Criminal Record – Season 1 Episode 2 “Two Calls” Recap & Review

Two Calls

Criminal Record Episode 2 begins with June checking Maria’s pulse, but it is confirmed she is dead. June races over to the block of flats and gets the lift to the 9th floor. When she reaches the 9th floor, she enters the apartment where the murder took place and finds signs of damage and paint everywhere. She spots a white man in there, follows him to the lift and enters. She tries to fight him, but he grabs her and assaults her.

Later on, June is in hospital, and Chambers turns up to inform her that the man who ran away is called Clive Silcox. She checks his criminal record and learns of his history of sexual assaults. She plans to pursue this man for Maria’s murder and to prove Errol is not guilty. Chambers assures June that they will catch Clive before long. 

Leo arrives at the hospital with June’s son, and both of them are very concerned for her. However, her son takes a few pictures of her injuries and posts them on social media. June is initially not happy about this until someone in the comments calls her a ‘badass.’ June gets discharged from the hospital and is immediately on the case. She tries to track down Clive’s whereabouts.

Hegarty takes charge of the investigation and decides to arrest Clive for murdering Maria. June tells him that Maria is the caller who claimed Errol was innocent, and she hopes to investigate this connection to the old murder. Hegarty doesn’t listen to June’s request, and she returns to her car to find a racist remark spray painted on it.

Back in the office, June is told to do other work and back off the case. She doesn’t listen and instead chooses to go to meet with Errol’s mother, Doris Mathis, at her workplace. Doris doesn’t trust the police and is defensive with her, mentioning her ‘bull s**t radar.’ She tells her to get out but before she leaves, Doris tells June she thinks Hegarty sent her, and says he lied and refused to listen when she claimed mistakes were made in Errol’s case. She says to tell him she’s still here and fighting for her son. 

At the station, June asks DC Chloe Summers for a favour concerning the murder case. She wants to see the pathology report to check for similarities between Maria and Adelaide’s murders.

June meets with Sonya, and she tells the detective that she spoke with Doris, who reveals to her that Clive and Errol went to school together, and she knew the family. She thanks her, and Sonya leaves. 

June gets annoyed with Leo about his ignorance of the racism in her professional life after she tells him about the investigation into her searches while at her son’s football match. June receives a call about Clive’s possible location and walks away from the match. 

She follows the lead and visits the house of a woman whom she believes has a link to Clive. The woman acts in a strange way, which makes June suspicious. She calls in a sighting of Clive at the location. Back-up is 6 minutes away, and as she waits in the car, she spots signs of a possible assault, bangs on the door and accesses a neighbour’s garden to chase it up. She climbs over the fence and rushes into the house which is now on fire. She rescues 2 women and stops Clive before he can escape. Hegarty turns up at the scene of the fire and acknowledges June. 

At the station, Chloe secretly hands over the pathology report to Maria. Before June can read it all, Hegarty arrives at her office. He attends a meeting with June and Chambers and it’s revealed that Clive confessed to Maria’s murder and will be imprisoned. However, June wants to interview Clive about Adelaide’s murder. Hegarty asks what new information June has on Adelaide’s murder, but he dismisses all of her new information and mentions unconscious bias, claiming June is biased because Errol is black. 

Hegarty suspects June has read the pathology report, but she denies it and claims she was first responder, so she checked her vitals and saw the injuries for herself. 

June and Leo play football with her son in the garden at home when her phone rings. It’s Chambers, and he tells her she is clear to interview Clive. But discussing the murder of Adelaide is off-limits. 

June meets with Clive in the interview room, and asks him about Errol, ignoring Chambers’ orders. Hegarty and Chambers are behind the scenes watching the interview take place. They interrupt the interview to claim nothing ties Clive to the murder of Adelaide, and they call it off. 

June is screaming in the bathroom at the police station. She is interrupted by Jasmine who tells her of a rumour Hegarty had fudged the report on the 2 callers. He played her, and she thinks she walked right into the trap. She claims she will get back up and keep investigating. 

The episode ends with Sonya and June listening to the original call from the woman in the phone box. She tells her not to reveal she heard the call because it will destroy her. It is revealed the woman who made the call might actually be alive, and they are going to find her to prove Errol was innocent. 

The Episode Review

This was a decent follow-up to the first episode. A lot of moving parts make this one rather frantic, but entertaining nevertheless. This show does well to change the dynamic of crime shows and have the two main leads battling against each other rather than act as partners on a murder case.

Capaldi is very much the supporting player as Jumbo takes the protagonist role and excels in it. It’ll be interesting to see where it all leads over the next few episodes.