The Shetland ending isn’t one fans will forget in a hurry as the team unravelled a web of deceit and a haunting family secret.
Following in the wake of Douglas Henshall leaving Shetland it was hardly surprising that there were big expectations for Shetland season 8. However, the series’ new arrival, Ashley Jenson’s DI Ruth Calder, more than delivered as she joined DI Alison ‘Tosh’ McIntosh, DC Sandy Wilson and Sgt Billy McCabe to investigate what happened to witness Ellen Quinn. After seeing a shooting in London and getting involved with gangs, Ellen had fled to Shetland where she was raised.
Only it didn’t prove to be a safe haven for her and she was soon found dead. If you haven’t discovered how to watch Shetland yet now is the time and if you have then you might have a few questions about the Shetland ending which featured one of the biggest investigative twists yet.
*Warning: Spoilers ahead*
Shetland ending explained: Who killed Ellen?
No matter how many of us Shetland fans consider ourselves to be experts at identifying clues, few viewers could’ve predicted the intensity of the emotional fall-out and deception that were finally laid bare in the Shetland ending. Throughout season 8 the team had firstly been trying to find key witness Ellen Quinn and later to identify who killed her after she was found strangled on Shetland. Initially (and totally understandably) the lead suspects were the gang members. However, it soon became clear that the killer was far closer to home.
Ellen had gone home the night she died - something her family had lied about. It emerged that Ellen’s uncle Bobby was her biological father and she’d revealed this to her father Kieran the night she died and he’d killed her. He’d found her walking down the driveway and after going for a drive, he’d been determined to take her to the police to tell them about the mess she’d found herself in with the gang. Angry, Ellen had refused and he’d asserted his authority, telling him he was her dad, to which she responded with the earth-shattering bombshell that he wasn’t.
“She always had a sharp tongue,” Kieran told Ruth. “She always knew just how to hurt me. I thought that’s what this is, she’s just lashing out.”
Unfortunately for Kieran - and ultimately for Ellen - he soon realised from the “look in her eyes” that it was true. After Ellen’s grandfather Kenny Bain had died, Grace had been trapped in a world of grief and locked herself in her room and wouldn’t come out. She left her children to process their own pain alone. Stella and Bobby had slept together after drinking one night and she’d fallen pregnant with Ellen but had never told Kieran the truth.
The Bain family gathered each year to remember Kenny’s life on the anniversary of his death and it was around the last occasion that Bobby had told Ellen the truth about him being her father as she was the “only thing in [his] life [he] was proud of”.
Horrified, she’d left for London and blocked Bobby’s number. When Kieran heard it from Ellen that night he had snapped completely, as we saw via flashback in the Shetland ending. Ellen had gone on to mock him, asking him how he could have been so “stupid” not to have seen the truth in front of him. She even pointed to her own features and declared, "Look at me. Look at me! You see this, this is pure Bain!"
Kieran strangled Ellen in a moment of pure rage and humiliation and as he recounted the moment to Ruth, he sobbed and broke down, protesting that he’d “tried to help her”. After Kieran was arrested, Tosh explained to Ruth in the Shetland ending that Stella and her and Kieran’s son Rory had left their farm and were staying with a friend on the mainland.
She added that Procurator Fiscal Harry wasn’t sure what charges would be brought against Grace and Bobby but both of them were also arrested in the Shetland season 9 finale. It’s possible that they could be charged with perverting the course of justice as the information they withheld obstructed the team’s investigation into Ellen’s death.
Was Cal murdered?
As we’ve come to expect from the atmospheric series in the days of DI Jimmy Perez, the main investigation isn’t the only plot-thread that kept us intrigued throughout season 8 building to the Shetland ending. This series Ruth’s personal life and confronting her past on Shetland was huge and she reconnected with her old boyfriend Cal after arriving back on Shetland.
In a typically unexpected twist, Cal died in episode 4 and there had been some subtle hints that maybe his car crash hadn’t been an accident. Eventually, though, it was confirmed beyond doubt that Cal wasn’t murdered after all and that Bobby looking at the car hadn't meant he was responsible for the crash.
The day he'd died, Cal had a discussion with Bobby about Ruth’s suspicions that her late father had once had an affair with Stella. Later, the DI found out that this supposed affair never happened and it was revealed instead that Ruth’s dad had been offering comfort to Stella after she’d confided in him about her and Bobby sleeping together. But Bobby hadn’t killed Cal and it was eventually confirmed in the Shetland ending that Cal had been over the alcohol limit and had drugs in his system, which had likely led to him crashing his car.
Is DI Ruth Calder staying in Shetland?
It was established very early on in Shetland season 8 that Ruth was not a fan of Shetland and had only reluctantly returned as she was so determined to find Ellen. Coming home brought back a lot of memories she wanted to forget and Ruth had a difficult relationship with her brother Alan, who’d taken over as minister at their father’s old church. In the Shetland ending, though, things seemed to be looking better for her.
The DI looked like she'd come to terms with a lot of the things that she found painful about being back home. Walking through the streets of Lerwick, Ruth told Tosh that she and Alan were “sort of back on speaking terms”. Ruth had also found a way to sort of forgive her father Edward even if she will never fully be able to move past him having an affair with Jean whilst her mother was dying.
The DI explained to Tosh that she had a load of leave left to take at work and had decided to extend her time on Shetland.
Whether or not that means she’d be remaining long-term remains to be seen but given how she’s finally become an integrated part of the team working alongside Tosh, Sandy and Billy, it’s probably highly likely. Fans are also now used to Ruth after what happened to Jimmy Perez in Shetland and she admitted herself to Tosh that even though she still believes Shetland is “too small” and the “weather is awful”, it’s also home to her.
Shetland series 1-8 are available to watch now via BBC iPlayer.
