'The Tower's Second Episode Brings Twists, Deception & Danger to "Gallowstree Lane"

In this week’s episode of BritBox’s The Tower, Ryan Kennedy is still shaken by memories of the murder of his best friend, Spencer. Unlike his sister Tia (Rawdat Quadri), he doesn’t believe in the authorities and prepares to take revenge with a knife, which he keeps hidden in a downspout outside their flat. When DS Sarah Collins and DC Lee Coutts visit, he’s caught with it on his person, and Sara immediately catches him making the unmistakable gesture of reaching for a weapon. It’s an illegal “zombie knife” (the street term for a weapon over eight inches long with more than two sharp points), so he hands it over.

Sara: I’ve hit a wall of silence in the community which I’ve come to expect. I’m also hitting a wall of silence in the police which I didn’t expect, which isn’t right. I don’t care about task forces of secret operations. I care about two young lives, I care about the law.

DI Kieran Shaw is growing increasingly nervous that Sarah’s investigation will derail his baby, Operation Perseus, and is upset with Lizzie, who gave Sarah the license plate number of the suspicious white Volkswagen Touareg Ryan jumped into the other day. She reminds him that Sarah is investigating the murder of a child. Shaw proves he’s lost the ability to view the situation normally by pulling up his collection of mug shots of young offenders who are pressed into working primarily as small-time gangsters for their family businesses, which have survived on drug-related crimes for multiple generations. She’s sympathetic that his wife kicked him out, unaware it’s because he insisted she continue working with him. (He’s not worth it, Lizzie. Don’t.)