City On Fire – Episode 6 “Annus Horriblis” Recap & Review

Annus Horriblis

Episode 6 of City on Fire begins with William sinking in the water. He’s not dead though, as he inexplicably survives long enough for the boat to disappear from view and the night to close in around him. Anyway, he swims to shore, takes a boat and heads out to salvation.

Meanwhile, Mercer is desperate to find William and when a body is taken out of the burning apartment on a stretcher, a hand falls out and he realizes this is Bruno. Detectives Parsa and McFadden confirm that this wasn’t an accident and they’ve chalked this up to be an arson attack, covering up whatever William was working on with his mural.

Nicky locks himself in his room and won’t talk to anyone. Charlie though heads in, despite the warnings from the crew. “Misery loves company, boy.” He sneers, as Charlie points out that he knows about the photos, and his ties with Sam. Apparently Nicky loved her too but as for Sam, her feelings were conflicted. She loved Nicky for a while but then that dwindled, due to the accident that completely broke them.

Amory shows up to see Regan, who’s also joined by Mercer, butting heads with the sleazy businessman. He wants to know what the police have found out so far, and he asks questions in rather suspicious ways. When he gets nowhere, Amory heads out and makes a call to Nicky, who’s obviously indisposed given he’s drinking himself into oblivion.

McFaddem goes over what she knows so far and believes Amory is the link here and they should investigate him. With Sam’s life hanging in the balance and William missing, the Chief is pushed into a corner and he reluctantly allows the detectives to get a warrant and investigate him.

Keith tries to play the big man with Mercer by not exposing their kids to William, but of course he’s not really in any position to be making those sort of demands. Regan and Mercer know precisely where William is though, given his family have their own island off the mainland and that’s where William is likely to be.

Flashbacks show more of William and Regan’s past, including how they used to be so close. Not only that, but it also hints at a company merger in the background of all this, not to mention Amory weaseling his way into extorting a whole bunch of different executives.

William has ties with a guy called Jacob, who knows all about Amory’s sleaziness, including how he set up Regan with a young man at a party, forcing himself on her in the name of “having a good time”.

Right the middle of this, these flashes show how Regan and William fell out during that same night, how he lost a place on the board and Regan did nothing to help, unwilling to put their father’s life on the line and throw herself (and William) under the bus in the process.

However, that horrific sexual encounter at the party had consequences. Regan ended up having a secret baby that she’s never told anyone about. In fact, Amory has a file on everyone including Nicky, who has pyromania and was recommended to join the “LH Project”.

Before William can race back to tell everyone, Mercer and Regan show. Mercer breaks the awful news about Bruno and the pair embrace. At the same time, Detective Parsa learns the horrific truth about the explosives, including how the material stolen from Sam’s father is so intense, it could actually take down an entire city block.

Nicky intends to take down Amory with this, while McFadden checks the video footage from the party. In doing so, she notices that Amory was actually missing during the time that Sam was shot in the park, and believes that he may be responsible.

As the episode closes out, Charlie decides not to follow Nicky anymore, realizing that the guy is absolutely insane and just wants to blow stuff up with his huge bomb. He slips out from the hideout, chased all the way by Sol. Charlie manages to scramble out to a payphone, where he tells the police that the group are making a bomb, and gives them the location too. He urges them to hurry.

The Episode Review

So this episode does shed more light on the past, including how Regan has a secret baby, the details with Amory and of course, more of the police investigation. But lets be real here – we’re 6 episodes into this show, countless days after the incident in the park and they’re only just looking at CCTV footage? Really? And I know I’ve mentioned it in every recap thus far but there’s still no mention of the urinated trousers and any sort of proper search in the park.

This feeds back into the larger story which is stretched out unnecessarily and could have done with much tighter editing – and better writing. It’s a shame too because there’s glimmers of a better show here but it’s lost in a sea of mediocrity and poor scripting that drags this story out way too much. This one is not getting any better.