Well, here we are at the season finale, somehow, which kicks off with Martin creeping through Juliet and Taylor’s house… carrying a hammer? Not gonna lie, I was a little worried about where this was going for a hot second, but then Jess and the rest of the crew came around the corner from where they’ve been lying in wait and ask Martin what he’s up to. While they bundle him into a police car, Juliet approaches Jess and asks if the police will “stop harassing” her and Taylor.
Jess, unimpressed: Nobody’s harassing you.
Juliet: You snuck around behind my back to try and interrogate my kid! That guy is your suspect; he’s broken into my house ready to do violence twice, I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to assume that he probably killed Gerry too.
In the car, Martin asks DS Beanpole what happened with his mother. The good news is that she didn’t die, but she’s not in good shape, and even asking that question isn’t a great look for Martin. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Sunny asks Melinda to explain why Gerry’s blood is on her jacket.
Melinda, resigned: Because he did actually hit me. And that time I hit him back. It happened in early February, on my birthday.
Sunny: So you were still together the month he disappeared?
Melinda: Yes, but we broke up that night. I got pregnant in June 2020, but at that point having a kid wasn’t something I could handle. So I got an abortion.
Sunny: Wait, hang on: the priest told me that you’d actually had the baby and given it up for adoption.
Melinda: Wow. Glad to hear that he’s respecting the sanctity of confession. Anyway, yes, that’s what I told him, because when I told him that I’d gotten pregnant by a married man he kind of freaked out.
Sunny: Look, I’ve seen a lot of your published work… aren’t you kind of a big pro-life person?
Melinda: I think abortions are desperately sad. But bringing an unwanted child that you can’t take care of into the world is much more sad. That’s how I feel. And I wish I’d said that out loud sooner. I think we can agree I’m a massive hypocrite.
Sunny: When did you have the abortion?
Melinda: July. And unfortunately Gerry knew about it. On that day in February he called me and said he wanted to come over and give me something. I thought it might be a birthday present, so I said yes. But he actually wanted me to lend him 30k. I said no; I didn’t have that amount of money. So he blackmailed me and said he’d tell my employer and all the rest of the papers about the abortion. We argued, he hit me, and I hit him back. Hence the blood. And then I ran away. Came back a few hours later with a friend, but Gerry was gone. As I got closer to leaving the country, he lowered the amount he was asking for, and finally it was something I could afford. I agreed to meet him and pay up, just to be safe. That was a couple of weeks later, and he never showed. I found out later that he’d disappeared, and that the day we were supposed to meet was the same day he’d been reported missing. I just wanted to get out of town fast.
Sunny: I need to ask you again: did you ever talk to his wife?
Melinda: Yes, once. She must have gotten my number from his phone. She called about a year before he disappeared, and she was pretty horrible. She said she’d ruin my life, but we never met IRL.
Despite a pretty successful interview, Melinda refuses to come back to the UK voluntarily, and since extradition would take some time, Sunny heads back alone. At the airport, he gets an update from Jess, including the fact that DS Grumpy finally succeeds in tracking down the Dowari family, and is meeting with them right now. Mrs. Dowari explains that the apartment she’d rented from Gerry was uninhabitable, and made her kids sick. She’d felt bad complaining, having been very new to the country, but on Asif’s recommendation, she did. Despite many complaints, Gerry never actually fixed the flat. And here’s the horrible part: her son had to be admitted to the hospital, and he never recovered. He died. DS Grumpy, who had been under the impression, like us, that the child recovered, is horrified. It’s worth noting that this poor kiddo died just two days before Gerry went missing, especially because Mrs. Dowari confirms that not only did her family stay close with Asif after he stopped acting as their interpreter, but he was also the first person to find out that her son had died.
Back at the station, everyone agrees that they better talk to Asif again, given this new information. DS Beanpole also has a useful update: they’ve been able to track Gerry’s location around the time he disappeared via his phone records. The day it happened he had made a call to cancel a meeting at the pub, and they can confirm that the call was made from the area where Martin’s flat was located. Also, about that call: the brewery manager confirmed that the caller was definitely Gerry, but the message was something along the lines of “sorry babe, can’t meet today, will reschedule,” which is a little informal (and inappropriate) for a call from a colleague.
DS Beanpole: She mentioned specifically that she thought that phrasing was kind of creepy at the time. There’s just something weird and fishy about this.
