Bloodlands on BBC One appears to have hooked viewers with the first episode, but we have six key questions, including why the wife of Tom Brannick was a target.
The James Nesbitt crime drama boasts Line Of Duty’s Jed Mercurio as Executive Producer, and it introduced the story of a serial assassin called Goliath.
A lot happened in last night’s opening episode (Sunday February 21), so let’s break things down…
Who is Goliath in BBC drama Bloodlands?
Belfast cop DCI Tom Brannick (James Nesbitt) got a shock when a name from the late 1990s popped up in a current investigation into missing former IRA man, Pat Keenan.
In Keenan’s car was a postcard of a crane at some docks.
The crane referenced, he later revealed, an assassin who fellow cops from the time thought of as having insider information.
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With the Peace Agreement on the table, Goliath took out four people – two men with ties to the IRA (including a priest), a Loyalist and Brannick’s own wife, Emma.
Not wanting to rock the boat, they kept Goliath’s existence quiet.
But now it looks like he’s back. So the questions are: why now? Is Goliath really a cop, or someone who had and now still has access to the files? And why was Pat Keenan targeted?
Why did the wife of Tom Brannick go missing?
Tom revealed that his wife Emma was one of Goliath’s victims all those years ago.
He told partner Niamh McGovern (Charlene McKenna) that Emma was military intelligence, but it’s not entirely clear what she did back in the day.
Did she uncover Goliath’s identity and have to be taken out?
Who wiped the files in Bloodlands?
When Tom and Niamh went back looking for the files of the Goliath case, they were frustrated to find that some of them didn’t exist.
In fact, they had to rely on Adam Corry – the brother of one of Goliath’s victims – to fill in the missing pieces.
Adam had conducted his own, amateur investigation since his brother David’s disappearance, determined to find out what happened to him.
Did Goliath himself remove the files? And when? Or was it someone else, acting on Goliath’s behalf?
Is Jackie Toomey a wrong ‘un?
When the postcard of the Goliath crane appeared, Tom rang his old buddy Jackie Toomey (Lorcan Cranitch), who was in charge of the original Goliath investigation back in 1998.
Toomey – now a DCS and top dog – constantly warned Tom to stay away from the Goliath case and concentrate on finding Keenan. Has he got something to hide?
There were more suspicions about Toomey when he came back to Belfast to take control of the investigation.
And towards the end of the episode, Toomey revealed he knew about the island where the bodies were buried. So what else does Toomey know and Tom doesn’t?
Will Tom find love again with Tori?
Tom’s daughter Izzy is a medical student, and Tori Matthews is one of her teachers.
When Tom and Niamh ran into Tori at the hospital, there was an undeniable spark between the two.
Could their relationship develop and Tom finally find love again after Emma?
Who were the three bodies on the island?
Thanks to Adam Corry’s own investigation, Tom and Niamh went to the island to see if they could find the bodies.
After a tense stand-off with Toomey, Niamh remained and managed to find an overlooked patch, which held the grave of three bodies.
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One of them wore the same necklace Tom gave Izzy for her birthday, which wife Emma owned.
So who are the bodies, and is Emma one of them?
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