Episode eight of Down Cemetery Road picks up immediately from last week’s cliffhanger, with Zoe quite literally being blown hither and thither by Amos on the beach at the secret island base.
Except…
The opening moments are striking but also oddly baffling. We see Sarah and Dinah coming ashore in their own dinghy… and then Zoe simply pops up out of nowhere. Alive. Uninjured enough to crack on. We’re never really told how she survived the explosions that ended episode seven, and that lack of explanation sets the tone for what becomes a slightly strange, occasionally frustrating finale. It’s the first of several “hang on, what?” moments that are never fully smoothed over.
Still, the core trio are reunited at last – Sarah, Zoe and Dinah together again, though very much still on the run. Amos has also made it ashore, and after a nudge from C, is persuaded to finish the job. Meanwhile, Hamza, absent entirely from the island episode, suddenly becomes a major player here. Which is a shame, because despite Adeel Akhtar being one of my favourite actors, Hamza as written is just too dim to take seriously.
Everything converges on a remote church in the middle of nowhere, where the episode splits neatly into two confrontations: Zoe versus Amos, and Sarah versus Hamza. It’s well-staged, tense, and hands the victories decisively to the women. Fair enough – but blimey. Amos has been built up throughout this series as a ruthless, highly skilled professional hitman, and the speed with which Zoe ultimately takes him down feels wildly out of step with everything we’ve been shown before.
That’s the wider problem with this finale: it feels rushed and underwhelming. When everyone gets back to London, they simply… drift apart. Zoe heads off to arrange her husband’s funeral and keep the agency going. Sarah is left to pick up the pieces and work out what comes next. Dinah is picked up by Downey’s sister and heads off to her new life. No wonder Sarah looks so alone and confused at the station – everyone just wanders off.
I also struggled with Zoe as a character. Much as I love Emma Thompson, and it was undeniably cool to see her back on TV, Zoe is so acerbic and emotionally remote that she’s hard to truly connect with. That distance is never really bridged.
Perhaps most disappointing is the lack of consequences. Hamza survives, last seen stumbling around the Scottish Highlands with a blown-off hand, while C sidesteps accountability entirely and slips neatly into the private sector, with Talia left to tidy up his mess. (Props to Lydia Leonard, who’s really good as the exasperated defence minister.)
In the end, this is a disappointing conclusion to a flawed but generally enjoyable series. Early on, there was a sense this might be an Oxford-based, Morse-for-the-21st-century affair. It wasn’t. Instead, it became a high-octane thriller with some genuinely strong characters – Amos, Downey and especially Sarah, with Ruth Wilson as ever being brilliant. But tonally it was all over the place, and keeping Zoe and Sarah apart for so long never quite paid off.
Paul Hirons
Episode review
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Series review
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Down Cemetery Road is broadcast in the UK on Apple TV+
READ MORE: OUR EPISODES ONE AND TWO REVIEW
READ MORE: OUR EPISODE THREE REVIEW
READ MORE: OUR EPISODE FOUR REVIEW
READ MORE: OUR EPISODE FIVE REVIEW