Leanne Best and Anna Chancellor on Compulsion on Channel 5
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Compulsion on Channel 5: 9 questions after episode 1’s promising start

Sasha, we have our beady eye on you!

Compulsion, Channel 5’s newest four-part drama has hooked us right in after a tense episode one.

We met Jenny (Leanne Best), a paramedic with a gambling problem and a heap of debt.

And Jenny met Sasha (The Split‘s Anna Chancellor) who seems at first like a guardian angel, stepping in to help Jen with her increasing problems…

Compulsion Channel 5
Jenny is a paramedic in Compulsion on Channel 5 (Credit: Channel 5)

1. What’s happened in Channel 5’s Compulsion so far?

Well, we know that Jenny is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after being involved in a train crash that killed 18 people before the events we’re seeing.

She’s also got herself into a bit of debt after turning to online gambling as a way of blocking out the panic attacks and flashbacks she’s been suffering from.

A chance meeting with a woman called Sasha on the train has led to Jenny revealing she’s over £10,000 in debt and has no way of paying it back.

Read more: Channel 5’s Deadline: Who is in the cast and where was the series filmed?

2. Has Sasha really got Jenny’s best interests at heart?

Sasha seems a bit too good to be true.

She’s been in the right place at the right time, conveniently, for Jenny and has bonded with her in a way Jenny hasn’t with her family and friends.

But there are signs that Sasha isn’t quite who she says she is. She’s already planted the idea in Jenny’s head that she could steal drugs from her ambulance and sell them on the black market.

And she was also creepily stalking Jenny in her Land Rover.

What’s Sasha’s real agenda?

Compulsion Channel 5
Is Sasha everything she seems? (Credit: Channel 5)

3. Is Sasha telling the truth about Tara in Compulsion on Channel 5?

Sasha introduced Jenny to her sister, Tara. Well, an urn containing Tara’s ashes anyway.

Sasha revealed that Tara died recently from multiple organ failure, caused by her drug addiction.

After discovering that Jenny owes a huge amount of money, she drove her to the hospice where Tara died.

It was here that Sasha made the suggestion that Jenny start stealing drugs from the ambulances she works in and sell them to make money.

But it seems a bit convenient that Sasha has a dead sister she’s used to bond with Jenny.

Is Tara really dead? Or did she ever even exist?

4. What will Chris do now he knows about the gambling?

Jenny has kept her debt and addiction secret from husband, Chris.

But after a horrible accident with their daughter, he saw Jenny’s laptop. It was open on an online gambling site.

He obviously knows that Jenny was indulging in her addiction when Rosie had her accident in the kitchen.

Chris will also realise that this is why he can’t get into their bank account and their bills are going unpaid. Will Jenny tell him the truth?

And if she does will Chris be supportive? Or are they on the road to Splitsville?

Compulsion Channel 5
What will Chris do now he knows the truth? (Credit: Channel 5)

5. Will Rosie be okay?

The first episode of Compulsion on Channel 5 ended on a cliffhanger.

Jenny and Chris’ daughter Rosie was rushed to hospital after falling in the kitchen.

She was trying to make herself a drink after Jenny screamed at her to leave her alone.

Paralysed by fear and flashbacks from the train crash, Jenny was unable to help her own daughter, leaving Chris watching scornfully as Rosie was taken away.

The little girl seemed in a bad way after hitting her head and landing on a smashed glass. But will she be okay?

6. Will Jenny agree with Sasha’s plan?

Sasha pointed out to Jenny that, as a paramedic, she has a lot of assets at her hands.

She said that there are people who are willing to pay a lot of money for the sort of drugs Jenny has access to.

Jenny immediately ruled out stealing from the ambulance, but Sasha manipulated her into looking at it as ‘borrowing’.

With the net tightening around her and her marriage on the line, will Jenny do what Sasha’s suggested?

Compulsion Channel 5
What’s Sasha hiding in Compulsion on Channel 5? (Credit: Channel 5)

7. Where did Sasha get her money from?

Sasha invited Chris and Jenny over to her house for dinner and they were in awe of her home.

It’s spacious and glamorous with huge electric gates – as Chris observed: “Not too shabby.”

Sasha claims that she’s starting a new business selling handbags and Chris pondered about how a start-up could pay for such a huge house.

But Sasha cleared it up by revealing she’d got the money in a divorce settlement.

Is she telling the truth though?

8. Will Jenny get her compensation money?

Jenny has been banking on getting a compensation pay out from the rail company following the crash she was involved in.

But she has been getting letters saying there has been a delay.

Will she get the amount of money she’s counting on in time to pay off her debts and get herself sorted out?

9. Will Jenny take her own life?

At the beginning of the episode, a distressed looking Jenny hovered at the edge of the platform as a train approached.

Could this have been a dark premonition of what’s to come as she gets herself even deeper in trouble and faces losing her family?

Compulsion continues Wednesday at 9pm on Channel 5

Did she do it? | Deadline | Official Trailer

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