In episode 1 of Down Cemetery Road, we were introduced to Sarah, an art conservationist at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. She was having dinner with Mark, her husband; Gerard, a potential investor in Mark’s business; Paula, Gerard’s wife; and 2 of her neighbors, Wigwam and Rufus. That’s when Maddie’s house, which was right behind Sarah’s house, exploded. Maddie died, but her daughter, Dinah, survived. She was admitted at the South Oxford Hospital, and when Sarah tried to meet her to check how Dinah was doing, she was prevented from doing so. Why? Through a meeting between Hamza, an intelligence desk officer from the Ministry of Defense, and a mysterious gentleman called C, it became clear that the explosion was actually a part of a larger conspiracy to kidnap Dinah. And Sarah’s inquisitiveness was making her a bit of a fly in the ointment for them. Unable to solve this mystery by herself, Sarah got in touch with an aging sleuth, Joe, who decided to dive headfirst into this case because he had nothing better to do and he needed the money. Joe “bribed” the nurses of the aforementioned hospital with liquor and learned that Dinah was being discharged and moved to a secret location. Sarah rushed to the hospital to stop that from happening, and while she got busy trying to distract the guy who she thought was kidnapping Dinah (largely because that guy had been following her around Oxford all day), Amos, C’s employee, took off with Dinah and a nurse. On top of that, when Sarah went back to Joe to inform him how the plot had thickened, she saw that he had died by suicide in his office. What happened next? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Zoe Learns That Joe Is Dead
In the previous episode, when Zoe said that she and Joe were technically married but not actually married, she wasn’t kidding, because in episode 2 of Down Cemetery Road, we see her tidying herself up after a night of revelry with a man who’s not her husband. That doesn’t mean that she is apathetic towards Joe, because when she learns about his death, she almost falls to her knees and then rushes over to the police station to find out the reason behind his passing. Zoe’s conversation with the officers, one of whom is Officer Plod, turns out to be pretty nonproductive. The only useful thing that the officers do end up revealing is that the blade was found in Joe’s left hand. Since Zoe knows that Joe was right-handed, she figures out that he didn’t kill himself; he was murdered. All she has to do is unearth the person responsible for killing him and making it look like a suicide.
On her way out of the police station, Zoe spots Sarah, and that’s how she discovers that she is the one who found Joe’s body. Speaking of Sarah, she is clearly traumatized, but what is Mark doing? Pacifying her? Making her feel comfortable? Telling her that everything will be alright? No, he is reprimanding her for hiring a private detective to look into Dinah and the explosion (I hate this guy). Even when Sarah tells him that Zoe, Joe’s wife, has been widowed, Mark doesn’t care; he just keeps driving as Sarah breaks down right beside him. Thankfully, Zoe’s mother-in-law is significantly more caring about Zoe’s plight, as she wants to get in touch with her to know exactly what happened to Joe. She even invites Zoe to a family gathering so that they can pray for Joe. However, it seems like Zoe is not in the mood for mourning, not until she finds out if Joe’s death was a murder or suicide.
Zoe Gets Some Info on Sarah
Sarah has taken a day off work to get over the sight of Joe’s dead body. For a second, it seems like Mark is taking care of her. However, while looking for a blanket for Sarah, when he finds Paula’s scarf, which Sarah was unable to return to Gerard, Mark turns the whole conversation to be about how he can use that scarf to reestablish his connection with Gerard. What’s worse is that, instead of getting it dry-cleaned himself, he wants Sarah to do it because it’s her day off. Sarah explicitly says that she is grieving, and yet Mark makes light of her feelings. And when Sarah gets agitated and leaves the house, Mark behaves as if he has been wronged and Sarah is the one who is overreacting (Mark is insufferable). No, Sarah doesn’t go to the dry-cleaners just because that’s the task that Mark has given her; she goes to Oxford Investigations, probably hoping to run into Zoe so that they can bond over their shared trauma. Instead, she comes face-to-face with Amos, who essentially advises her to stop trying to decipher the mystery around Dinah’s disappearance, and now Joe’s death, because it won’t end well for her.
