‘Criminal Record’ Season 2, Episode 5 Recap: “Duty of Care”
As usual, the cold open for this week’s Criminal Record is another of Cosmo’s YouTube broadcasts, this time featuring special guest Kyle (Mark Hadfield), a veteran soldier, most likely from the Iraq War. While Cosmo thankfully does not thank Kyle for his service (that obsequiousness is particular to Americans), it is clear he sees these jaded professionals as his allies and clearly believes in the fight against ex-soldiers and the police, the latter of whom will go down in flames.
As the season passes the halfway point, we return to the boat chase that started at the end of last week, with Hegarty ordering the Met’s Marine Policing Unit (MPU) to search the Thames until they have eyes on Cosmo’s boat and calling in Kim, JP, June, and the rest of the team as Pavel (Tom Hendryk) and the bomb squad prep for boarding.
As they sit in the wait portion of this hurry-up-and-wait operation, Hegarty plays back the recording of Cosmo’s origin story that he spun for Billy last week on the way to the boat. Hegarty tells JP he’s already looked into it, and it’s all a bunch of malarky; the white supremacist he claimed had been a father figure to him only lived nearby for a couple of months, years before he was radicalized.
Also, the detonators are no longer on the boat. Because of course they aren’t. They’re with Revelli the Bomb Expert, being prepped for use.
Billy’s been taken back to his penthouse prison, where he swears down the phone to JP that he saw the detonators. JP tells Billy to hold tight while they do their thing, unaware that Kieran has started to put the pieces together, that Billy might be in danger when Nigel comes to collect him. Luckily, when Billy arrives, Kieran hasn’t gotten there yet. When he does, Cosmo waves off any need to talk, sneering at Kieran’s brioche lunch and his work with primary school kids.
Billy gets to ride with Nigel and Cosmo in the fancy car on their way to party in the woods, while Kieran is relegated to the back of the minibus driven by Andy and Phil. They also sneer at him, needling him as no longer Cosmo’s favorite, as he sulks and tries to get proof that Billy is a double agent.
The entire team is listening in on the Comso convo in the main car, as they track the small caravan out of town. JP and Kim are stuck together tailing them, a pairing that is only made more uncomfortable when Hegarty pulls JP aside and tells him to watch himself with June – he’s too soft for her.
June is not currently part of the Billy brigade. She’s been dispatched to deal with Cerys’ mother, Ashley, who is having a complete crashout over the news that her daughter’s killer is on the loose. Rather than put her in front of the magistrate, June picks her up in hopes of keeping a lid on this loose end as best she can. Ashley tells June she did her best, tried to behave as they asked, and even visited him in prison to bury the hatchet.
June is a bit perplexed by all this, which does not align with the seething hatred she’s seen in Ashley since this all began. However, she starts to put the pieces together when Hegarty calls her on the way to her car. Ostensibly, he’s checking in to see if she’s on her way now that babysitting time is over. But he’s also fishing to see if Ashley said anything to June that she shouldn’t, leaving June pretty sure that whatever the half-coherent “I tried” claims were, they are exactly what he’s fishing for.
Rather than get in the car and drive, June turns back to Ashley’s flat and heads upstairs. Once inside, she starts asking follow-up questions and gets the confirmation we’ve suspected since Billy addressed Hegarty by name. Ashley was conned into visiting the kid under the promise of “closure,” but her forgiveness would have been used to get him released early – and it was Hegarty who was there the day she went to visit and told her that.
The destination in the woods is a shoddy cabin in the middle of Nowheresville with no signal, a place Nigel is clearly very comfortable in as he expertly takes out a deer for dinner. The listening device phone is barely working; June’s frantic call to JP asking about Hegarty is garbled, leaving JP to send her their location, and Kim can’t reach Hegarty, period.
The delay becomes a problem when Kieran stands up and accuses Billy of being an informant. JP wants to rush in immediately, especially when Kieran starts yelling June’s name over and over, and Kim has to keep him calm while they radio for backup. Cosmo, meanwhile, isn’t sure which of them to believe and swings Nigel’s hunting rifle from one to the other, demanding answers.
The delay is long enough that Billy steps up and takes his fate into his own hands, calling Kieran and those siding with him out as face-painting posers who’ve never done anything, while he’s a killer with a rap sheet on the run. It’s enough to keep him alive for now, as the argument is interrupted by the arrival of Revelli with the explosives. Billy volunteers to help set them off, claiming he knows how, and that’s enough for Cosmo to decide he’s Team Billy.
Unfortunately, this is just about the time when June decides to drive up. She exits the car and silently glides through the trees towards the building where the first detonator is being set up for testing, unaware of just how much danger she’s in, or how much danger she’s putting Billy in by being here at all.
Meanwhile, Kim has walked away, frantic to get hold of Hegarty to tell him the bombs are here, and asking what they should do. But Hegarty knows that an arrest now won’t work – they need proof these guys are really going to do anything with them. After all, Billy is right. These guys are all posers who paint their faces with deer blood and fantasize about violence while drinking themselves into stupors. Once again, we have this same weird dynamic from earlier in the garage, where you get the sense these guys wouldn’t actually have the balls to go through with real violence if Billy wasn’t there egging them on.
After telling JP that Hegarty's orders are not to get involved, Kim throws up his hands as JP refuses to listen. Unable to hear what’s happening and still convinced Billy needs rescuing (even though the kid clearly has this all in hand), JP decides he’s not going to do as he's told and sneaks into the shed, where Andy catches him. Unable to see who walked in, JP calls Billy’s name.... and the detonator goes off, destroying the building as June watches in horror.
Criminal Record Season 2 continues with new episodes every Wednesday on Apple TV through mid-June.
