Downey and Sarah finally find Dinah, only to face more danger and more questions.
Photo: Apple TV+
This week, the search driving our four-legged race comes to a close — or something of one. Downey and Sarah both find Dinah … separately, but still. While that once might have seemed like the light at the end of the tunnel, now a bunch of follow-up questions arise. What to do now? Where to take her? Most pressingly: Is Zoë dead? I would be very surprised if she is — Down Cemetery Road is the first book of the Zoë Boehm series, mind you — but anything is possible. The show has been deviating some from the source material as it ramps up to the finale, mostly to good effect. Director Börkur Sigþórsson makes great cinematic use of the Scottish island. The cliffs are sharp, huge, steep; the water menacing, the wind cutting. When we open this week’s episode, in fact, the cold is getting in the way of Nev and Ty’s soccer game.
They’re kicking a ball around when Downey and Amos arrive on the island, one after the other, through opposite sides. When the ball falls outside the fence, it’s Ty’s turn to grab it, but instead, he gets shot right on the forehead. Before Nev can react, he’s down, too. Inside, Steph can see a hooded figure coming through the CCTV — because his face is obscured, and because he acted quickly and ruthlessly, we might assume it’s Amos. That suspicion grows as the hooded figure follows Steph and Dinah through the annals of the building, but when he finally catches up to them, he puts his gun down. Dinah cries out for her Uncle Mike Downey and runs into his arms. It’s a touching moment in an episode full of them. We’ve been anticipating this reunion for a whole season! Luckily for Downey, who’d run out of pills, there is some leftover Histropine in the lab. From the look of the place, I’m assuming those pills are expired, but they’re still effective enough to allow Downey to take a breath. Dinah shows him her blue teddy bear, which Downey immediately clocks as compromised. He asks Dinah to keep it; then, seeing Amos approach through the CCTV, he leaves it behind.
When Amos arrives, he’s only a bit more than a mile away from the tracker, but he still decides to get on an abandoned four-wheeler and ride that over instead. What was all that walking on treadmills for, big guy? Maybe his huge gun was getting heavy in his backpack. When he arrives at the building where Downey found Dinah, Nev is still alive, so Amos finishes the job. Downey unplugs the CCTV feed before leading Dinah and Steph through and out the other end of the building. Amos doesn’t find them there, but he does find the teddy bear sitting alone in a room. Desperate to shoot something, he shoots the poor toy. Evil-spirited man!
Downey’s biggest advantage is that he knows the island better than anyone, given the time he spent exiled there. While he takes Dinah and Steph into hiding, Sarah and Zoë attempt to navigate toward the island, but they’re totally lost. Also, Zoë can’t stop vomiting. The captain is still locked in the hull, and they insist they don’t need his help. But when the boat runs out of fuel, they have no choice but to release him. Sarah makes him promise that he won’t “mansplain or patronize [them].” Lady, be serious — you stole his boat! In fact, the English have been stealing everything since 1707, including the island that got wiped off the map for the Ministry of Defense’s liberal use. Their national differences seem insurmountable until Sarah tells the captain that they are on a mission to expose the English government’s wrongdoings. “Why didn’t you say so?” he replies, turning the boat around. Sarah and Zoë were following a compass that has been broken for a decade; he knows exactly where to go.
As they drive up to the island, Zoë gets teary-eyed remembering Joe. She quotes the Philip Larkin poem he loved, “Toads Revisited,” that gives the show its title. Zoë tells Sarah that Joe was a fool who loved everyone he met. His openness was what motivated him to help strangers try to fix the “unsolvable situations” of their lives, which is why Sarah reminds her of him. Emma Thompson brings a woundedness to Zoë that makes the character richer than she is in the source material. This is a woman to whom the world has been unfair. Sarah tells her she can scream or cry if she wants to, but what Zoë really wants is “to hurt someone.”
The opportunity for that kind of release approaches as they wade through the choppy waters onto the island. On the sand is a sign that cautions against scattered land mines. Zoë thinks it’s there to scare people off, but Sarah makes sure to only step on Zoë’s footprints. At the top of the hill, they see a Los Alamos-looking collection of houses, only with a much more scenic background. Downey is in one of those houses with Steph and Dinah. Somehow, Steph had the foresight to pick up a duffel bag full of supplies on their way out of the rundown building, but none of it is making her feel any more comfortable. She was supposed to be playing Truth or Dare at a “hen party” — that’s British for bachelorette — right now! Besides, she’s worried about what’s going to happen to Dinah. It sucks that Steph dies. I hoped at least she’d be able to attend her friend’s wedding, or get to quit this demented job. She is expressing her fear and regret to Downey when big-mouthed Sarah starts yelling his name. Amos is on their tail — they can hear the 4-wheeler — but Downey gets Sarah and Zoë inside in time.
