This article contains references to sexual assault that some may find distressing.
ITV1’s thriller The Blame has ended with more twists than a theme park full of rollercoasters.
But did DI Emma Crane (Michelle Keegan) discover the identity of Sophie Maden’s (Matilda Feeman) killer?
With 30 minutes to go, it appeared to be case closed with the murderer captured and Emma having lived to tell the tale.
But with so much screen time left to fill, this six-parter wasn’t done with viewers just yet…
After turning up at the home of tech specialist Neil Shergill (Nigel Boyle) in search of help, Emma soon realised that he was the one responsible for drugging and raping a series of women whose complaints hadn’t been pursued by fellow officers at Wakestead police station.
Having been lurking on the pernicious messaging group, Neil took advantage of his access and assaulted those who’d approached the police expecting help.
How did Emma escape from danger?
She almost didn’t. Her drink having been spiked, Emma attempted to crawl to safety, but appeared set to meet her maker, with Neil telling her ominously to “go to sleep”.
But just as she was about to lose consciousness, Emma realised that her partner DI Tom Radley (Douglas Booth) had burst into the house and was now confronting Neil. Emma then awoke in hospital and learned that Tom had overpowered Neil and killed him, using what was deemed to be “appropriate force”.
At first, it seemed so, with Sophie seen in flashback also visiting Neil at his home, under the impression that he would be helping her report the officers who’d behaved abhorrently in her police interview. But she soon realised that, rather than wanting to come to her aid, Neil wanted to cause her harm.
Sophie was then seeing racing upstairs and trying to escape through a bedroom window, only for Neil to realise what was going on. Audiences were left, in that moment at least, believing that Sophie’s attempt to flee had been unsuccessful…
Was there more to come?
Oh, absolutely. As Emma recovered in the present day from her ordeal, snippets of what happened when Tom forced his way into Neil’s house began to flash through her mind, in particular a memory of him frantically searching through drawers while he made a desperate call for back-up. Meanwhile, Tom’s former police partner Kapil Manek (Vikash Bhai) was arrested for planting the mobile phone at Tom’s property. But why, wondered Emma, had Kapil done this?
Emma decided to speak to Kapil, who made it plain that Tom was a highly ambitious operator who stood by and did nothing while he was being subjected to workplace bullying. His career already stagnating, Kapil was then accused of exposing the identity of a confidential informant – a move that had been orchestrated by Neil.
Tom, not wanting to have his own career damaged by association with Kapil, had convinced Neil to alter the paperwork, so that his mentor would have to resign.
Deciding to act, Emma asked for Tom’s suit from the day of Sophie’s murder to be rechecked for DNA – hers! An unorthodox move, you’d think. But when it was revealed that Emma’s DNA was not on Tom’s suit, she knew that he must have bought a new one, as due to their closeness, traces of her ought to have been present. So why had Tom decided to replace his work clothes?
Emma decided to confront Tom, one of the few people she considered a genuine ally. She knew, deep down, that the only reason why Tom would have had to dispose of his suit was if he’d been in the woods with Sophie on the day she was killed. Left with little option to explain himself, Tom did just that, with the awful truth then spilling out…
OK, so Tom knew that Neil was a reprehensible human being and had even worked out that he had raped Marissa Andrei. But aware that the system often fails women who report sexual assault and knowing that a serving officer was to blame, Tom chose his own career over the victim and let Neil remain at large.
He’d justified this by convincing himself that the rape was an isolated incident. A warped notion to begin with, But Tom also went to the extreme of ensuring there was some reciprocation when it came to the favour, with Neil then getting Kapil to resign as a way of acknowledging the debt he owed to Tom for looking the other way.
Had Neil also killed Sophie?
No, Sophie had managed to escape Neil’s house, but before doing so, had found the so-called trophy photos he’d kept. After showing them to Tom at a meet-up in the woods and stating that she was going to identify Neil, Tom knew that he too would be caught up in the crime, having known something about what his colleague was capable of.
In a bid to save his own skin, Tom then did what so many others had done before him and made Sophie question the validity of her accusation, even going so far as to victim-blame her for “flirting” with her skating coach.
When Sophie then tried to flee, she stumbled, hit her head on a fallen log and appeared to have been knocked unconscious.
After Tom caught up with her, he realised that Sophie was still breathing and hit her with a rock, killing her.
Emma, now emotionally wrecked by what she’d discovered, realised that when Tom had been pulling open drawers at Neil’s house, he’d been searching for phone records that could have connected him to Sophie’s death. In a tearful state, she made the arrest put in a call on her walkie-talkie for support. This looked to be the full stop on the Sophie Maden investigation.
But in all the drama, you could be forgiven if you’d forgotten about DC Lewis Brimah (Nathan Mensah), who was seen in closing scenes, picking up Emma’s clothes that had been used to compare her DNA with what was on Tom’s suit. Only, what was this? A copy of one of the photocopied trophy photos in the pocket of Emma’s jacket!
What was the relevance of this?
Emma, had, of course, concealed the image earlier in the series after being convinced by Tom not to speak out about the fact that they’d planted incriminatory evidence to catch a rapist during a prior investigation.
As it turned out, they’d got the wrong guy convicted, with Neil the true perpetrator. But Emma had acted in the way she had due to what she perceived to be limitations in the legal system. She had, though, claimed no knowledge of there being any additional photos to Lewis.
So, will Lewis act on what he’s found? Will Emma’s own misdemeanour be exposed? Viewers were left having to make up their own minds, but there was little doubt that, in a toxic workplace culture such as this, nearly everyone had ended up either tainted or corrupted in some fashion.
The Blame is available to watch in full on ITVX.
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