to be at this point.
Sarah stumbles her way into the military base, and thanks to a nifty bit of editing, she seems to have discovered Dinah’s safehouse… but not quite. Instead, she finds Zoe, who has similarly discovered that the base contains nothing of any importance. It’s nice to see these two back together, and their odd-couple energy improves things, even if they immediately split up to work their own angles. Zoe spots a couple of suspect fishermen who we know are delivering supplies to Dinah’s safehouse on the island, and Sarah investigates a map in the local pub which, when compared with the map of a local puffin tour, reveals a sixth island in the archipelago which has been deliberately obscured by official cartography.
Sarah also overhears the pub landlady getting a phone call from the police alerting her about the dead American couple and providing a description of Zoe as the prime suspect, who is supposedly armed and dangerous. With Zoe now a fugitive, Sarah hides her under her borrowed baseball cap, and they both acquire a boat by slapstick force to sail to the mysterious island in search of Dinah.
Downey is also heading there, as is Amos, and as is Malik, who has been armed by C and instructed to take out whoever is left standing after Downey and Amos have their way with each other. You see what I mean about this feeling like the setup to a finale? Whatever goes down in the next episode, it’ll probably be big. But who knows what might happen after that?
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