In episode 6 of Down Cemetery Road, while tailing Amos, Zoe boarded the train to Glasgow in the hopes that he’d lead her to Dinah, which’d help her solve the mystery centered around the soldiers that had been experimented on with a chemical weapon and its antidote. That plan backfired immediately, because when Amos got a whiff of Zoe’s presence, he cornered her with the aim of killing her. Zoe somehow managed to give Amos the slip, and after learning about the location to which Dr. Isaac’s messages had been delivered, she headed to Firinn Village. Amos framed Zoe in a murder case to slow her down and, using the tracker in Dinah’s teddy bear, he proceeded to the island near Firinn Village for his altercation with Downey. Speaking of Downey, he had abandoned Sarah in a forest because he didn’t want her to be a part of the inevitable fight with Amos. Since Downey had been experimented upon at the army base on the aforementioned island, it wasn’t a big deal for him to get there. That said, Sarah didn’t give up and somehow reached Firinn Village as well, where she was reunited with Zoe. The women then hijacked a ferry and hit the open seas with only the faintest idea about their destination. In addition to all that, Hamza was assigned by C to kill everyone who had the faintest idea of the secret project and Dinah’s kidnapping, especially Amos and Downey, and put on a chopper to the army base. Who won the race, and who survived the battle to save Dinah? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Downey Reunites With Dinah
In the opening of Down Cemetery Road episode 7, the show is edited in such a way that it seems like Downey and Amos have reached the island at the same time. Hence, for a brief moment, there’s some confusion about the identity of the guy who shoots Ty and Nev and then makes his way to Steph and Dinah. Since Downey has never been this ruthless, the way he shoots down both of them makes it seem like we are following Amos. Also, the fear that he induces in Steph feels like something Amos would do. It’s only after the killer is in the same room as Steph and Dinah, and Dinah recognizes that the person in front of her is Downey, that we realize that it’s actually him and not Amos. I guess that when it comes to Dinah, Downey doesn’t mess around, and he can be as lethal as Amos. Downey and Dinah hug it out, because they haven’t seen each other for a while. Downey then spots a cabinet with some histropine left in it. Since his stock has finished, he breaks into that cabinet and consumes that batch of histropine. He doesn’t check the expiry date or if it’s fit for consumption, but since his pain begins to subside, I guess those meds are authentic. Dinah notices Downey relaxing and shares her teddy bear with him, probably because she thinks that that’ll make him feel a little more comfortable. Downey immediately senses that there’s some kind of a device inside that toy and asks Dinah if he can keep it for a while, because he is going to use it to send Amos in the wrong direction.
Speaking of Amos, he notices on the tracker that he is about a mile away from his destination. I thought that he was going to walk that distance, thereby allowing us to take in the scenic beauty of Scotland. But no, Amos conveniently finds an ATV and rides it all the way to the army base. I mean, it makes sense for Amos to conserve his energy for his altercation with Downey. Still, I think he should have walked. The man rarely struggles; hence, there’s no reason to give him something that makes his work easier. After reaching the army base, Amos notices that Nev is still alive, and he puts him out of his misery. Downey spots Amos on the CCTV monitors and leaves the army base with Dinah and Steph to get to a place where they can hide, and that gives the show an excuse to show us the scenic beauty of the island. Amos enters the building that Dinah is supposed to be in, and he realizes that Downey has duped him with the help of the teddy bear. Downey, Dinah, and Steph take shelter in an abandoned house or restaurant, and Steph starts talking about how things have spiraled out of control. After she is done worrying about herself, she asks Downey what’s going to happen to Dinah. Downey simply says that she’s going to live a long and happy life.
Talia Confronts C
Janice calls up DI Varma because Zoe had told her to do so in case she didn’t show up after a certain amount of time had passed. Zoe also gave Janice an envelope, which supposedly has all her findings on the covert project that was conducted by the British government, and she wants Varma to collect it. By the way, I have to point out something that has nothing to do with the plot: did Janice say she had a hard time finding a pay phone because all those booths had been replaced with defibrillators? I know that many bemoan the death of phone booths, but if they have been replaced with defibrillators in England, that’s insanely awesome! I am being genuine when I say that this is the first time that I have heard about this, and I think it should be a thing in every city. This is where our taxes should go.
Alright, going back to the plot, Varma collects the documents and delivers them to Talia (via Cheski, of course). Talia sets up a private meeting with C at her office, and she directly states that she has learned from her source that Dr. Isaac is connected to some overseas Ministry of Defence activities, and that Isaac has died under suspicious circumstances. C feigns ignorance, but he does it so crudely that Talia immediately knows that he is hiding something. Seeing how C isn’t going to come clean any time soon, Talia subtly tells him to leave while Cheski does some digging based on the info she has received. It seems like she has left the proverbial door open for C to admit that he has done something wrong, but I think this was C’s last chance. The next time Talia and C are going to see each other will be in court or when he is behind bars for committing war crimes and creating illicit chemical weapons.