Sarah doesn’t take Amos’ threats lightly, and leaves Joe’s office immediately. Turns out that in addition to C and Amos, now Zoe is studying Sarah too. She is spotted at The King’s Arms pub having a chat with Professor McGrath about Sarah because he was her teacher back when she was a student at St. Magdala. McGrath fails to recall anything memorable about Sarah. That said, when Zoe brings up a student who seemingly died by suicide but miraculously survived the fall from the roof of the college, it rings some bells, and he says that that girl was somewhat of a genius. Additionally, McGrath says that she still returns to the college sometimes, as if to analyze the “scene of the crime.” In the previous episode, we saw Sarah visiting her college once, so it’s obvious that McGrath is talking about her. What was the reason for her attempted suicide? How did she survive? Did the head injury alter her psyche permanently? I guess we’ll know all about it in the upcoming weeks.
Sarah Has a Sad Realization
Zoe goes to Sarah’s neighborhood to check out the exploded house. There she runs into Lenny, an old guy in the locality who lives with his chickens and knows Sarah, and they have a chat about chickens and eggs. But what catches Zoe’s attention is that Lenny uses gas cylinders for cooking instead of the piped domestic natural gas. That’s when Lenny remarks that the Council had shut down the PNG a long time ago, and almost everyone uses cylinder gas. Now, from C and Hamza’s conversation, we know that the explosion was not the result of a gas line leakage, but this is also how Zoe gets to know about the same. Speaking of C and Hamza, the former seems to be upset that even after he told Hamza to avoid any more casualties, his man has gone ahead and killed Joe. Hamza assures that that’s the last one. Additionally, Hamza tells C that Amos has adequately threatened Sarah, Dinah and her nurse have been transported to a safe house, and that their “target” (which is supposedly the grey van man) is in the wind but they are getting close to catching him. C tells Hamza that there can’t be any more slip-ups, because his higher-ups are getting concerned about this whole situation.
By the way, Hamza’s assumption that Amos’ threat has worked on Sarah is wrong, because she’s still clearly thinking about Dinah and Joe and talking about it with Wigwam whilst taking a walk through her locality. However, instead of believing in what Sarah is saying, Wigwam advises her to drop it and accept the fact that the explosion was because of a leaky gas pipe and Joe’s death was suicide. Sarah, unable to accept that even Wigwam isn’t siding with her, zones out for a second or two. That’s when she notices Lucy and Gracie, the girl who saved the butterfly from getting crushed by Sarah’s bicycle. In the previous episode, something got lost in translation when Sarah asked Wigwam what Dinah looked like and how Wigwam described Dinah, which caused Sarah to assume that the missing girl is Gracie. But Gracie clearly hasn’t gone missing, and Sarah is hit with the realization that she has been searching for a girl without knowing what she even looks like. Hence, she decides to get drunk, curl up on her couch, and sleep it off.
Sarah Almost Kills Herself
Now, in Sarah and Wigwam’s defense, Gracie and Dinah do look alike. When Hamza goes to the safe house to check on how Dinah, Steph (the nurse), and Amos are doing, we get our first proper look at the little girl, and you can clearly see why Wigwam thought that Sarah was describing Dinah. After ensuring that Dinah is doing relatively fine, Hamza asks Amos how he’s actually planning to catch their “target.” Amos simply says that Dinah is the bait, and he knows that his secret agent will be able to nudge the “target” towards this trap. Hamza isn’t really impressed by this plan, and hence, he chooses to leave. In the meantime, Sarah regains consciousness, and the first thought that crosses her mind is to go back to her old college, climb atop the roof, and try to kill herself again. Thankfully, Zoe, who had figured out that Sarah is the one who had tried to die by suicide at that spot in her college days, is there to stop her from doing so. And she manages to convince Sarah to help her avenge Joe and find Dinah instead of chucking herself off that roof.
