Unforgotten series five episode one recap – Sinéad Keenan more than fills the biggest boots ever

Spoiler alert: this recap is for people watching Unforgotten season five. Do not read on unless you have watched episode one.

Writer Chris Lang’s cold-case crime drama returned for its keenly awaited fifth run – the first without the much-loved Nicola Walker. How would the show cope? How would us? Here’s your team briefing on a beguiling comeback episode …

The story so far

Since the hit drama debuted in 2015, a team of dogged Met detectives led by DCI Cassandra “Cassie” Stuart (Nicola Walker) and DI Sunil “Sunny” Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) have been solving historical murders. Series one saw a missing teenage boy’s skeleton discovered decades later during a house demolition. Series two focused on a liquefied body in a suitcase, dumped in the River Lea. Series three followed the trail when human remains were found by workmen repairing the M1’s central reservation.

Cassie and Sunny’s squad at Bishop Street nick comprised DS Fran Lingley (Carolina Main, effectively third-in-command), DS Murray Boulting (Jordan Long, a cult hero who resembles a mini-Cracker), DC Jake Collier (Lewis Reeves) and DC Karen “Kaz” Willetts (the quietly excellent Pippa Nixon). The team are ably assisted by police pathologist Dr Leanne Balcombe (Georgia Mackenzie).

Series four began with a headless, handless corpse found in a freezer on a scrapheap. After six years and 24 episodes, though, Walker wanted to leave. So Cassie, having suffered an emotional breakdown and having been physically drained by solving such cases, was distracted while driving and shockingly killed off in a car crash. A devastating finale saw Sunny deliver a eulogy at her funeral and put flowers on her grave (with headstone reading “Mother, daughter, copper”).

The morning after it aired, leaving 9.5 million viewers damp-cheeked, ITV announced that Unforgotten would continue with a new “partner in crime” for Sunny. This co-lead was later unveiled as Dublin-born, Bafta-nominated actor Sinéad Keenan, whose previous credits include Being Human, Little Boy Blue and Showtrial. That brings us up to speed, guv.

The assignation of Jessie JamesFair cop? … DCI Jessica James. Photograph: ITV

As we rejoined, it was months since Cassie’s tragic death, and after a couple of interim DCIs a permanent replacement had been appointed in the shape of pocket rocket DCI Jessica “Jessie” James (Keenan). However, her first day didn’t go as planned. We caught her in the midst of a domestic drama with “dirtbag husband” Steve (Andrew Lancel, an Alan Shearer-alike who often plays wrong’uns). He had confessed to an affair and was about to set off on a business trip, leaving Cassie with their two young sons. “I literally start my new job in 54 minutes,” she said, with a police officer’s precision. “How could you do this?”

Striding into her first crime scene, Jessie was authoritative but rubbed everyone up the wrong way, especially Sunny. They talked at cross purposes. Attempts at humour didn’t land. Jessie’s mind was elsewhere and she was off her game. She gave him a lift back to the station so they could talk, then got lost in thought. Snapping back into the present, Jessie assured him: “I’m aware of the boots I’m filling. I sincerely hope to do her and the rest of the team justice.”

Sunny didn’t look convinced, not least because she planned to steer the team away from historical murders, feeling that limited resources would be better spent investigating more recent crimes. She wanted to get the latest cold case “off the books”. Sunny wanted to pursue it. “This isn’t therapy, DI Khan,” she snapped. Ouch.

Over vats of red wine with her mother later, Jessie not only feared her marriage was over but that as a single parent she would have to find a less full-on job. For the first time in her life, she felt lost. Cue banging her steering wheel in anger at Steve’s latest “dick move”. Oh, the irony of him being in her phone contacts as “My gorgeous hubby”.

Game onBody of evidence … DCI Jessica James and DI Sunny Khan inspect charred human remains with Dr Leanne Balcombe (Georgia Mackenzie). Photograph: ITV

Each series begins with the discovery of a corpse. An aerial shot of a London building site could only mean one thing. The renovation of a handsome period pile at 64 Waterman Road, Hammersmith, hit a snag when the chimney appeared to be blocked by something unsavoury. A pigeon, a squirrel, even a fox? Nope, a human leg. Call the cops. More remains were stuck up the flue so, despite the owner’s protestations (landlords, amirite?), the chimney breast was taken down to retrieve the rest.

