The ITV thriller series Red Eye has returned with a 2nd season, with Detective Inspector Hana Li taking on the pivotal role, as a dangerous situation pans out in England once again, this time inside the American Embassy in London. While political ties with China had been in danger last season, a falling out with Russia is much more imminent this time around, following the apparent attack by the Russians on a British Navy airplane. Overall, Red Eye remains as entertaining and intense as before, though the plot is once again too convenient and even a bit stretched at parts.
Spoiler Alert
What is Season 2 About?
Red Eye season 2 begins somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, with Royal Air Force Flight Samson D-300 in the middle of what seems to be a routine flying operation. As pilot Patrick Johnson and co-pilot Paul Edney exchange casual words in the cockpit, things start to fall terribly out of place. They are notified of a Russian frigate and submarine supposedly traveling towards Cuba and are warned to steer clear of the Russians’ airspace. But for some odd reason, the pilots do not seem to pay heed to the warnings, and a few minutes later, the airplane is seen going down in a fatal crash. Eighteen months after the horrible crash, which killed both Johnson and Edney, the matter is still not exactly clear, although the British authorities have made a public announcement, which is already having repercussions.
The Samson D-300 airplanes were being made under a special collaborative operation between the British and American authorities and were supposed to be used by the British Royal Air Force. Both countries have now officially blamed the Russians for having attacked and downed one of the planes 18 months ago, because of which the British and American embassies have expelled 64 Russian officers in an act of retaliation against the country. The MI5 Director-General, Madeline Delaney, has claimed outright that more than 20 of these officers were actually Kremlin spies, and relations between Russia and the NATO countries are at their most heated state. Since the Kremlin has vehemently denied having played any part in the plane crash, it seems inevitable that the UK and Russia are to become enemies very soon.
Amidst such an intense situation, Detective Inspector Hana Li receives a call from her boss at the police department about a strange murder that has just taken place at Heathrow Airport. A diplomatic courier has been found to have died mysteriously, and most importantly, the package that he had been carrying, supposed to contain highly confidential documents for Ambassador Ronald Tillman, has been stolen. Hana soon visits the US Embassy in London for further investigation, only to be met with an old face—Clay Brody, a man who had been part of her police training cohort at Hendon. Brody is now the Regional Security Officer at the American embassy, and so he becomes an important part of the investigation, all while ensuring that the new American Ambassador to the UK, Ronald Tillman, has a safe first visit to London. Around this same time, Madeline Delaney boards a private jet from Washington to London and is accompanied by UK Defence Secretary Alex Peterson. Mayhem strikes when it is revealed that the jet is carrying a bomb and has been technically taken hostage remotely.
Who Had Killed The Diplomatic Courier?
The diplomatic courier, David Mills, had actually been poisoned with strychnine at the airport, and Hana is the one to make this breakthrough, after the other investigators are left stumped. Mills had been assigned by the US Diplomatic Courier Service to carry the package that had been dispatched from the office of a senator from Minneapolis, addressed to Ambassador Tillman. The package is supposed to contain some highly confidential and significant documents, which is seemingly why it is stolen after Mills is murdered. But when Tillman states that it was supposed to only contain some celebratory cigars that the senator wanted to send him, the mystery grows more complex.
As the security cameras at the airport are checked, it becomes evident that one of the cleaners had entered the washroom where Mills died and then left very soon after, most definitely with the diplomatic package. The cleaner happens to be a Russian immigrant named Alexander Bortnik, which fits the current narrative about the Russians trying to take revenge for the expulsion of their diplomats by the UK and the US. But as Hana reaches Bortnik’s address, he is found to have been murdered by someone, who is the actual perpetrator. It is towards the end of the series that the whole picture becomes clear, with Bortnik revealed to have been just a pawn.
The UK Defense Secretary, Alex Peterson, was the one who orchestrated the whole attack, as he wanted to get hold of the Cockpit Voice Recorder from the crashed D-300 airplane. The recording machine had been recovered and safely kept by Ambassador Tillman, who had once helped Peterson hide the device from the world but had recently turned against him. Tillman wanted to present the recorder to the British PM to help solve the mystery behind the plane crash, and this would have been detrimental to Peterson, for he had been heavily involved in the matter. Thus, Peterson wanted to get hold of the device now, which was being kept by Tillman in his personal briefcase, and in order to do so, he needed to get someone into the American embassy in London.
Since diplomatic couriers are always allowed into the embassy to deliver confidential packages to figures in authority, Peterson dispatched a package from Minnesota, faking it to have been sent by the senator, and hired Bortnik to kill David Mills as soon as he landed in Heathrow. Bortnik was to then steal the package and keep it with himself until further notice, and this was when Peterson’s cruel and vile nature became most evident. He had Bortnik killed by another assassin he had hired, an ex-SAS officer codenamed Fox, who then took the package, or more importantly, the official backpack carried by diplomatic couriers. Using this backpack and the ID credentials of Mills, Fox infiltrated the embassy building and wreaked havoc at the place, all as per the plans of Peterson.
What is the mystery surrounding the dead RAF engineer?
Early into Red Eye season 2, Hana’s younger sister, Jess Li, reveals that she is looking into an interesting case from recent times with the intention of writing an article on the matter, as she is a journalist. Jess talks about how a Royal Air Force engineer, Nicholas Martin, had been declared to have died by suicide, mysteriously just a few days after he had filed official complaints regarding the safety of the D-300 airplanes. Eventually, it is revealed that the matter had been kept a secret from many of the top officials, including the MI5 D-G as well, and Madeline has her trusted assistant, Ruth Banks, investigate the matter by speaking to the widow of Martin. Around the same time, Jess also reaches the place to have a word with the widow, and the two end up working together.