While heading back to Sarah’s house, Zoe and Sarah exchange all the information, from the grey van man to the bombing that was made to look like an accident caused by a gas leak, they have gathered so far. Zoe also gives Sarah an envelope with the invoice for the work that Joe had done on her behalf. As she is about to part ways with Sarah, she has an overwhelmingly emotional reaction to Sarah saying how sorry she is about Joe’s death. So, she uses the washroom in Sarah’s house to recompose herself and then finally heads home. The following day, Sarah remembers that Mark was shooting some footage of the exploded house and caught a glimpse of the grey van man, and when she checks out that footage, she receives confirmation of the fact that she is indeed being followed by a real person; she isn’t hallucinating it. Of course, it would’ve been great if Mark would have given her the space to talk about that, but as usual, he starts yapping about his issues, how his deal with Gerard is off now, and how he wants Sarah to stop worrying about Dinah.
Rufus Is Actually Axel
After Mark jets off to London, Sarah notices a blood stain on Paula’s scarf, and she goes to the police station for the third time in three days. What’s the reason this time? Well, she thinks that the blood on Paula’s scarf belongs to the killer, because the scarf got caught on the doorknob of Joe’s office when she was going in. If Joe had died by suicide, there wouldn’t have been blood anywhere else. But if the killer got hurt while trying to murder Joe, and that blood belongs to the killer, then the police will need to reinvestigate this incident from a different angle. Officer Plod says that he can’t guarantee any positive results, but he will still send the scarf down to Forensics. Since the tests will take time, Sarah heads back home. Obviously, Hamza learns about this development and tells Amos to send his violent associate to kill Sarah. When Sarah gets home, she notices that her balcony door is open, and her paranoia kicks in. She runs out and finds Rufus and Wigwam, and they convince her to get back home.
Rufus offers to stay by Sarah’s side until she feels safe, and Sarah instantly accepts the offer because she is really spooked. Once inside, Rufus helps Sarah make sure that the coast is clear and that all the doors and windows are locked, and then they help themselves to some drinks to take the edge off. We get a brief scene between Janice, Joe’s mother, and Zoe, where they talk about the importance of mourning, and then the focus of the episode returns to Rufus and Sarah, who has blabbered about her investigation to Rufus as well. To fuel the conversation even more, Rufus goes off to get some more wine, while Sarah goes through Joe’s “invoice,” which is not exactly an invoice so much as a letter from Joe, telling Sarah about all the evidence that he has gathered. Since Sarah is too overwhelmed to read it, she gives it to Rufus, who does read it and at the same time reveals that he is Amos’ hitman. He is the one who set off the explosion at Maddie’s house, and he is the one who has killed Joe. His name isn’t actually Rufus; he is Axel, and he is there to kill Sarah.
Downey Saves Sarah
In the ending of Down Cemetery Road, episode 2, Axel uses floss to try and garrotte Sarah, but Sarah puts up a great fight and keeps Axel occupied long enough for the grey van man to barge into her house and fire a shot. Now, of course, there is no way for me to give any concrete answers, but I’ll speculate anyway. For starters, is Axel dead or Sarah? Well, Sarah is one of the main protagonists of the show, so I think it’s more likely Axel is dead. If not, maybe the grey van man fired a warning shot to keep Axel from murdering Sarah. Why wouldn’t someone just kill Axel? Because he knows something about Amos and who he works for. If Axel’s dead, then the protagonists will lose the source of some important information. If he is alive, they can torture him until he vomits the truth. Is the grey van man a good guy? Okay, so, this mysterious individual has been credited as Downey, and yeah, he seems to be on the side of righteousness.
I have a feeling that Downey is Dinah’s actual dad. He has probably unearthed some or all of the illicit activities that the government of the UK is involved in, and he has been trying to expose the ministries. That’s why the likes of C, Hamza, and Amos have been using his family to silence him. Last but not least, is Wigwam a secret agent as well? There’s a good chance that she is one, or maybe she knew that Rufus is a mercenary, and she was trying to stop Sarah from looking into this case because she knew that it’d end with her death. Either way, for now, it seems like Downey is going to team up with Sarah and hopefully with Zoe as well and rescue Dinah from the evil clutches of C. What are your thoughts on the first 2 episodes of Down Cemetery Road? Share them in the comments section below.