As the desiccated cadaver gave up its secrets to Dr Balcombe, we learned it wasn’t a child but a small adult female. Skinny and standing around 4ft 10in, she was aged between late 20s and early 40s and had a caesarean scar. DS Fran Lingley traced the label on the woman’s dress to a 1950s fashion house, meaning the dead woman’s child could still be alive. Plasterboard covering the chimney dated back to a similar period, suggesting she died 60 years ago. Too long for Jessie, who ordered the case closed.

But Sunny and Fran had the bit between their teeth. Behind the boss’s back, they kept going. Fran discovered it was actually a vintage frock, bought on Portobello Road in 2016. The woman died no more than six years ago. “You’re a bloody star, Fran,” said a jubilant Sunny. Game on. The big questions: who was she? How did she die? And why was her body shoved up a chimney, then boarded up?

Suspects assembleInevitably implicated … Karol Wojski (Max Rinehart). Photograph: ITV

Investigative scenes were interwoven, as is Unforgotten’s wont, with introductions to a web of characters – on the face of it, unconnected to the murder victim but inevitably implicated. In Paris, Karol Wojski (Max Rinehart) was working two jobs – airport freight-handling and taxi-driving – having dropped out of a promising career. He lied to his parents that he was single, before returning home to a woman in bed. Hmm.

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In Westminster, Tony Hume (Ian McElhinney) was smart-suited and well spoken, with hints he was a Tory grandee. “Didn’t have you down as a Grauniad man,” joked his doctor as Hume read a certain esteemed newspaper in the waiting room (the 24 November 2021 edition, fact fans). His prognosis was less jolly: a recurrence of cancer. Hume was helping an inner-city youth club get funding, and after throwing up at the roadside, returned home to wife Emma (the mighty Hayley Mills).

Their lifestyle contrasted starkly with that of Jay (Rhys Yates) and girlfriend Cheryl (Hebe Beardsall), heroin addicts on a Thames-side sink estate. He violently mugged a woman to buy drugs, mainly for Cheryl, who promptly overdosed. She survived, but might not be so lucky next time.

What’s cooking? … restaurant manager Ebele Falade (Martina Laird). Photograph: ITV

Finally came a couple running a bustling vegan restaurant: chef Dave Adams (Mark Frost) and manager Ebele Falade (Martina Laird). After pitching to investors to expand into a chain, Ebele furiously rowed with Dave over his lack of ambition. She punched him hard, almost causing him to crash the car, and he stormed off. This wasn’t the first time. Distraught and remorseful, Ebele called her AA sponsor to talk her out of a relapse.

How do they all connect to the case? I’ve got a feeling it might revolve around a period when 64 Waterman Road was occupied by squatters. Just an early hunch.

Sunny: no delight

For poor Sunny and his trusty backpack, Cassie was certainly unforgotten. He bought two coffees out of habit. He gazed bereft at his friend’s old office chair. He kept having to bite his lip because his new gaffer wasn’t on the same wavelength. It hardly helped when Jessie overheard him on the phone, telling fiancee Sal (Michelle Bonnard): “I don’t like her.” When Sal cooked them a special dinner, Sunny was a no-show because he was sitting at Cassie’s graveside. With champagne on ice, perhaps Sal was planning to tell him something worth celebrating. Do we hear the pitter-patter of tiny Sunbeams?

At the station, Sunny sadly drafted a resignation letter, only closing down the document when Fran had her frock breakthrough. Maybe these cases were therapy after all. Judging by the way Sunny kicked a gents’ cubicle door in pent-up frustration, he might just need it. Both he and Jessie are on the verge of quitting. Can they rescue each other?

Line of the week

It can only be Sunny’s stinging retort when Jessie pointedly asked if he had applied for her job: “No, but they offered it to me multiple times. In fact, they fucking begged me.”

Notes and observations

Are you glad to see Unforgotten back? What did you make of the new guvnor? What could be the connection between the corpse and those disparate characters? Share your thoughts and theories below. No spoilers please. The entire series is now available for streaming on ITVX (a shame in our book) but we’ll be posting these recaps after the weekly episodes on ITV1 …