Fifty Kilos & a Funeral in "This City is Ours"
"How can I grieve when I don’t know where he is? He’s just gone." –Cheryl
Episode 5 of This City Is Ours opens with Diana, home alone, remembering the trauma of her teenage years, and trying to untangle the mystery of her abusive father’s death. She flashes back to locking herself in the bathroom while her mother (Leanne Best) begs her teenage daughter (Amber Harrison) to open the door. A large, bloody kitchen knife lies in the sink. Modern-day Diana, shaken by the vivid memory, texts her mother, currently serving a prison sentence for murdering her husband. It’s the first time we realize for the first time that Diana is an utterly unreliable narrator, and that her mother may be serving time in her daughter’s stead.
Michael joins her in the kitchen, asking if she feels different, now that she’s (only just) pregnant. She asks him how he feels now about Ronnie Phelan, whom he murdered in Spain. “I loved him, but he gave me no choice,” he replies. As for Ronnie’s son Jamie, heir apparent to the crime empire, Michael intends to make him see sense. “He wants what he can’t have. He wants what’s ours.”
Meanwhile, across town, the Phelan household is in mourning. Elaine plays Ronnie’s beloved old vinyl crooner albums as they prepare to receive his casket so he can stay with the family one last night. Jamie tells her he and Michael are OK, knowing that she fears violence, but it’s a lie, as he tells his wife, Melissa (Darci Shaw), that it’s time to get rid of him as he orders Bonehead to start selling their product. (Melissa asks if he knows what he’s doing. Glad she’s not a fool.)
