With its characters now well and truly established, last night’s episode of Cape Wrath really allowed the tension to flow to the maximum.
With Danny Brogan being detained by local bobby Wintersgill following the disappearance of handyman Jack, things were never bound to be pleasant. After all, that Wintersgill doesn’t seem to be the fairest of cops, and he seemed to take great pleasure from beating Danny into securing a confession. Of course, what Wintersgill hadn’t been counting on was the Danny knowing a secret code word (“windsong”) to some dark place in Wintersgill’s mind. Whenever Danny whispered it, it seemed to send the policeman into a bit of a frenzy and allowed the producers to flash up some images of a crazy old woman in a wood.
It seems fairly obvious at this juncture that none of the characters in Meadowlands are straightforward. Meanwhile, while Danny battles with Wintersgill and a noose around his neck, his wife Evelyn has still not taken the hint about the town’s creepy doctor and learnt some shocking truth about why she should give up trying to have any more children and more importantly, why Danny can’t be the father of Mark and Zoe. According to Doctor York, Danny is infertile - and always has been. Things aren’t really going well for her. A town she doesn’t want to be in, creepy neighbours, a husband whose past is as murky as the water in the village pond and Aveline from Bread - or Brenda Ogilvie as she is known in this series - trying it on with her son.
Which, it has to be said, was probably one of the creepiest things about tonight’s episode. Seeing her bed Mark Brogan was quite unsettling and not for the faint hearted. But if once wasn’t enough, he went and begged for some more of her loving. Must be desperate. Still, all was forgiven when it emerged that he had removed Jack’s body from the garden prior to Wintersgill searching it. How he managed with all that hair in front of his eyes, we’ll never know. But it meant that when the community gathered to celebrate the town’s third birthday, Wintersgill was forced to admit Danny was an innocent man. For now, at least. No doubt some spanner will soon be thrown into the works which will throw everything back up in the air.
All in all though, episode 3 provided some nail biting tension and was probably the best episode yet. Fine performances all round from the cast, particularly Lucy Cohu as Evelyn and David Morrissey as Danny. There were some witty moments too, particularly with Wintersgill’s nod to Little Britain when he quoted the catchphrase “Computer says no”. Bring on episode 4.
