'Passenger' Tries To Solve A Murder At Its Midpoint

A dangerous game is afoot in Chadder Vale as we reach Passenger’s midpoint. Mehmet is dead, and Riya – who never claimed to be perfect and spends a not-inconsiderable amount of time showing those imperfections – refuses to let it go. She’s in the right; it’s not a suicide, and she doubts it’s an accident. Yet, her superior insists she “bin it and forget it.” (WOW. Interesting choice of phrasing. She could have said, “Put it in a drawer,” “Box it up,” or even, “You need to move on.”) Riya does none of that, not after visiting Mehmet’s mother, and especially not after finding what looks like a draft of Mehmet’s “suicide note” among Kane’s things. 

However! Before we get to that chilling final-scene moment, many other bizarre, upsetting, intriguing, and just plain confusing things happen first.

Everyone is devastated by Mehmet’s death. In a small village, even the quiet kids are well-known and, in his case, pretty beloved. John and Katie nearly reconcile (he even proposes, but we know that’s the move of a desperate, grieving person); Riya pours her feelings into learning what exactly killed him, threatening Eddie; and the candlelight vigil hosted by the imam at Mehmet’s mosque draws massive attendance, a group that includes American tourist Jordan. (Remember him? Theoretically, he’s in town to see the Tree of Good Hope!)

Even Bread Bros. Des and Kane are in a bad way over Mehmet’s death, but more because it’s further proof the situation with the black goo and whatever terrifying, stag-killing entity it emerges from is 1000% out of their control. They’ve moved Mehmet’s corpse, ready to take one last crack at capturing this creature before it kills again so Waste Management doesn’t come to town. As they layer themselves in full camo, repeating “no one can know,” they obviously aren’t concerned with running afoul of the law. As Des puts it, “We’ve got to get it* back, or we’re dead.”

(*Recall this is the creature they’re meant to transport in their bread van, which cannot be in compliance with British health and safety regulations.)

Unfortunately for Des and Kane’s hide-saving plans, John runs off to the forest after being dumped with a vengeance by Katie, where he comes face to face, not with “I told you so” but with his worst fears – being told he’s an unlovable nothingburger just like his father – seemingly brought on by the creature. When the step-brothers come across John’s unconscious form, one wails, “This has been going on for years; it’s just been hidden!” Fortunately for John, Kane and Des ferry him to the hospital. He seems to be in far worse condition than Katie was when she returned home from her brief disappearance, which makes me wonder if some people have some natural resistance to the worst effects of encounters with the creature. 

(Yikes. We all know perfect safety is a fantasy, but we’re now in “why does anyone still live in this town?” territory.)

Back at the station, for reasons I can’t comprehend, Linda continues to be set against investigating Mehmet’s death. She orders Riya to shift her attention to tracking down the mysterious missing garbage bins of Chadder Vale. She should have picked something more challenging, as Riya discovered that 129 bins had been reported missing in the last six months, and most were in Des and Kane's locked storage unit. Well, Linda doesn’t particularly care for that either, instructing Nish and Ally to wash them and have the town council collect them. There’s no need for testing – it’s garbage; what else would even be in a bin? She then calls the Manchester Metropolitan Police to arrange a transfer for Riya, effective within the week. 

Linda seems to care about her community; she’s also got a successful compartmentalization strategy going in her mind, and she perceives any challenge to it as a severe threat.

Somehow, amidst all the terrible developments, Riya’s missing husband, Nick, returns! I have to admit – Passenger got me pretty good with this one. I figured Nick was dead because of how sinister about 85% of events seem in Chadder Vale. But no! It turns out he’s a very dull cliché, the philanderer who convinced his wife to move to be closer to his mother and then runs off with the home health aide. I’m not sure which is worse from Riya’s perspective: Nick being back at all or that his return was triggered by a panicked call from Susan, whining about Riya being out late. On her birthday. (Please imagine my lavish eye-roll in this set of circumstances.) 

Riya has had it up to here with Nick’s nonsense and leaves him in charge of Susan while she stomps off to stay with Jakub. He’s lovely and patient and continues to be an emotional pain sponge, maintaining a philosophical “this too shall pass” attitude even though Riya is – understandably – deeply prickly and sometimes a bit short with him. 

