SPOILERS! Do not read if you’ve not seen episode three of Shetland and have no wish to be spoilt. And yes, I know it’s “just a story”.
The shadow cast by STV’s Taggart over Scottish drama and indeed police TV fiction generally is longer than Rebus’s list of desirable Rory Gallagher bootlegs. No TV police procedural ran for more seasons (over 25 years) and it outlasted its eponymous character, played originally and so memorably by Mark McManus that his catchphrase hangs over Shetland like a gutteral curse. So much so that a journalist pal last week described the series as “River City with murr-duhrrs”.
But it’s easy to forget just how good those early Taggarts were. I remember when the pilot - called Killer in those days - appeared, and McManus was fresh from memorable spots in Strangers and Bulman with the actor Don Henderson. Apart from outrage at the televisual appropriation of McIllvanney’s Laidlaw, it was, as my wife once told the executive producer, not to his obvious enthusiasm, “great to watch for the green and orange buses”.
Taggart had some of the most brutal on-screen forensics ever seen (chainsaw attacks!) and McManus pioneered the laconic one-liners Peerie Jimenez sometimes comes up with. What’s your thoughts, Jim? "You know what thought did? Stuck a feather up its bum and thought it was a chicken." As an actor, the late McManus could be a handful. He once set fire to Annette Crosbie’s wig because she wanted to rehearse too much. Yon nice Dougie Henshall would never do a thing like that.
And Peerie Jimenez’s sidekicks don’t suffer old-school putdowns like Jim’s (“wimmin polis!”) though the hapless Sandy (after all, he’s not fae Glesca) came close this week. By his behaviour so far should be, if he’s lucky, a school crossing attendant in Wick.
“You’re going to need a bigger board,” he quoth, knowing Jaws is, in Peerie’s opinion, The Best Film ever Made.
“Maybe I need a new DC.” Poor Detective Constable Sandy. That’s what comes of being The Only Shetlander in Shetland.
Anyway, this episode:
It’s snowing. No it’s not. It’s winter. No it’s not. Maybe that white stuff on the ground isn’t snow. It’s puffin poo, evidence of Shetland’s once-crucial guano-gathering industry. We used to fertilize the world with our seabird ordure!
No. it’s snow. In July.
Anyway, Sandy, left for dead after colliding with Emaciated Linda and Very Bad Bastard in their snorkel-equipped Mitsubishi L200 (hope it’s had the engine replaced, those early ones were a bit dodgy) is NOT DEAD. There is “a head injury and some serious bruising” says The Sinister Doctor, but he’s conscious. Not that you’d actually notice.
Suddenly, we’re in Kilbarchan, or Greenock or somewhere (I know it’s only folk who live in Real Shetland who get confused by this location-hopping, but forgive me). It’s Logan Roy, sorry Logan Cranachan, speaking Arabic and being nice to a refugee family. This is because he’s a GUILTY WAR CRIMINAL with blood on his hands, and he’s wearing a Dickies jacket, (these are unexpectedly expensive these days -the industrial hipster look). His son, Renton Fraser Cranachan, is concerned at his dad’s guilt-ridden nightmares, and what’s more, his huge big gun.
Meanwhile, Emaciated Linda is chained in a container (which has windows, handily for the phone reception which is apparently ubiquitous in Fake Shetland. Must be on EE). The Very Bad Bastard leaves her to be rescued by Peerie and a PCBC (Police Constable with Bolt Cutters). This is in Skellister. Peerie finds the dope EL and VBB were holding, which seems to be herbal green cocaine. That’s a new one.
Logan Cranachan Roy is now in Greenock or Kilbarchan or Kilmacolm where he’s bad-mouthing Mick from the offshore decompression incident. Tosh spots a van labelled Lightsome Bites, featuring her from Vigil. I sense underwater cakes in the offing. Sunday teas? Let’s hope so.
Anyway EL identifies the VBB as someone called Scar Gold, which is a great name. Except it’s just the sound and the diction and he’s really Curtis Galt.
“Get that photograph out to everybody we’ve got!” shouts Peerie. That'll be the MOT and red diesel special constable in Unst, then. But hey, here’s Scar, heading for the ferry. And suddenly, it’s parkour in the Lerwick lanes. He gets jumped by a nose-bleeding PCBC (minus bolt cutters) on Commercial Street. “I’m a dead man and so’s Linda!” Not a very observant chap.
