The new police procedural drama Criminal Record debuted on Apple TV Plus with two episodes at once, and the second half of that two-parter shows that some of the most promising leads are ones not worth following.
Criminal Record follows DS June Lenker (Cush Jumbo) as she investigates an anonymous phone call, one which calls into question another murder case from a decade prior that DCI Daniel Hegarty (Peter Capaldi) wrapped up with a neat little bow.
Lenker's new line of inquiry threatens to unravel said neat little bow, putting her and Hegarty at odds, all while both of them try to re-investigate the case to see if an innocent man is behind bars.
Our Criminal Record episode 2 recap below will help you catch up on any details from the episode you may have missed. Warning: spoilers ensue.
Tower fights
The second episode begins exactly where the first left of: June Lenker (Cush Jumbo) is ascending the block of flats that a body just came tumbling out of. She gets to the ninth floor, and to the flat the woman lived at. All around are signs of violence (and paint). A large man is there, and he grabs something from the table before getting away.
Lenker chases him into the elevator where they fight. The man gets the other hand and he nearly kills her before the doors open and he runs away.
Later, as she's in the hospital, Lenker's boss Roy (Ian Bonar) shows her pictures of people and she immediately identifies the man she fought. This is Silcox, a man who already has a long criminal record (roll credits?) for various other assaults. Roy pledges that they'll look into this murder and possible wrongful conviction.
Lenker's partner and son visit her in the hospital. The latter secretly takes pictures of his mom's injuries and puts them online, but she's okay with it. Once she's discharged, we see her taking codeine for the injuries, and instead of going to bed, she drives around town trying to find someone who might know Silcox.
Because of a phone call from Roy telling her about a development in the case, Lenker rushes back to the tower... where Daniel Hegarty (Peter Capaldi) is waiting. He tells her that Silcox is already the subject of a live investigation, so the new murder case will be folded into that, cutting Lenker out of the loop. Hegarty also refutes Lenker's suggestions that the dead woman was the original caller, and when she criticizes the force's inability to catch Silcox, he tells her to get some sleep.
Personal business
Later, Lenker has a meeting with the Professional Standards Department. They want to know why loads of her vehicle registration searches aren't linked to cases — while we know that it's because her mother is paranoid about anyone that parks nearby, that's illegal, so Lenker is in a bind. The detective also asks her boss to do a voice match on the two separate calls, but he says it's not their case anymore.
Ignoring this, Lenker does some more research on Errol Mathis, and goes to the church where his mother Doris (Cathy Tyson) works. However Doris thinks that Lanker is trying to frame Errol for even more and kicks her out, saying on the way that she thinks Hegarty sent Lenker.
Around this time, Hegarty meets with another of his "Sixty-Twos" Kim Cardwell, and they're clearly both investigating to see whether Silcox was linked to the original murder at all.
Later, Sonya Singh (Aysha Kala) calls Lenker to ask why the detective is pestering Doris, but Lenker won't say. They meet and Singh tells Lenker that Matthis went to school with Silcox.
That evening Hegarty goes home. He sees a smashed glass in his kitchen and the tap still running, but when he goes upstairs he sees someone is asleep and just turns off the light.
The next day Lenker and her partner go to the son's football game, and she tells her partner about the illegal vehicle searches she's being investigated for. We also learn that the mother was sectioned before, so Lenker is protecting her. However Lenker gets a call from one of the shelters she visited in her search for Silcox, and so abandons her partner and the son at the game.
The suspect... of a different murder
Lenker goes to the house of one Dawn Taylor, looking for Silcox, and this woman hints that Silcox is in the building but has taken Dawn's mother prisoner. Lenker calls in backup and waits, but sees that a commotion is going on, so rushes in to help. The building is on fire but Lenker rescues Dawn and her mother, and also stops Silcox from hanging himself. He survives and is arrested.
The morning after, Lenker's co-worker Chloe (Dionne Brown) has done her a favor by finding Maria's pathology report. In a meeting afterward between Roy, Lenker, Hegarty and another detective, they tell Lenker that Silcox admitted to Maria's murder.
Lenker wants to interview Silcox for Adelaide Burrowes' murder but Hegarty repeatedly downplays the links between the two murders. Lenker almost lets slip that she's seen the pathology report, but has to cover her tracks to stop her friend getting in trouble.
Later, Roy calls Lenker to tell her that she's been allowed to interview Silcox, as long as she doesn't mention the Burrowes case explicitly. Of course, she immediately does so and the interview is terminated straight away. Oops. As she leaves, Roy gives her the bad news: they conducted a voice analysis, and it proves that the original phone caller, and Maria, are two separate people. Silcox isn't their man.
Lenker goes back to the police station and has a meltdown. Chloe finds her and tells her there's a rumor going around that Hegarty had already done a voice analysis — he knew that Silcox wasn't their man, and let Lenker take a stand in order to embarrass her. This motivates the woman to beat Hegarty at his own game.
Later, Lenker plays the original phone recording to Singh, who points out to Lenker the one bit of good news about the two callers being separate people. It means the original caller is still alive.