Disobeying Linda’s directives, Nish starts sifting through Nina’s belongings, which B&B owner Kath dropped off. There’s a copy of the 80s video game Mehmet played and some paperwork that piques Nish’s curiosity. Of the two trainees, Nish seemed the least likely to take the job seriously, but here he is, posing questions and seeking answers in service of a case. You never know what will prove a turning point for someone, and I, for one, love to see this intrinsic motivation take root! The paperwork shows an eye-watering £6000 Mehmet transferred from his mother’s account, sending it to “Starlight,” whose parent company is “The Pangaea Initiative.” Nina also sent £6000 to Starlight. Huh!  

(Between the unseen fear-monster in the woods and an obscurely named Initiative, we’ve got some strong Lost signifiers popping up now.)

Doubling the Huh! factor: Nina Carlsson isn’t real; it’s the main character’s name in a Swedish police drama. “Nina” is a local woman named Claire who used it as a pseudonym at the B&B to hide her infidelity. Maybe Linda has a point; Riya’s attempts to connect the dots indicate Riya’s need for those connections more than anything else. However, Nina being not-missing Claire doesn’t resolve the other disturbing recent events. Katie is hacking up a lung; a pothole on the road through the forest opened up out of nowhere; creepy men in yellow hazmat-type suits descend upon Kath’s B&B and head to the forest. Jim is frantic with fear for his safety; John is unconscious in the hospital. 

Riya arrests Kane to get to the bottom of his and Des’s involvement with the bins and whatever happened to John and Mehmet. Let’s not forget why and how Riya found the corpse at the fracking site – he might have gone undiscovered til the following morning were it not for Jim being convinced he was in danger and racing to Riya for help. Jim’s paranoia continues unabated; he’s convinced Eddie is after him, and considering Eddie can’t recall his whereabouts or activities from the night before, Riya is inclined to agree. 

The most powerful scene of these episodes is when Jim confronts Eddie at the Wells house. Once he arrives at the door, he soon loses gas and collapses. Eddie does the same on his side of the door and allows Jim’s anguish to wash over him, absorbing for perhaps the first time that he and Jim are broken men. His response is to march down to the boxing hall and invite the lads there to beat him as badly as they want, a well-known, highly effective method for curing all of one’s deep-seated concerns. 

It’s not different from John and Katie’s impulse to run to the forest, though she goes to confront whatever hurt John so severely. Just as he’d seen visions of his worst fears, she sees a personal horror show of her mother dying, herself heavily pregnant, marrying John, until she faints. Regaining consciousness, she is given a few sips of water by one of the incredibly creepy Waste Management guys, who have managed to locate and secure the creature. That’s good news, but I’m not convinced this is the last we’ll see of it.

As the episode draws to a close, Nish and Ally help Riya with what they believe will be her last week in Chadder Vale, settling down to inventory the contents of the 129 bins, which include wire cutters, coveralls, and knives. It’s Kane’s stuff; butts of his uncommon cigarette brand are in the mix. Kane swears the bins were used for waste from bread production and melted chicken bones. (I’ve never heard of, let alone been aware of chicken bone use in the commercial bread production). He needed the bins because Des’s disposal machine broke, and repairs took too long. This sounds absurd but also pretty benign and matches up with the scene where Kane confessed to Des he’s never used the disposal machine and got in over his head with how much waste needed removing.

That doesn’t explain the presence of wire cutters, coveralls, and knives in the bins, but Nish, Ally, and Riya decide to conduct a few searches at Kane’s farmhouse and in the storage unit where he’d stashed the bins. Things take a turn for the creepy once more when Nish and Ally find Katie’s bracelet at Kane’s place, and Riya finds what looks an awful lot like a rough draft of Mehmet’s suicide note in a storage tin. We close on Kane slumped in the corner of his holding cell, back to the wall, and hands over his ears, as if he needs to drown out some terrible sound. It seems a lot like the plot is going to continue to thicken!

Passenger continues with two episodes a week on Thursdays through October 31, 2024.