Episode two of Cooper & Fry wastes no time plunging viewers back into the quickly easing equilibrium between DC Diane Fry and DC Ben Cooper. Last week, the Leeds transplant and the local lad found themselves forced into collaboration, sparking early friction but ending in friendship. Their personal baggage remained tantalisingly unresolved – Cooper’s dogged determination to uncover the truth behind his father’s unsolved murder, and Fry’s attempt to outrun an obsessive ex. Both threads return here, simmering at the edges of a case that is far darker than the first.
The episode opens with a tense, unsettling sequence: teenager Laura Kirkham fleeing through the woods before being found dead. It’s a grim start, and it immediately casts a pall over the otherwise picturesque estate where her wealthy, dysfunctional family resides. Her father is all bark and barely contained rage, while her mother floats somewhere between denial and detachment. As Cooper and Fry peel back the layers, they discover that Laura wasn’t the only one keeping secrets – both parents harbour truths that twist the narrative in, ahem, interesting directions.
Complementing the family drama are two old-country types: the groundsman and the former gardener. Their resentment of the well-heeled newcomers, and their lack of understanding of the “the old ways”, adds local colour and a faintly folkloric edge. That tone is amplified by the episode’s supernatural thread: the legend of the “black dog,” a spectral omen some villagers believe has returned. The show once again uses folklore not as a gimmick, but as a counterpoint to Cooper and Fry’s rational, methodical policing.
While there are a few eyebrow-raising leaps of deduction, some serioysly perfunctory dialogue (we also need to talk about Lorcan Cranitch’s accent, which continues to defy classification), the story is solid – tightly plotted, intriguing, and atmospheric. The ongoing subplots deepen, too: Fry’s ex appears to be circling closer, and Cooper faces the fifth anniversary of his father’s death. And Todd Eland at the memorial? If you’re looking for suspects in Cooper’s long-running mystery, he seems a very good place to start, in my opinion.
Paul Hirons
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.