Six Four landed on ITV1 this Sunday, and we’ve got to admit episode 1 had us hooked from the start.
The four-part series originally aired exclusively on ITVX in March 2023, but now gets the Sunday night primetime slot it deserves.
The opening scene is like a punch in the guts. Not content with being on BBC One at 9pm in Boiling Point, Vinette Robinson also appears in Six Four as mum Michelle O’Neill. The former police officer and her husband DC Chris O’Neill, who is still on the force, must identify the body of a dead girl.
It’s a sledgehammer start to the series. But luckily for Michelle and Chris, the dead girl is not their missing daughter Olivia. We learn that their daughter has vanished without a trace.
Glasgow detective Chris O’Neill is devastated, as his wife Michelle goes to London to search for her. Chris is then approached by a journalist about a cold case involving another missing girl. Could they be linked?
Here are all the questions we have after watching gripping thriller Six Four.
***Warning: spoilers from episode 1 of Six Four ahead***
Six Four episode 1 questions: Where is their daughter Olivia?
Olivia has been missing for three weeks. This is all we know. Chris and Michelle’s daughter left her phone charging at home and vanished. Michelle even searches the faces of the homeless girls living on the streets for her.
In an uncomfortable conversation with his brother, who he clearly isn’t close to, Chris (Trainspotting star Kevin McKidd) said: “Nothing happened. I don’t know why she left. She just left.”
Talking to Jim Mackie, Chris explained: “She went to Central Station and took a train to Edinburgh. We saw it on the CCTV. And then she disappeared. She didn’t have her bank card on her, or her phone. We went to all the shelters, the hospitals, made flyers… But we haven’t heard from her in three weeks. Not even a phone call.”
Is Olivia’s disappearance linked to a cold case?
Freelance journalist Sam talked to Chris about a cold case involving a missing girl called Julie Mackie. She disappeared 16 years before and “was all over the papers at the time”. Although Chris didn’t work on the case, his brother Philip (Andrew Whipp) did.
Chris told her: “It was a long time ago. It wasn’t good, because they never found the girl. They didn’t get to the bottom of it, and she’s still missing.”
Julie’s dad Jim Mackie, played by James Cosmo, believed his daughter had been kidnapped. Sam revealed she has information that Jim received a phone call to the house from the kidnapper, but the police covered it up. And Chris’ brother was part of it. He certainly seemed twitchy about it when Chris asked him.
Are the police “corrupt”, and is any of this linked to Olivia’s disappearance? And will journalist Sam blackmail Chris to get info? After all, she could easily blab about their relationship to each other.
Chris started to look into the disappearance of Julie Mackie, and discovers that her dad Jim Mackie was a person of interest. But was he set up? Jim believed his phone was tapped after she disappeared. Could the police be involved?
It would appear so, as Sam soon found a black SUV terrorising her on the road in an apparent bid to silence her.
Six Four episode 1 questions: What’s going on between Chris and Michelle?
Chris and Michelle have a common goal – to find their missing daughter Olivia. But they don’t exactly seem to be supporting each other through the ordeal. In fact, she seemed to flinch when he touched her. And she disappeared to London without talking it through with her husband (see below).
During Six Four episode 1, Chris received a call from a lady called Samantha Wishart (played by the brilliant actress Selin Hizli, who created Am I Being Unreasonable? alongside Daisy May Cooper).
They met, and it’s clear something has happened between them, with Samantha calling herself his “mistake”. That could well explain Michelle’s frostiness towards her husband. Of course, Sam is the journalist who is investigating the cold case.
What is Michelle’s past in London?
During the opening episode of Six Four, Michelle (Vinette Robinson) announced her intention to travel to London in a bid to find her missing daughter. But husband Chris wasn’t keen.
He asked her: “I thought you were never going to London again?” He also warned her it was “dangerous”. What’s Michelle’s past with London? And could it have anything to do with why she’s no longer a copper?
She certainly seemed prepared to get away from Edinburgh. Michelle had a cap and a hoodie ready to change into so she could give her husband the slip at the train station…
Once in London, she bought a burner phone and called a man called Tony (Patrick Robinson). Calling herself Sarah Jones, she told him she needed to meet up. She clearly hadn’t spoken to this person for some time, so why then? She went to meet Tony armed with a weapon, so she clearly felt unsafe…
Meeting up with Tony, Michelle told him she needed to get in touch with Piers… To which Tony replied: “Are you mad after what you did to him? You put him in jail for 10 years. He will kill you.”
So who is Piers? Did Michelle work undercover under the identity of Sarah? And could Piers have any involvement in Olivia’s disappearance? Michelle later called her husband and told him: “I need to do something.”
What is Six Four?
After discovering Chris was a policeman, a furious Jim Mackie lost his temper. He attacked Chris, saying: “The security services took my daughter. They murdered her. Because I knew about Six Four.”
As Chris asked “what is Six Four” he was thrown out of the house. Anybody else getting Line of Duty ‘bent copper’ vibes?
At the end of episode 1, another young girl is attacked and bundled into the boot of a car with the sticker Better Together on the bumper. How is this all linked?
Read more: BBC One casts Cathy Tyson as Vinette Robinson’s mum in Boiling Point, but is she really old enough?
Six Four episode 2 airs on Sunday, October 29, 2023 at 9pm on ITV1. All four episodes are currently available to watch on ITVX.
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