Sarah finally meets Dinah, who, if you’ll remember, isn’t the girl Sarah thought she was in the first place. This is the first time she is face-to-face with the real-life counterpart to her fantasy, the idealized figure that gave her courage, and it’s a total tear-jerker. Sarah gives Dinah the card from Ziggy, which she’s been carrying with her all this time. (By the way, can we check in on Wigwam?) Everyone is so touched that even Zoë can’t find anything acerbic to say. When she introduces herself to Downey, she only says she’s sorry for what happened to him. Of course, Amos has to ruin this nice moment. He circles the house and shoots at the windows. As they crouch, Dinah runs across the room into Downey’s arms, scaring everyone that she might get caught in the crossfire. Steph’s last act is to get up and try to stop her — she gets shot right in the head.
Downey makes a plan: He’ll lead Amos away from them, and when it’s safe, Sarah, Zoë and Dinah will get on one of the multiplying boats on the island and leave. Sarah puts up some resistance, but Downey reminds her that it’s him that Amos wants. Besides, they’ve come all this way to protect Dinah. So, Zoë and Sarah leave with Dinah just as Amos comes into the building. He almost sees them, but Downey fires shots outside to get his attention. Downey finds a 4-wheeler for himself as Amos does stunts on his. (Why are there so many working, fueled 4-wheelers in this abandoned place? How come they’re all working so well?)
It’s an amazing effort from Downey, but he comes up short. He misses a critical shot at Amos after leading him through a maze-like structure. With his last bullet, he hits a body, but it’s either Nev or Ty’s, who lie nearby and whom Amos used for cover. I found all of the chases in this episode as nicely choreographed as last week’s train chase, and equally tense. When Amos finally catches up to Downey, shoots his leg, and towers over him, I kept expecting someone to jump out of the bushes — Zoë, Sarah, whoever — and strike Amos dead. When he starts talking a big game about how he’s going to kill Downey, I thought: Famous last words. But the Brits love to check an American’s imperturbable optimism. Fehinti Balogun sells Amos’s twisted desire for retribution by silently crying as he knifes Downey in the neck. If you weren’t paying attention to his face, you’d miss that he’s crying at all — it’s one very silent tear down his cheek. Having killed Downey, Amos cuts one of his deadlocks and puts it in Axel’s little red book.
You’d think getting revenge would satisfy him. But you know a psychopath: Once they start, they just can’t stop. Besides, Amos has an unresolved desire to put a bullet through Zoë’s head. Knowing this, Zoë makes a plan. She’ll lead him one way while Sarah takes Dinah to his dinghy below, so she can come around the bend and pick Zoë up from the beach. They know the chances of this working out are very slim, but it’s all they have. All Sarah can do is try to figure out how she and Dinah will come down the cliff. It’s very steep, and there are no ropes in sight. Stepping up to the edge, they can see the dinghy right below. It’s obvious: They’re going to have to jump in the water. Sarah tells Dinah as much, though she admits to being afraid. It’s a clever move on the writers’ part to make Sarah jump to save her life when she almost met her death by following the same impulse. Growth! Dinah and Sarah jump. I know Sarah is in a really tense situation and everything, but it would’ve been better to jump while holding Dinah, no?
Meanwhile, Amos shoots at Zoë. He misses several times as she takes shelter behind a rock. He’s already walking the other way, seemingly having given up, when Sarah starts shouting like a maniac and drawing attention to where they are (real nice one, Sarah). Amos returns to the peak of the cliff, where he has a perfect view of the unprotected stretch of beach that Zoë has to run through in order to get to the boat. Seeing no other way out, she makes a run for it. The captain of the boat Zoë and Sarah came on watches them from afar, shaking his head at English foolishness. Amos shoots as Zoë runs. He hits one land mine — they were real, after all — then another, then a last one, which sends Zoë flying forward. He’s satisfied to see her body cut an arc in the air before he starts shooting at the dinghy. Sarah drives off, crying as she does so.
• We got some London action this week, too. Janice calls the number on the manila envelope Zoë gave her in case she didn’t turn up or answer any calls. She gets Detective Inspector Varma — remember this guy?! — on the other side. The envelope contains copies of the John Doe autopsy, and probably other stuff, which leads him to Google “Talia Ross” and get in touch with her through Cheski. Talia then calls C over to ask what gives. She tells him a reliable police source suggested “a connection between a doctor and overseas MoD activities,” and that said doctor — Isaac Wright — died under mysterious circumstances. C pretends to know about none of it. He tries to get Talia to tell him who the source is, to no avail. He keeps his departmental secrets to himself even as Talia tells him that there are consequences to breaching her trust, whether you’re her kid or her employee. The only difference is in the scale of the punishment: You could get a time-out or prison.
• Speaking of the MoD, Malik never quite made it to this party, huh? Wouldn’t he be the one to get there fastest, since he was on a chopper? I could see him hiding out somewhere and letting everyone just kill each other. Either way, it’s not looking good for him. Amos still has so much ammo to spare…
• Was there any particular reason to have Nev, Ty, and Steph see the pictures of the chemical burns last week when they all end up dead in this episode? Could this thread somehow come back in the finale?
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