Sarah Finally Meets Dinah
Just like I had predicted last week, Zoe and Sarah are lost at sea. Now, I’m pretty sure some people will see this as an example of sexist writing, because two men have reached the island while two women are roaming around cluelessly. However, and hear me out, I don’t think this has anything to do with gender. Just for a second, imagine Downey and Amos as women and Sarah and Zoe as men. Regardless of what’s between the legs of the characters, I can say for sure that the person who had been to the island previously and the one following a tracker would have reached the island, while the duo who had never been to the island, didn’t have any kind of GPS guidance, had never commandeered a ferry, and were looking for a place that had been erased from every map would get lost. It’s just that in this particular case, Downey and Amos happen to be men, while Zoe and Sarah are women. Anyway, to make matters worse, the ferry runs out of fuel. Therefore, Sarah and Zoe have no option but to let the captain out so that he can refuel the vessel and take them in the right direction. Since the captain doesn’t want to be stranded in the middle of nowhere, he refuels the ferry, but to make him take them to the island, Sarah needs to give him some extra motivation: hatred for the English. Like every Scot in existence, the captain hates the Brits. So, when Sarah says that the English government is conducting illegal experiments on that island, and she and Zoe intend to stop it, the captain takes the wheel and turns the ferry in the right direction.
En route to their destination, Zoe and Sarah talk about Joe, which is when we finally learn why the show is named Down Cemetery Road—it’s a reference to Philip Larkin’s Toads Revisited, a poem that Joe knew by heart. A few moments later, they spot an island, and they know it’s the correct one because there’s an inflatable boat parked on the beach. The captain says that he’ll get them as close as possible to the beach, but he won’t take his ferry to the shore because that’s illegal (the island officially belongs to England) and dangerous. Why is it dangerous? Well, because there are landmines strewn across the beach, and he doesn’t want to be blown up along with the ladies. When Sarah points out this fact to Zoe, she says that there are no mines there; the warning signs are just to scare people. Since nothing explodes, Sarah thinks that Zoe is right, but the truth of the matter is that they just got lucky. We’ll come back to that in a bit. Since Sarah and Zoe don’t have access to an ATV, they have to hike all the way to the army base, thereby giving us yet another opportunity to take in Scotland’s scenic beauty. Eventually, they come across the building that Downey, Dinah, and Steph are in, but by the time the ladies can hide with the trio, they are spotted by Amos. In the time it takes for Amos to spot all of them, Sarah gives Dinah the drawing that Dinah’s friends wanted to give her, while Zoe tells Downey that she knows what happened to him. Zoe doesn’t tell Downey that she has ensured that the truth about what the government had done to him and his comrades will be exposed, but we know, and that’s probably all that matters. And then the fireworks begin as Amos unloads all the ammo he has in the general direction of the protagonists.
Downey Is Dead
Steph gets hit by one of Amos’ bullets, and she dies immediately. Downey says that they won’t survive if they stay together and stay put. So, Downey decides to attract Amos’ attention while Sarah and Zoe take Dinah to Downey’s boat and escape. Amos takes the bait and goes after Downey. Downey tries to keep Amos engaged for as long as possible but eventually Downey’s ammo runs out and Amos shoots him in the leg when he’s running away from him. After catching Downey, Amos starts monologuing like he is in a Marvel movie. Hence, Downey advises him to cut to the chase and just kill him. Surprisingly enough, Amos accepts the advice and kills Downey. Yeah, just so we are clear, Downey is dead for sure. I think this scene would have been complex if Amos hadn’t killed those two elderly tourists just to frame Zoe. That said, what keeps this moment from being a generic murder scene are Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and Fehinti Balogun’s performances. Amos then catches up to Sarah, Zoe, and Dinah, and this time Zoe decides to grab Amos’ attention while Sarah and Dinah get to the boat. Amos again takes the bait, and that allows Sarah and Dinah to reach Downey’s boat.
In the ending of the Down Cemetery Road episode 7, Sarah takes the boat (Zoe is with her, don’t worry) and parks it away from the shore, waiting for Zoe to catch up. The issue here is that Amos is on a hill and has set his sights on Zoe. So, as soon as Zoe starts running towards the boat, he is going to begin firing at her. Zoe isn’t faster than a speeding bullet, but she takes her chances and makes a run for the open waters. As if that’s not horrifying enough, the mines on the beach start exploding; which means that Sarah was right about them. Therefore, instead of targeting Zoe directly, Amos shoots at the ground in order to trigger the mines. One of those explosives goes off in close proximity to Zoe and flings her into the air. Sarah tries to get to the beach, but since Amos starts firing at her, she cuts her losses and takes Dinah away from the island. No, Sarah won’t get lost in the ocean again. We see the captain waiting with his ferry somewhere close to the island. So, Sarah and Dinah are probably going to join him and he’s going to take them back to Firinn Village. Amos is going to go after them, though. Is he going to massacre his way through the small village to get to Sarah and Dinah? Or is the village going to massacre Amos for trying to kill Sarah and Dinah? We’ll see. As for Zoe, I am sure she’s alive. She has probably been knocked out, and when she regains her senses, she’ll reunite with Sarah and Dinah and take down Amos. Also, where’s Hamza? Dude was supposed to get there on a chopper. How is he so late? Or is he hiding somewhere and watching everyone take each other out so that he only has to kill the last person standing? I guess we’ll get the answer to that next week. In addition to all that, I have to say that I am amazed at how action-packed and tense this episode was. I didn’t expect it to get so, for the lack of a better term, explosive, but I am glad that it did. What are your thoughts on the episode, though? Let me know in the comments section below.
