We get a break in the Sandbrook case, a surprise witness comes forward on Joe’s behalf and the past history of Joceyln and Sharon is fully revealed.

The Latimers

Beth is still wanting to do something in the name of Danny but Mark doesn’t want to be any part of what Beth has planned. Instead Mark really wants to focus his energy on raising Lizzie and we see throughout the episode, Mark bonding with his daughter and soothing her back to sleep. When Paul and Maggie have arranged a group of reformed sex offenders at the church, Beth has all the good intentions of meeting them but once he sees their faces, she can’t deal and flees the church.

The Court Case

It is Jocelyn’s turn to question Susan Wright and starts poking holes in her story but Susan remains steadfast and knows what she saw that the police are lying. When Jocelyn brings up Susan threatening Maggie, she once again lies and says she said no such thing to Maggie. Sharon isn’t happy at how Susan is doing on the stand and blames Abby for providing their case with a poor witness.

Ellie confronts Susan for lying who turns the tables and says that Ellie knew all along that her husband was guilty.

The defence wants Paul to bear witness for Joe since he has been visiting him. Paul doesn’t want to and he only visited Joe to see if was repentant; he wasn’t. Sharon and Abby ask if the Latimer’s know Paul has been seeing Joel; they do not. Paul later confesses to Becca his visits to Joe has he felt the need to tell someone.

Nigel is called to the stand as a prosecution rebuttal business but he does the case for the defence for favours as the defence will make it like Nigel helped Mark hide Danny’s body after Mark killed Danny.

Before we leave Susan and Nigel, she leaves Nigel an envelope that is a picture of her and Nigel as a baby. It seems that was Susan’s parting gift to her son before she leaves town for good. And it also looks like the gift incited some emotion in Nigel – whether it is positive or negative is unknown.

During the trial, Sharon gets a note about her son. It looks like he was beaten up pretty bad and he wonders why his mom can’t get him out of prison.

It seems that was the final straw that broke the camels back as the cordiality between Sharon and Jocelyn is over. Sharon shows Jocelyn the photo of her son beaten up and she pours out how she really felt while working for her. Sharon then wants to know why she wouldn’t take her son’s case. Jocelyn tells her that she didn’t like Sharon enough to take the case and knew that she would blame her if she lost as Sharon always blames people when things don’t go her way. Sharon then vows to beat Jocelyn in court.

Tom comes to see Abby at the hotel and says that he wants to be a witness for his dad.

Sandbrook

Tom wanting to be a witness for Joe stems for his beginning of the episode visit with Ellie. Tom asks about the trial and wants to know who is speaking for his dad. Ellie tells her son that Joe did kill Danny and they have to accept that. Ellie wants Tom to move back home with her and Fred but he refuses. Before going Ellie gives Tom a hug, which he doesn’t reciprocate. It makes me wonder when Tom does take the stand that he will confess to killing Danny and that his dad was just covering for him thus giving us the ending of the Fox remake Gracepoint.

To distract herself, Ellie throws herself in solving the Sanbrook case. First step is Hardy and Ellie question the supposed bridesmaid that Ricky was supposed to have slept with. The two learn that they never slept together but she noted that Ricky had a hip flask with him.

Hardy and Ellie then interview Claire about what really happened that night. Claire tells the same story that she told Ellie. Lee drugged her with the date rape drug and when she woke up the next day, Lee was cleaning. Hardy then wants to know who the unknown number belongs to. Claire says she doesn’t know. When Hardy asks if that is everything, after a beat, Claire confesses that Lee came over while he was away and the two had sex.

When Hardy and Ellie return to his place, Ricky Gillespie is there to see Hardy. Lee is watching across the way and has a memory of the time that he was playing hide and seek with Pippa and Lisa but Ricky was also there.

Ellie questions Ricky and gets him to open up about Pippa. Ellie then asks him about Lisa and whether or not he had a thing for his niece, which he denies.

To distract her from Joe’s trial and all of her drama with Tom, Ellie throws herself in solving the Sandbrook case and unpacks all the evidence and creates an evidence wall at Hardy’s. While Hardy is outside and has a medical episode that causes him to see Jocelyn to get his will drawn up leaving everything to his daughter.

When Hardy returns, Ellie has been there all night and found something overlooked, a company called Thorp Agri Services. Another piece of evidence is that last location that they got a signal from Lisa’s cell phone was in Portsmouth. Ellie theorizes that Lisa accidentally killed Pippa and that Lisa is on the run. Hardy gets a call from Lee telling him that Ricky has found where he works and is heading towards him for confrontation.

When Hardy arrives, Ricky is beating the crap out of Lee that Hardy breaks up. Ricky leaves and Hardy learns that Lee has been sleeping in an abandoned, run down building on the field he works on. Hardy asks Lee about Thorp Agri Services but he knows nothing about that company. Hardy then asks if Lee was sleeping with Kate Gillespie, Lee says he wasn’t but we see otherwise.

Hardy returns to Ellie and she discovers that Thorp Agri Services is just outside of Sandbrook and wants to go there. This will help further distract Ellie as she learned her son wants to bear witness to Joe.

When they arrive at Thorp Agri Services, Ellie tells Hardy that Lisa could have gone to Portsmouth to catch a ferry to France where Lee was. It is a possible theory but it possibly get blown out of water when they go inside the abandoned Thorp Agri Services and find a furnace where it is possible that Lisa’s body could have been burned.

I am wondering about having these parallel cases and whether or not they would converge or not. Curious to know what will happen.