It is gradually revealed that Nicholas Martin, the head engineer overseeing the crucial engines, electronics, and flight system departments, had found numerous structural faults in the manufacturing of the aircraft. But his complaints were disregarded, particularly by Alex Peterson, who was siphoning millions of dollars from the project and did not want it to be halted suddenly. While Peterson tried to silence Martin, the latter sought to take the matter to higher authorities, and for this he asked for help from his friends in the RAF. Patrick Johnson, the pilot assigned to fly the plane on the night of the accident, was a friend of Martin, and so the whistleblower managed to get onto the plane along with Johnson and co-pilot Edney.
But while they were in the air, Peterson found out about this development and immediately asked the pilots to return to base so that Martin and his storage drive containing information about the manufacturing defects could be seized. A disagreement between the pilot and the co-pilot broke out during the flight, and it resulted in Edney accidentally shooting Johnson dead while also destroying the plane’s control terminal. As a result, the plane crashed and killed Nicholas Martin, with his documents being destroyed as well. Thankfully, he had made a copy of the same, which he had left at his house, possibly fearing retaliation, and proof against the bad guys is ultimately found when this second drive is secured.
What Is Clay Brody’s Real Identity?
For a few minutes towards the end of Red Eye season 2, it seems like Clay Brody will turn out to be an antagonist who had been pretending to be a friend, just like Toni Zhang back in season 1. This is particularly because Brody is revealed to actually be Charles Johnson, the estranged son of Air Marshal John Johnson, who had been mentioned earlier in the season. Johnson’s two sons, Charles and Patrick, had both chosen lives in the British military, but Charles had had a disagreement with his father after his mother’s death and left the family once and for all. The younger son, Patrick, had become a pilot in the RAF but had then lost his life in the D-300 crash.
It is now revealed that Charles Johnson had been using his middle name, ‘Clay,’ and his mother’s maiden name, ‘Brody,’ to hide his real identity from the world and also his employers at the Diplomatic Security Service. He later admits that he had kept his real identity a secret because revealing it would have instantly made him seem suspicious. After all, Pilot Patrick Johnson had been officially declared to have disobeyed orders to steer clear of the Russian submarine and therefore had been branded a traitor to the country.
For this, Patrick had not even been given an honorable burial from the government, because of which Brody has a sense of despair and frustration in himself as well. He gives all that he can, including sacrificing his career, to find actionable proof against Peterson, specifically to clear his brother’s name. Therefore, when Peterson foul-mouths Patrick at the very end of the season, Brody is almost on the verge of losing his calm and shooting the politician dead. But Hana comes to Brody’s rescue, reminding him how he too will be misunderstood just like his brother, and Brody ultimately lets Peterson be arrested by the MI5 so that he can be punished by the law.
Why are the seemingly unrelated people murdered inside the embassy?
Just like in Red Eye season 1, a number of people are killed as collateral damage this time around. While the murders had all taken place aboard the North China Airlines flight last time, they all take place inside the US Embassy in London in this season. The targets initially seem to have no connection with each other, but then once their identities are confirmed, a pattern obviously starts to take shape, and it is all connected to the D-300 airplanes. Craig Stewart worked as the chief safety officer at AM Aeronautics, the American company that had been manufacturing the carrier airplanes. Perry Lambert worked for a company that had worked on all the electronics of the planes.
The third and final victim, Ambassador Ronald Tillman himself, was also the CEO of AM Aeronautics at the time of the crash. All these three men would have listened to the contents of the Cockpit Voice Recorder had its existence been revealed. Thus, Peterson had to prevent such a scenario, not only by getting hold of the recorder but also by eliminating the threats in his way as well. He had also invited Air Marshal John Johnson to the event, knowing well that he is the grieving father of Patrick Johnson, who still does not believe that his son was at any fault. He had done so to make it seem like Johnson and his estranged son, Charles, or rather Clay Brody, were the ones vengefully killing everyone who had testified against the pilot.
Does Dr. Matthew Nolan return this season?
Dr. Matthew Nolan, the doctor who had been the subject of a grand conspiracy back in Red Eye season 1, makes a return in season 2, although he is not the romantic partner of Hana Li, as had seemed possible at the end of the first iteration. Matthew continues to be a close friend to some of the characters, as while Hana might not be in close contact with him anymore, her sister Jess very much is. When Jess and Ruth work together and retrieve the hard drive from Nicholas Martin’s house, a few officers of the army police, who are under the payroll of Peterson, stop their car and try to steal the drive.
A scuffle follows, in which Ruth suffers a dangerous gunshot wound that could be fatal if not treated quickly. With every hospital being very far from their location, Jess comes up with the idea of taking the MI5 agent to Matthew’s house, since he can be of help, being an experienced doctor. Matthew does take the women in and starts tending to Ruth’s wound, which is a testament to how much he still trusts Jess. Ultimately, Madeline gets in touch with the doctor as well, further helping him treat Ruth by providing more medicine and supplies through her agents. At the end of Red Eye season 2, Ruth survives the gunshot wound, making Dr. Matthew Nolan a hero once more, although it is Jess who does the more commendable job in this context.