Everyone agrees, and the meeting wraps up just in time for Jess to field a call from her mum. The update: Dirtbag Husband’s been over to get his stuff, but he’s saying some worrying things. Jess’ Mum is concerned about Dirtbag Husband’s safety, and based on what he’s said, I kind of get why. But Jess is mostly annoyed that her soon-to-be ex has found a flat LITERALLY the next street over, and is also distracted by Sunny’s return, so she says she’ll stop by on her way home that evening. His actions are NOT her responsibility, but I really hope Dirtbag Husband doesn’t do anything drastic. Regardless, we’ll have to wait and see: they don’t have a ton of time left to hold Asif, so she and Sunny are heading right into an interview with him, followed by one with Martin.
In the interrogation room, Sunny starts off by asking about the Dowari kiddo, Jamal. Asif continues to respond “no comment” though he’s getting visibly upset as Sunny talks about how close Asif had been with the boy, and what happened when Jamal was in the hospital.
Sunny: Look, it’s pretty clear that this poor kid died because of the conditions in that flat. And then less than two days later, Gerry went missing.
Jess: I think you’re panicking; you see your world collapsing — citizenship, relationship, your whole life here in the UK. If you don’t collaborate here, we’re going to need to charge you with that assault in the parking lot, even though we know Gerry was a violent person and you might have just been defending yourself; we’ve got good evidence.
Sunny: The cops in your hometown are not going to charge you with immigration offenses; Sam took full responsibility. We want to eliminate you from this case. We think you’re a good person. Just help us.
Asif: A few weeks after Jamal got sick, I went to talk to Gerry. He was doing a lunch for the homeless, and it was so weird, because he was being so kind, and funny, and generous. Unlike usual. That’s when I realized he could be a good person, he just chose to be horrible to us. We weren’t human to him; we were vermin. The day Jamal went to the hospital I went to see Gerry. I brought a photo of how sick Jamal was; I just wanted to shame him into changing his mind. And instead he tried to intimidate me physically, and when that didn’t work, he attacked me. He wasn’t in good shape; I had him down in two hits, but that’s it. I left him in pain, but definitely alive.
Whew. First of all, that must have been very satisfying, and second, I really hope everything turns out ok for Asif. He’s been through so many horrible things, I just want him to be happy! Anyway, remember the man who saw someone dumping a package into the marsh? His daughter’s headed into the family storage unit to track down his journal from that year. But first, we head to another interrogation room, where Jess and Sunny are interviewing Martin.
Jess: Ok, so. What were you doing in the house last night?
Martin: I wanted to speak to Taylor. And offer her my condolences.
Sunny: In the middle of the night? While carrying a hammer and screw driver?
Martin: I’m very good at lockbreaking.
Sunny: So you’d broken into her home before?
Martin: Yes, back when they were living above the pub. I wanted to give her dad a talking to.
Sunny: And Taylor talked you out of doing violence that day, right? Did you change your mind later?
Martin: She did, and no: I never attacked him.
Sunny: Did you kill him?
Martin: No! No one has the right to kill!
Sunny: Ok. Can we talk about a day that we think Gerry went to your apartment? Did you ever talk to him in the flat or in that town?
Martin: No.
Jess: Are you sure? We have a record of a phone call he made from there the day that we think he disappeared. End of February 2021.
Martin: Well I can tell you exactly what I did that day: I left for breakfast in the morning, went to the airport to watch planes, and then came home at 8:55 to watch TV.
Sunny: That’s… a lot of detail. Why didn’t you tell us sooner?
Martin: You never asked.
Sunny: Just out of curiosity, what did you do the day before?
Martin: Exactly the same thing, except I came back at 8:35 for a different show.
Well, that’s pretty specific, and after Martin leaves, Sunny says he’s pretty sure they’ll find that the airport CCTV backs up Martin’s timeline. Before Jess can weigh in, DS Beanpole arrives with the marsh witness’ diary. He definitely recorded seeing someone throwing things into the marsh, but it was 3:30 in the morning on the day Gerry was reported missing. In other words, this was hours before he left a voicemail for a colleague. Upstairs, DC Babyface shows everyone a print out of the license plate on the car that was photographed outside the marsh around the time that someone was disposing of Gerry’s body. She’s also found records of the plate numbers for all of the possible suspects.
