Episode two of The Suspect on ITV featured two arrests – but nobody has yet been charged with Catherine’s murder.
Both Dr Joe O’Loughlin (Aidan Turner) and his patient Bobby Moran were hauled away by the police at separate points.
But they were both also released, with Bobby’s alibi established and checked very swiftly, comprehensively and – unsatisfyingly – off screen.
Joe’s legals woes, however, are far from over. After sharing his concerns about Bobby with DI Ruiz and DS Devi, it looks like Joe could be sued by Bobby.
And even though Joe himself was let go as the CPS decided the evidence wasn’t strong enough, the case against him keeps on piling up…
1. Why did Catherine apply for a job with Joe?
The scene before the opening credits showed Joe being interviewed – ultimately under caution – by DI Ruiz and DS Devi.
Unsurprisingly, they both appeared quite flabbergasted when Joe answered the pertinent question about whether he’d heard from Catherine since she had accused him of sexual assault.
Barely unable to contain his irritation – and sarcasm – at Joe’s continued, partial approach to revealing what he knows, Ruiz asked: “Is there anything you haven’t told us that might be rather important?”
As a viewer, it isn’t hard to identify with Ruiz’s (played by Shaun Parkes) frustration.
Of course, if Joe responded to this in a straightforward manner, the drama would be over with two episodes to go.
But if he isn’t Catherine’s murderer, and his evasiveness is down to – as he later suggested to Dr Jack – not giving Bobby and ‘whoever else has set him up’ the satisfaction of “humiliating” him, then maybe Joe needs to think things through a little more.
2. Reputation vs a long spell inside?
Dr Jack may be right – he should take the hit to his good guy rep and admit to sleeping with Cara rather than… y’know, being convicted of murder.
Otherwise, the partial reveal of what actually happened to Catherine feels less like a gradual reveal, and more like clunky plotting.
In the first episode, when meeting DS Devi in the pub with Cara (Bronagh Waugh), Joe suggested some killers do so to see what they can get away with.
In this second episode, DS Devi – quite understandably – asks him why a patient who previously accused him of sexual assault would apply for a job as his receptionist.
The most obvious explanation at this point of The Suspect might be that Catherine was indeed infatuated with Joe. But that means there is at least one element of truth to what Joe has offered throughout his unreliable accounts.
But will that hold true?
3. Who’s paying for Bobby’s lawyer?
Bobby’s future did not look promising after DS Devi and several police officers pounced on and arrested him as he made his way for an appointment with Joe.
However, it seems his time in custody was brief. And Bobby’s version of events was wildly different to what we as viewers had come to understand from his therapy session scenes.
DI Ruiz later informed Joe, following his arrest while watching his daughter Charlie’s football match, that Bobby’s circumstance also deviated significantly from those Joe had claimed.
And this led DI Ruiz to conclude Joe’s tip off/hypothesis/cover up about chloroform on Catherine’s body and how it relates to Bobby was a diversion.
Apparently, Joe’s notes on Bobby (played by Bobby Schofield) don’t make sense. Bobby apparently doesn’t have a job as a warehouse porter. Or a fiancé. He lives in a hostel, where other residents regard him as a “gentle spirit”. Additionally, he never attended a football match with his dad, previously set up as a big moment for him.
Joe dismisses Bobby as a liar. But there is a corroborative witness, of sorts. The A&E doctor that attended to Bobby told the police that Joe was the only one who smelt chloroform on Bobby. And so, DI Ruiz has deduced Joe made a big deal of that to cover his own tracks. And that’s how Joe knew traces of it were to be found on Catherine’s body before forensic tests were carried out.
All very damning.
But when Joe encountered Bobby’s lawyer, representing him for a previous assault, he pondered how a minimum wage earner like Bobby could afford such legal support. Could Joe’s claims he’s one the being framed, not Bobby, hold water with this detail?
4. The Suspect on ITV: Who bought Charlie’s painting?
Episode 2 saw Bobby’s fondness for carving wood, in particular a figure of a whale, introduced. Indeed, it was given more prominence than his preoccupation with the number 21.
He gifted this whale to Joe and, in turn, Charlie painted a portrait of the whale, as if it were alive in the sea.
Her artwork was then part of a school auction evening – with her proud dad happily bidding to support his daughter.
However, a mystery sealed bid was delivered at the last second. And the £500 bid contained within denied Joe, just as his bidding became uncomfortably competitive.
The auctioneer refused to reveal the identity of who gazumped Joe. And this only served to heighten Joe’s paranoia as Julianne insisted he stop making a scene.
But Joe, in this case, was in the right. It wasn’t a sale at Sotheby’s, as he indicated. Who wouldn’t want to known why an anonymous character was so keen to acquire an item linked to his family – and also his patient?
5. Does DI Ruiz have vertigo?
DI Ruiz seemed to have another dizzy spell in episode 2 at the hospital where Joe occasionally attends.
Is this an incidental character detail, or could it be relevant in the future? Having a work window view of The Shard must be a constant headache, quite literally.
The Suspect opened with Joe flailing on an exterior ledge as a reluctant action hero, hampered by his Parkinson’s.
Could a dramatic confrontation mirror those opening moments, similar to a by-the-numbers Hollywood blockbuster climax?
6. Who is ‘JO’ in The Suspect on ITV?
The final call Catherine made from her mobile, recovered from a canal, was to Joe’s workplace. Not his phone specifically, but his workplace.
She also apparently had a meeting with scheduled in her phone’s diary with ‘JO’. The police have taken this to refer to Joe’s initials.
However, he isn’t the only character with those initials. For instance, they also apply to Julianne (played by Camilla Beeput), Joe’s wife.
And his pal and doctor – known as Jack Owens, but his first name is actually Gerald – is also a fit.
But does ‘JO’ need to be a name of a person? Could it be the name of one of the pubs Joe can’t remember visiting on the night she went missing?
7. Why does Joe suddenly become mute?
With Julianne, the gig may be up.
She’s dismayed with having to lie to the police about Joe touching a spade at the cemetery as an alibi for his DNA’s presence. And she knows he was out all night drinking, when he insisted he was home by midnight.
But even worse, he slept with sex worker Cara after getting tanked up, without using protection – and then came back in the early hours to their marital bed.
Julianne launches into a series of slaps and chucks him out, to which Joe only offers a solitary “sorry” in response. Throughout the rest of the scene he has the doleful look of a caught-out child. Very different to the bravado he entered his house with, crowing over how the police’s evidence against him was flimsy.
So why does Joe keep schtum? Why doesn’t he pour his heart out there and then? Clearly his lies are tightening around his throat.
As an aside, was the boiler man paying special attention to tinkering with Julianne’s pipes?
Read more: The Suspect on ITV: Viewers share killer theories on Aidan Turner drama
The third episode of The Suspect airs on ITV, Monday September 12, at 9pm.
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