Sleeping Dog – Season 1 Episode 3 “Connecting” Recap & Review

Connecting

Episode 3 of Sleeping Dog begins with Atlas spiraling out of control. Tinka is in real trouble. He rings Lenni and learns that she’s at home but Tinka is on her own. Atlas promises to take care of her, but she, in turn, rings Atlas’ ex associate, Zaric, and lets him know what’s going on.

Atlas heads to his house, where he finds Jurgen outside. He wants answers over who gave his name, and believes that Atlas is part of this big conspiracy. When Atlas finds an opening, he takes the gun and learns that Tinka is apparently okay… although she is in Jurgen’s car. A chase ensues when Zaric speeds to the scene, as Jurgen races up the streets to escape him. When Jurgen is far enough away, he hands over a chess piece to Tinka and looks visibly scared, telling her to hand it over to her father and keep it safe.

Zaric eventually finds Tinka and brings her home, with the latter remaining silent about the chess piece. Atlas meanwhile, heads back to see Jule, where Lenni rings and lets him know that Zaric has brought her home, because she can rely on him. A for Jurgen, he races back to his apartment and is paranoid and suspicious, believing people are watching him. In fact, in the morning he packs up his gear and heads out.

As for Tinka, she heads into her room where she examines the chess piece. It turns out, it’s actually hiding a USB drive inside. While she holds onto this, we cut back to Jule who happens to be getting closer to the truth. Among the lip reading lines, is a clue that links back to Chief Judge Regina Echtersweiler. She moved up from regional court, and interestingly the role she took would have been Herres if he hadn’t been shot by Mussa Basher.

Atlas heads to the crime scene and begins examining the area, where he finds a stray hair, While he holds onto the evidence, Jule also learns that a 9mm gun was used to kill in both cases. With the information she’s found thus far, she speaks to Tom at the office and believes that Atlas messed up back in the day. However, thanks to his memory loss, it’s caused problems filling in the blanks.

Within both cases, the murderer has left behind DNA at the crime scene. One would say that Mussa killed them both but Jule theorizes that all of this was a set-up and in reality, someone else is pinning all of this on Mussa. Tom doesn’t agree initially, given what they know about Idris and About, and he nonchalantly shrugs it off, believing both cases are wrapped up and done. Well, flashes to the past seem to confirm Jule’s theory, while Mike Atlas left his home after the case and even hit Tinka’s bike on the road. This is what led to him leaving home and sleeping on the streets.

Adebayo heads to the hospital and learns child protective services have taken the concussed child, Lottie, away. She tracks down the address and hands over the teddy she’s bought her. Adebayo contemplates whether to adopt Lottie but before she can really think about it, the team are called out to Abou’s girlfriend’s place where they begin searching for evidence. In doing so, Zaric finds a gun wrapped up next to the bed. She has no idea how it got there though, visibly worried by what this means.

Atlas meets Zaric and warns him against getting involved, telling him to stay away from his family. Lenni though is not having this, and she speaks to Atlas, urging him to get therapy to work through his issues. He’s closed off to the world as a result of the Mussa case and he won’t talk to her about it. Atlas urges her to give him a bit more time to get his stuff together before he gets professional help.

When Atlas returns to the canal, he finds canal girl passed out. He recognizes the stoned look, given he himself used to take the same pills she’s currently dosed up on back in the day. As she helps clear up, memories from that night start to filter back. They’re still just fragments at this point, but it’s clear that his team are a key part of this investigation.

Jule meets Jurgen down by the river and points out that someone was in his apartment sniffing around. “They’re everywhere,” Jurgen says frantically when he finds out, deciding that they can only talk in private. Jurgens leads Jule to his car in an empty parking lot where he points out that he was hired 9 months back to shadow Judges Herres by his wife. She thought he was having an affair but there was no indication of that being the case. He handed over the photos he took of that time and then left.

Jurgen didn’t think much of it until he head to Amis Club six weeks back on another case. There, he happened to be standing in front of Chiara (Judge Herres’ supposed wife) who is actually a prostitute. She didn’t recognize him but why would a prostitute want Jurgen to follow Herres around?

Jurgen believes the Russians are involved and he’s erratic and out of control, believing that he’s next on the death list. And while he talks, someone suddenly comes nonchalantly up beside the car and shoots him in the head. A blood spattered and afraid Jule runs out the parking lot, scared and shocked, as the killer opens the door and takes the business card wedged in Jurgen’s hand.

The Episode Review

The entire murder case is getting more interesting and we’re getting closer to the truth now too. It seems the position of Chief Judge is a key, pivotal part of this case, while the murder of Jurgen seems to indicate he knows too much, hence why he was killed.

This Zaric character is a very suspicious player in all of this, and he must be involved in some way, otherwise his scenes alongside Adebayo are just completely pointless. In fact, the latter’s subplot feels crowbarred into this story and it has absolutely no correlation to what’s happening.

The shocking ending to this episode is enough to stick with this one for the time being though, which leaves the door wide open for the rest of the series.