It is the season finale of Broadchurch uneven season 2. I am not sure that I really liked this season over the first one. There was something satisfying how season 1 ended up that I wondered what a season 2 would be like. I didn’t think it would be a courtroom drama and also revisiting the case that nearly killed Hardy.

But that is what we got. And we pick up where episode 7 left off with the verdict being read.

The Court Case

The verdict is not guilty. Abby is jubilant, Beth and Ellie are pissed while Jocelyn is stunned.

Later on Jocelyn apologies to the Latimers for failing them but there is nothing they can do, there is no appeals.

As Jocelyn and Sharon change out of their robes, the two snipe at each other. Later, we see Sharon on the phone talking about getting back home when she sees an upset Beth. We also see Jocelyn tell Maggie that this loss hurt the most and now the whole town will know she failed and drinks away her sorrows with some gin.

It seems that Jocelyn doesn’t lick her wounds for long as we see her ask Sharon for job. Jocelyn wants to work with Sharon, who refuses but when Jocelyn brings up the prestige she can offer her firm and the fact that she has a file that might clear Sharon’s son that we might see these two become colleagues once more.

Joe is released from prison and the first place he goes to is Paul’s church seeking sanctuary. Paul isn’t pleased to see him and brings Becca over to tell her what he is planning on doing. We see the Latimer’s discuss how to move on from this and we see talk of taking matters into their own hands.

What this means is we see Nige and Mark grab Joe to drag him to an unknown location. More on that later.

Sandbrook

We finally get closure on this case. Hardy wants Ellie to channel all the anger she is feeling about Joe’s verdict to get Lee to confess to everything. Hardy arrests Claire at the courthouse and when Ellie and Hardy question her, Claire starts to accuse Hardy of forcing himself on her but Hardy knows what game Claire is playing. Claire still doesn’t offer anything up but when Ellie mentions that Ricky sent her the bluebell, it does elicit a reaction in Claire but again nothing more than that.

Meawhile, Hardy phones Lee and starts to play the husband against the wife. We see Lee go back to Claire’s safe house and starts ransacking it looking for something but Hardy arrives and arrests Lee.

While interrogating Lee, Hardy shows the pendant and hopes that Lee is going to confess. It is only when Ellie shows Lee two invoices for the same exact amount of type of hardwood flooring on two different dates that Lee finally starts to spill the beans but says that Hardy has got things wrong.

We see Lee and Lisa look out the window to see her stalker out in front. Lee gets Lisa to bring Pippa over for her protection. When Lee punches the stalker to get him to leave, he gets blood on his shirt. When Lee returns home, Lisa thanks his for being his hero and starts to unbutton his shirt and the two proceed to have sex.

Ricky arrives home early from the wedding and sees Lee and Lisa having sex and confronts the pair. Lisa goads Ricky saying that he is only pissed because she wouldn’t sleep with him. Something snaps in Ricky and he attacks Lisa and bangs her head real hard on the hardwood floor, killing her.

With Lee’s taped confession in his hand, Hardy then wants the truth from Claire. We see that when Claire returned home that night, she finds an upset Pippa saying something happened to Lisa. When Claire goes into the living room, she finds Ricky and Lee over Lisa’s dead body. Ricky says that he will take care of Lisa’s body while Lee needs to clean everything up and gives Claire his hip flask so she can give Pippa something to drink to help calm her.

When Ricky leaves with Lisa’s body, Lee tells Claire that the hip flask also contains rohipnol. Claire goes to where Pippa is sleeping and comforts the upset girl. Pippa tells Claire that she heard Lee and Lisa having sex and then fight and she believes that Lee killed her cousin. Claire gets Pippa to drink from the flask and tucks her in for the night. Once Claire is back downstairs, she tells Lee that Pippa thinks he killed Lisa and that she heard them have sex. After Pippa is out for the count, Lee smothers her to death and we see him dump Pippa’s body in the river where she was found a few days later. As Lee drives away, we see Pippa’s necklace in his backseat.

We then see Lee remove all the bloody hardwood and burn all the floorboards while Claire takes Ricky to the field of bluebells to say that Pippa had a bad reaction to the liquid in the flask and died. Claire tells Ricky where his daughter’s body is and when Ricky returns, grabs a bluebell. However, as an insurance to stop Ricky from placing blame on her and Lee, Claire tells Ricky that she has buried his hip flask where only she knows and if he tattles then the location of the hip flask will be known. We later see Lee place new hardwood floors in his living room and Claire cleaning the house furiously of any evidence of Lisa and Pippa being in their house.

Ricky is brought in for questioning and offers a no comment answer to everything that Hardy asks. When Hardy tells Ricky that when he first was on the case he sympathized with him as his daughter was the same age as Pippa and trying to solve the case nearly killed him. When Ellie asks where Ricky buried Lisa, he finally confesses that he buried her in a gravesite.

Broadchurch versus Joe Miller

Mark and Nige has taken Joe to the hut where he killed Danny. Joe feels betrayed when he sees that Paul is a part of all of this. Inside are Beth and Ellie. Joe just sits there as Beth unleashes everything she is feeling to her son’s killer. The end result is Beth tells Joe that he is not welcome in Broadchurch anymore. Even Ellie tells Joe that he will never see his children again. When Joe protests, Ellie tells him that if he ever comes near their kids again, she will kill him. As Joe leaves, Paul details what is next and basically it is get on a train to Sheffield where he has a place in a halfway house and after that is up to him. The whole town of Broadchurch watches as Joe’s taxi drives away.

And now that the Sandbrook case is over, Hardy is moving on. Hardy thanks Ellie for all the hard work she put in helping him solve the Sandbrook case and the two part with a handshake.

As the episode and season 2 winds down, we see the Latimers and Millers meet on the beach where Danny’s body was found to reclaim it and they have a sweet get together.

While Hardy is getting into his cab, the driver asks him where to, we don’t know where Hardy wants to go. Since there is going to be a season 3, most likely he is staying in Broadchurch.

What did you think of season 2? I personally didn’t think it was as good as season 1. Sound off in the comments.