Summary
The ending of Down Cemetery Road doesn’t provide any surprises, but it’s satisfying enough and resists the streaming impulse of leaving things unresolved to panhandle for a sequel.
After an outing that felt like a penultimate episode but wasn’t, then a penultimate episode that felt like a finale, it’s probably only right that the actual ending of Down Cemetery Road feels more like an epilogue. Episode 8, “What Will Survive”, is perfectly funny and satisfying, tying up this season’s storyline neatly enough, but it definitely suffers from most of the major confrontations having already happened, and all the key mysteries having already been solved. There’s little peril around the fates of Sarah and Zoe, since there’s a whole series of novels starring both of them to adapt, and the peripheral subplots are handled at a bit of a too-hurried pace.
Still, at least it has the decency to actually end, which is more than I can say for most streaming dramas, and if the interest isn’t there and Apple TV+ decides not to bother with it, nobody will be too upset about how things turned out. With that in mind, let’s break down the key events of the finale.
Zoe Is Alive (But A Wanted Woman)
Despite last week’s vague cliffhanger implying that she might have fallen victim to a landmine, it turns out Zoe is fine after all. She was spirited back to town by Captain Donny, who was still all too happy to help after he realised that the English were up to no good on Scottish shores. She is, however, still wanted by the police for killing the American couple she and Amos met on the train.
Zoe quickly reunites with Sarah and Dinah, interrupting the former’s stealing spree. Now they just need to keep a low profile and get out of Dodge, which is going to be complicated by the fact that they still haven’t quite dealt with every nearby threat. Hamza is still on the ground, lurking nearby, with explicit instructions from C to finish the job by any means necessary.
Hamza to the Rescue
It’s hard to imagine how bad a situation has to become for Hamza to be your only hope for fixing it, but here we are. With DI Varma having passed some significant details onto Talia Ross, C is on the hook for the entire operation, including using British troops as lab rats and then trying to cover the whole thing up using explosives and off-the-books assassins. The only way this doesn’t blow up in the face of the British government is if Hamza makes sure the story gets buried in Scotland.
Hamza, to his credit, gives the whole thing a good go. He steals a bus and uses it to transport Zoe, Sarah, and Dinah to a church in the middle of nowhere (they don’t realise he’s an imposter until it’s too late). He even manages to corral them inside at gunpoint. But in case it wasn’t obvious, Hamza is a gigantic coward, so he isn’t possessed of the minerals to coldly execute two women and a child. He calls C to explain this in a roundabout way, so C agrees to send in some backup.
The backup, of course, is Amos, who agrees to the job for another payday and for the opportunity to kill Hamza after some of the choice remarks he made about his late brother.
Girl Power
The church-set final showdown is pretty enjoyable. Amos blows the place up with a grenade, forcing everyone to dive for cover, and ultimately separating the various parties. Zoe ends up going one-on-one with Amos, while Sarah finds herself outside being held at shotgun point by Hamza.
Amos is brained on the corner of a church step during the scuffle, and Hamza, finally plucking up the courage to pull the trigger, ends up blowing his own hand off thanks to not knowing how the firearm works. Both of these fates seem pretty fitting to me. Amos wasn’t overpowered, but fell victim to his own overconfidence, while Hamza was just never about that life to begin with. As soon as he finally committed to crossing the line he thought he couldn’t, he got his just desserts.
All’s Well That Ends Well
As mentioned at the top, Down Cemetery Road at least has a proper ending, albeit one that occurs at some considerable speed. But everything is paid off pretty nicely either way.
Through Wayne, Zoe is able to get the story out. It makes national news, and the Ministry of Defense is disgraced. C resigns from his post and enters the private sector, seemingly without much issue, but Talia is made to answer for the scandal publicly. She tries her best, but there’s only so much you can say when news channels are playing live footage of British soldiers being cooked by chemical weapons.
Sarah drops Dinah off with Downey’s sister and her children, and she goes with them without argument, though I can imagine she’ll have some therapy due when she gets a little bit older. As for Zoe and Sarah, they part ways, though admittedly with an unpaid invoice, meaning they’ll probably end up back in touch sooner rather than later. Just in time for Season 2, maybe?