DC Babyface: Now, it’s technically possible that someone got a fake plate, but this doesn’t seem like a premeditated murder, so I think it’s more likely that someone used a pen or tape to alter their existing plate.
It doesn’t take much time at all for everyone to figure out that the most obvious answer is the plate on the car belonging to… Juliet. Obviously they go pick her up right away. While we wait for her interview, Asif is released from the station and immediately calls up Hassan to check on him. The bad news: Hassan is in a detention center. Asif’s plan: visit his friend ASAP and see what he can do. Meanwhile, inside, DC Babyface gets a call from the hospital where Martin’s Mum has just woken up. Martin’s Mum claims that she stirred the medicine into her own drink because she felt like a burden, and thought Martin would get better support without her. That’s pretty desperately sad, and since they now think Martin wasn’t involved in Gerry’s death, they plan to release him so he can go be with his mother.
While all this is happening, Sunny’s having an awkward but important chat with Pathologist in the canteen.
Pathologist: I really like you. I mean, I have for a long time, but you weren’t single. And as we’ve gotten to know each other more, it’s been great. And then after the other night, when you called me, I freaked out. That’s unfortunately kind of my thing. SO: I’ll say this and then go back to work so you can think stuff over without me watching. 24 years ago I was in a bad relationship, and then one day I just went out for cigarettes and never went back. And that was fine, except that we had a daughter, and I left her behind too. For a lot of reasons, I haven’t seen her since, and that’s obviously kind of a big deal. I needed you to know that. Clearly there were some mental health issues, and court cases, and it’s been really horrible. I’m sure you have a lot of questions, but I’m just gonna go. Just had to tell you. Call me if you still… well.
So. That’s a lot to process. But Sunny’s not going to get time to do that right now; first, he’s got to join Jess in the interrogation room to talk to Juliet. They open by explaining what they’ve figured out about the voicemail message: that Juliet probably just recycled an old call from Gerry to her, and played the recording into his phone.
Jess: Nice touch to drive to another area to make the call though.
Sunny: And when we find your old car, I wonder if we’ll find trace evidence of you changing your license plate?
Juliet: No jury will convict someone based on that.
Jess: Maybe not, but we’re also going to talk to your daughter, and I have a feeling that she saw something that night. Otherwise you wouldn’t be so anxious to stop us talking to her.
Sunny: Or you can just tell us what happened, and we can maybe avoid dragging her into this.
Juliet, resigned: I’ll tell you.
Here’s the deal: Juliet’s marriage had been on the rocks for a long time. Gerry had changed, a lot, and she hadn’t been able to stop provoking him as he’d become more and more conservative. They’d stayed together for a lot of reasons: their kid, the pandemic, the money… but then the night before he died, Gerry came back home late, and drunk. He told Juliet he’d be out two days later, which was their wedding anniversary, and this provoked a major fight. She won with words, but he got physical, and when she tried to deescalate by going back to making dinner, be punched the back of her head. Hard. That was the last straw; Juliet snapped and stabbed him with the knife she was using to chop vegetables.
Juliet: I just punched him in the leg, you know? I ran away, but he yelled about all the horrible things he was going to do to me, so I hid. And then he said he was bleeding badly… and then it got quiet. I stayed there for a while to make sure he calmed down, but then when I came out I found him dead.
From there, she decided to cover up the murder so that Taylor wouldn’t end up alone. So Juliet carefully cleaned the crime scene, wrapped everything in trash bags (including her husband), and hid it all in Gerry’s office. The next day, she took her daughter to school as usual, went to work, stopped at an internet cafe to google some things, and then at a hardware store to buy supplies in cash. When she got home, she chatted to the staff in the pub, then dismembered her husband in the kitchen, wrapped everything in trash bags, and locked everything in the office. She picked up her kid, and then while Taylor was having a bath, Juliet loaded the body into her car, gave her kid a sleeping pill, altered the license plate, and drove to the marsh to dump the body.
Here’s the thing: this is all very impressive. It seems like the case is closed. But Jess notices something critical: Juliet’s timeline is wrong. Back in Jess’ office, the detectives look at the call logs and confirm that Gerry ordered takeout much earlier the night that Juliet says she killed her husband; not after 11, like she said. Why lie about the timing if you confessed to the murder? The obvious next step is to talk to Taylor, so that’s what they do. Taylor confirms that her dad hit her mum many times, and that she heard it, but didn’t witness it. Until their last fight.
