Angela Black – Season 1 Episode 1 Recap & Review

The Stranger

Episode 1 of Angela Black begins with four friends drinking wine and chatting. An ordinary night for some but secrets lurk inside these walls.

Angela and Olivier appear to have the perfect marriage; laughing, joking and allowing stories to flow freely with friends. When they’re alone though, Olivier and Angela butt heads over the latter missing out on an important lunch. Olivier is convinced that Angela wanted to embarrass him, eventually grabbing her and beating the woman off-screen.

Make-up goes some way to hide the purple bruises under Angela’s eye but a cut lip is harder to hide. So naturally Angela uses an excuse, claiming Sam (her son) swung the door in her face.

While out that night, Angela is approached by a guy called Ed. With the kids at a sleepover, she understandably doesn’t fancy entertaining Olivier. Instead she confides in this stranger, telling him about her cut lip and how she got into a fight (being sure to amiss the details surrounding her husband of course)

Making a bold decision, Angela packs up her things in a suitcase and decides to leave. Only, just before walking out the door, Olivier shows up and stands in her way. He pleads with her that he’ll be better, but this merry-go-round of broken promises falls on deaf ears. Until Olivier mentions their kids, that is. Defeated, Angela heads back upstairs.

In the morning, Angela awakens to find an envelope full of money under the pillow. Inside is a whole stack of cash. Pushing that aside for now, Angela heads out to grab her kids from the sleepover but notices a car following her. The driver happens to be Ed Harrison, the stranger from before.

At the park, he catches up with Angela and claims he was hired by Olivier to follow him. According to Ed, Olivier wants a divorce and full custody of the kids, with Ed hired to find any dirt on Angela. Ed knows Olivier is a nasty piece of work and warns Angela, telling her she needs to get a lawyer and protect herself.

Angela isn’t convinced until he mentions Edgewater. It certainly unnerves her, as Ed presses on and mentions a divorce specialist called Kieron Farwell. This certainly plays on her mind, especially that night when Angela checks his phone and notices multiple calls to Farwell. This seems to reinforce the worst.

The next day, Ed waits for Angela outside in the park. Apparently Olivier wants to meet, and Ed is concerned that she may have spoke up. Angela obviously tells him the truth, and mentions the number found on his phone. Well, with the money Olivier left her, Angela decides to hire the same man to watch Olivier and dig up details on him.

Ed refuses, as Angela realizes he’s keeping secrets from her. Quite what though, remains to be seen.

That night, Ed shows up at Angela’s backdoor. Apparently he met Olivier earlier, who has decided that she needs to be killed. Before he goes, Ed mentions how Olivier was having an affair with a colleague, Yuki Okubo. When she threatened to go public, Olivier had her killed. Ed implores Angela to check his suitcase and hands over a burner to keep in touch. When Ed leaves, Angela is left with a lot to think about.

The Episode Review

ITV’s latest thriller has been advertised pretty heavily over the past few weeks and based on the first episode, it’s easy to see why. This moody thriller certainly has some interesting characters, an intriguing premise and a good atmosphere.

Logically though, I’m still not convinced that Olivier would be able to win full custody of the kids. After beating Angela up and allegedly killing one of his colleagues at work, how would a court side with him if they dug into his shady past? Especially when Angela has a job and looks after the kids for longer.

Still, it’s early days yet and it’s unclear how all these puzzle pieces fit together. In fact, it could even be that Ed is completely lying and all of this is a ploy to mess with Angela’s head.

The first episode certainly starts things off promisingly, although we’re reserving judgment for the rest of the season before we can definitively claim this one is worth its weight in gold. After all, this is ITV!