Something happens now I don’t follow about drone blood, which may be to do with a vampire sup-plot, or zombies (“it’s TOO LATE! He’s been infected with...DRONE BLOOD!”) Anyway, this blood matches that of Lizzie Kilmuir, who’s long dead, which means...it’s either her mum Kate’s or sister Molly’s blood. The Lerwick DNA profiling lab is never wrong. And it’s been snowing again. And then it’s spring.
Molly’s mum: “did you steal a drone?” Molly: Yes, I am the drone thief. I did it to stop you looking stupid because I overheard Sandy telling you that the drone might have got film of a car ramming Alex Galbraith the dead lawyer and I know that was you and you didn’t have an MOT, road tax or insurance at the time. Right.
OK, and now some sex. Apparently Alex the dead lawyer person (remember him - he got shot in the first episode) was having an affair with his secretary, once a week in the Levenwick hotel. And she is married to The Sinister Doctor. Meanwhile Dead Alex has been sending cash to someone called Maurice Ross whose daughter disappeared many years ago...mark that. She’ll be turning up any moment if she hasn’t already.
Duncan pops up. He fathered a wean with dying Donna the murdering cancer victim and he’s being nice to her. “Sorry about the graffiti”. Someone has sprayed the wall of her house with imprecations. Actually, I can see that wall as I type and it’s all covered over now, you’ll be glad to know, but with the wrong shade of paint.
Fraser Renton Creggan Cranachan Roy appears and claims he shot Alex the dead lawyer, which he clearly didn’t, though he thinks his dad did. He has announced this on the web, but Peerie gets him to retract. Meg the Irish nurse who’s looking after Donna Killick appears to arch her compulsory eyebrows and be sympathetic. Next minute, Peerie’s doting dad has popped up “on the road to Aith” where’s he’s systematically eating his way through one of Shetland’s cake fridges (‘honesty’ fridges crammed with homebakes; you’re meant to leave cash). Now, I’m not going to say too much about this NOT being anywhere near Aith (it’s Heylor, at Ronas Voe) but I will say that the lovely cottage you glimpse briefly can be rented at very reasonable rates on AirBnB. Good wifi.
Here’s Evil Businessman Innes Ffoulkes-MacCorrisken-Jones and the dead lawyer’s clearly evil would-be MP wife. Kill Fraser Renton Cranachan, they cry! We demand blood! And what’s more, his dad’s a war criminal. Peerie knows Fraser-Renton didn’t gun down Alex because he says he knocked when ACTUALLY THERE’S A DOORBELL!. Elementary, by dear What’s He On.
Peerie is chopping carrots. Donna is chopping apples. This is symbolic. It’s Halloween. There will be dooking. Or maybe not.
And the Duncan/Peerie romance subplot emerges, as Donna fixed Ducan with a murderous glare after he says he’s not involved with anyone.
“Not involved with anyone apart from Peerie Jimenez! You two are Shetland’s most eligible bachelors. He’d be devastated if you weren’t around.” Nae luck for Meg or the Screaming non-Nun over in Whalsay, who is strangely absent this week. More Nuns! Wait...maybe Meg’s a nun! We can but hope.
Renton Fraser Cranachan Roy Creggan Estate and his beardy bad war criminal dad are about to reveal...something or other when firebombers attack two empty oil drums outside their cottage. Well, they’re not empty as they burn for a long time. Nothing else catches fire, but this is hardly Apocalypse the Noo. Masked attackers, possibly vampire zombie vigilantes or drug dealers or whatever, sending Logan the Bad Dad into a frenzied meltdown of Iraq flashbacks. It’s Watership Down! No, sorry, I mean Black Hawk Down!
Gunshots. Logan is doing a Rambo all over the place. Fraser-Renton gets shot (“They’ve killed my boy” he tells Peerie, who turns up within five minutes, alone and unarmed, in what may the quickest and stupidest response by a detective ever seen on British television. Fortunately, there is mobile reception.
“We’re gonnie need an ambulance at the Cranachan place.” Possibly. A quick search reveals a bullet factory and Bad Dad in full First Blood makeup. He’ll be off into the bogs and byways. Sheep, beware! There’s been another murr. Durr. And it’s snowing again. In August.
Thanks for bringing clarity and helping me raise a smile. Working in Norfolk enoo and reluctantly binge watched two episodes the other evening. I found the whole process mind numbingly bizzare. I think we will need therapy after too much of this; so perhaps we could put in a collective premptive claim to the good old Beeb?