This article contains references to sexual abuse which some readers may find distressing.
With the weather cooling and autumn on its way, now's the perfect time to cosy up with a delightful new murder mystery. Except, appearances are deceiving when it comes to Channel 5's latest entry in the genre.
Based on Graham Norton's book of the same name, Forever Home hides a few more skeletons in the closet than you might expect. And we're not just talking about the body in the basement.
To begin with, Carol Crottie (Amy Nuttall) suspects that her partner Robert (Douglas Henshall) might have killed his first wife, the one who supposedly ran off with Robert's brother Neil 20 years prior. The truth is far more shocking though, and crucially, no one will guess what really happened, not even viewers who have already read the book.
Speaking to Radio Times, cast member Lewis Cope (who plays Kaden) revealed that the person responsible for the murder here "is actually different to the book".
So who killed Robert's brother Neil? What really happened? Join Radio Times as we venture down into the basement and find out who is the real culprit in Channel 5's Forever Home.
Forever Home ending explained: Who is the killer?
The final episode kicks off with the aftermath of Moira Crottie's (Denise Welch) arrest. But something's still not adding up (and it would be pretty weird for the show to suddenly end now, right?).
Joan, who is very much alive, is suddenly clearing out Robert's home, packing up boxes to give away. Her daughter Sallie (Jenny Walser) isn't best pleased given that Joan hasn't been much of a mother over the past two decades. But for some reason, she's particularly mad about her old ballet tutu suddenly showing up again.
Dan (Shane Zaza) will hopefully be a better parent though now that his surrogate, Martha (Aimée Kelly), has just given birth. His partner Kaden might not be in the picture much longer though after he randomly kidnapped Martha in the previous episode and just made everything worse.
Honestly, it's one thing after another with this lot.
Next, Sallie watches as Patrick's wife Anna throws Patrick (James Baxter) out of his house following the very public outing of his affair with Sallie. Here, we learn that Patrick has a "tiny p***k", which, while not relevant to the murder mystery, is funny nonetheless. Although this does beg the question; what did these women see in such a cheating lowlife in the first place?
The police confirm that Moira's scarf was wrapped up with Neil's dead body, so things aren't looking good for her. Carol tells Dan, who also happens to be a police officer, that all the evidence against her mother is circumstantial. She believes that Joan was the one who killed Neil, not Moira, and that's why she abandoned the family when she did.
Dan lets slip that the murder weapon left a strange impression on Neil's skull, a geometric pattern mathematicians refer to as the Fibonacci sequence.
Carol visits Joan on the hunt for evidence, and when she realises that Robert's first wife has taken boxes of evidence to a local antique shop, she runs there with her dad to see if she can find a murder weapon that matches Dan's description. Why Joan didn't just burn the evidence or throw it away is beyond me.
Sure enough, Carol finds the missing pinecone-shaped newel post cap from Joan’s bannister, the one that was used to kill Neil.
Patrick's kid Emily briefly goes missing, and Sallie finds her almost immediately, bringing the child back to Anne who laments them both ever liking Patrick in the first place. The whole thing takes about 10 seconds to wrap up, which makes me wonder why they bothered including this in the first place.
While sifting through more evidence that Joan tried to hide (very badly), Carol comes across a shocking tape that changes everything.
At the same time, Dan finds new evidence on a postcard (that he should have spotted sooner), evidence that enables him and the other cops to get a search warrant for number 7. In the basement, they find an empty freezer, the one where Neil's body was kept, along with blood splatter using UV lights.
On a car ride with Kaden, Carol reveals what she saw on that tape. It turns out Neil was sexually abusing Sallie, making videos of her in that ballerina tutu mentioned earlier.
Carol believes Joan must have killed Neil to protect her daughter, which leaves Carol with quite the conundrum. She doesn't want to turn Joan into the police for saving Sallie, but if she doesn't do anything, then her own mother will rot in jail for a crime she didn't commit.
Kaden freaks out, not because this has all come as a surprise to him, but because it was all his fault, apparently. "It was me…"
Walking along with Carol, Kaden reveals that he was playing down in the basement one day as a kid when he came across a file. Inside were disturbing photos of Sallie that Neil, his uncle, had shot.
Not realising just how disgusting this was, little Kaden showed his mother the pictures. She vomited and then sent Kaden to a friend's house.
Later that day, Kaden snuck back in to retrieve his footy book, only to hear his mother and Neil fighting in the basement. Neil was strangling Joan so Kaden smashed him over the head and stabbed him in the eye with a protruding nail.
"You were just a little boy protecting his mother," says Carol.
All this time, Kaden had no idea that his actions actually resulted in Neil's death. Joan kept that from the boy to protect him.
Sallie and Dan arrive then. Sally remembers the abuse Neil put her through while Dan stands there stunned.
"Maybe no one needs to know," Carol says to him. "Haven’t they been through enough?"
After she convinces Dan to keep quiet, Carol throws the murder weapon into the river so no one will ever know the truth about Kaden's involvement. Let's just hope they can figure out a way to free her own mother then. You know, given she's still the prime suspect and all…
Carol meets her husband Robert at the care home where he lives these days. His dementia seems to have got worse, but he's still lucid enough to discuss the kids. And there they make a deal.
"I’d do anything for them, Carol. And I'd do anything for you… I’ve got nothing left to lose."
We then jump to Joan speaking with the police about what happened. Except, Kaden isn't mentioned in this version of events. Instead, it was apparently Robert who killed Neil because of what he did to Sallie. Moira and Carol corroborate this account, and Dan is clearly in on it too.
It's the perfect cover-up, because Robert is unfit to stand trial due to his dementia. That means Moira is vindicated and Kaden doesn't have to go to prison for protecting his sister from their evil, abusive uncle.
At the end, life has gone somewhat back to normal, although it's clear Robert's mind is lost now more than ever. Still, Carol is teaching again and Kaden has managed to sell the house pretty quick.
Dan brings the baby and says goodbye to Kaden who is flying off somewhere to pastures new. That means he won't be joining Dan in Newcastle where the pair were supposed to raise their child together.
The scene, and the show as a whole, ends with Carol looking up at the house where she once lived, the house where Neil's body had been hidden for all those years. And with that, Forever Home comes to an end. There is justice, but there is also heartache and trauma, neither of which can be fixed so quickly.
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