Taylor: Look, whatever my mum said she did, it was in self defense.
Sunny: We know that. 100%.
Taylor: I was in my bedroom doing homework, and I heard him start yelling. It was probably around 8pm? I tried to just put my headphones in, but it didn’t work. I’m not sure why I went downstairs this time, but I did, and she was on the kitchen floor. She kept trying to get up, but every time she did he was stomping on her ribs. Hard. She was crying. Neither of them could see me, but I really thought he was going to kill her, so I grabbed this little knife off the kitchen table and sort of jabbed it into his leg.
Sunny: Look, I need to caution you…
Jess: It’s fine, Sunny, no need. Carry on.
Taylor: He yelled in shock, turned around and saw me, and was upset. By then Mum was standing, so she just took my hand and led me upstairs. I remember looking back and he was just watching me go looking really sad. Mum ran me a bath, read me a book, and put me to bed. The next morning there was a candy bar by my bed, and she said he had left it for me before he went to a work meeting, so I knew he’d forgiven me.
From there on, Taylor’s story matches up with Juliet’s. As wild as it is, Taylor never realized that she’d been the one who killed her dad. She still doesn’t know; she was taken upstairs before she even saw blood. In the car, outside, Sunny and Jess talk this over.
Jess: Holy cow. What do we even do about this?
Sunny: I think we have two options. One: we pretend we never heard any of that.
Jess: Juliet would claim self defense, get sentenced to four years, but she’s out in two?
Sunny: Yup.
Jess: But we’d be doing a fraud.
Sunny: Yup. Or, we tell the prosecutor. They will almost certainly not charge Taylor; there’s no reason to.
Jess: But it’s not a sure thing, and then she’ll have to know what she did.
Sunny: This isn’t our call to make. We should let Juliet decide. You don’t want the weight of this. Trust me. We need to talk to her.
Next stop? Telling Juliet what they know.
Juliet: She’s been through so much already; why couldn’t you just let me protect her?
Jess: Because even knowing the self defense angle, you might still be in jail for two years.
Juliet: Yeah, which is WAY better than her being in jail for even a second.
Jess: But here’s the thing: we don’t think she would. We think the prosecutor won’t want to bring a case.
Sunny: You’d maybe be charged with hiding the body, and hampering the investigation, but given the situation we don’t think the prosecutor will go after you either.
Jess: No guarantees, but we want you to decide. We didn’t record our conversation with Taylor.
Juliet: What would you do?
Jess and Sunny both look about as eager to answer that question as I would be, and we don’t see what they say. But ultimately, Juliet decides to go with the truth, and Sunny and Jess bring her to an interrogation room to explain everything to Taylor. After everything is said and done, the prosecutor decides it’s not in the public interest to charge either of them. Sunny and Jess look relieved, but not nearly as much as the family are when they get the news.
What happened with everyone else? First, we catch Melinda’s final broadcast.
Melinda: I don’t totally agree with everything I’ve had to say on air, and it’d be better if we could have a healthy debate. I was going to do a realllll messy final broadcast, but did this instead. Wishing everyone love and light!
That sorted, she goes back to the hospital and reunites with her fiance. And speaking of hospital visits: Martin’s Mum looks better, but not 100%. At her bedside, Caretaker tells her and Martin that they’ll figure out a way to get both of them set up back at home. Martin is delighted, but I’m not so sure about his mother, unfortunately. Meanwhile, Asif and Sam reunite. Sam’s probably going to lose his job, and will for sure be put in military prison for a chunk of time, but he has no regrets. Keeping his partner here is more important to him than his job. He proposes, and Asif says yes.
That evening, Jess leaves the office to check on Dirtbag Husband, and finds him… totally ok. He’s at a pub, chatting up a pretty redhead. Jerk. The good news? She can now go about forgetting him in peace, which is exactly what she does. Meanwhile, Sunny calls up Pathologist and gets her voicemail.
Sunny: Look, thanks for sharing earlier. You seemed pretty freaked out, but I’m glad you told me. I also have lots of baggage, just like we all do, and I would still like to meet up and hang out together. Call me when you’re ready.
And with that, the season comes to a close! As ever, a fascinating case with a complicated emotional ending. Unforgotten has been renewed for another season, but just when we’ll get that season here in the U.S. is a mystery I can’t yet solve. In the meantime, don’t worry: there’s plenty more drama where this came from on GBH Passport!