Chris Wastes No Time Getting Back into Trouble in 'The Responder' Season 2

Chris Carson (Martin Freeman) is still on the night shift when The Responder Season 2 kicks off, but he's determined to land a day job to be a better father for his daughter Tilly and a healthier person overall. Ironically, the drive to land a day job sends Chris straight into trouble in the season's opening episode. 

It's a typical night on response when Chris gets a call from Deb Barnes (Amaka Okafor) to help her pull over a drug dealer named Hodgkin she's tailing after a night at the pub. Chris does as he's told, quickly realizing the bust is a setup. He wants nothing to do with whatever Deb has gotten involved with until she tells him she'll create a day job for him if he goes to the dealer's house, conveniently finds some weed, and brings him in. Chris knows it's a bad idea and initially refuses until a visit to his dad (Bernard Hill) inspires him to take the risk. Chris knows that if he doesn't land a day job quickly, Kate (MyAnna Buring) will take a new job herself and relocate to London with Tilly, essentially cutting Chris off from his daughter. 

Chris had every intention of doing the job himself until he heard the call that Rachel (Adelayo Adedayo) got into an accident. Chris makes a pitstop to check on his former partner and ensure she's okay – spoiler alert: she's not. When Rachel expresses her desperate need to get off response and start working in the light, Chris loops her in on the job and takes her to Hodgkin's house. When the two arrive, they find a gun planted in Hodgkin's garage, and Chris determines this job is much more of a shit show than he anticipated (you should have known, my dude!). He takes the gun to toss it, thus crossing the point of no return. We were all rooting for you, Chris Carson. 

The gun belongs to a drug dealer named Franny (Adam Nagaitis), who we later learn has an intimate connection with Deb. She doesn't know that Franny has planted a gun for Chris to find, but when he tries to extort Chris for 15 thousand quid, Debs is no help. Wouldn't you know it, when Chris is desperate for money, Jodie (Faye McKeever) shows up with a job offer. 

Naturally, the job could land Chris in prison, but he will get paid. He agrees to pick up drugs for Jodie to get the money he owes to Franny and then hopefully coerce Debs into still giving him the day job he promised Kate he'd land.

Rachel insists on coming with him to the drug drop since she's now implicated in taking Franny's missing gun. She helps distract the port security guard while Chris looks for the drugs, which he almost missed, but Casey (Emily Fairn) shows up and is actually very helpful! She's now in cahoots with Jodie, which will inevitably turn very messy for Chris when Jodie finds out that Casey set the events in motion that led to Carl's (Ian Hart) death last season. Currently, Casey is our favorite scatter-brained drug dealer and the secret MVP of the premiere.

So Chris has Jodie's drugs. Hopefully, He will get paid, but will it satisfy Franny? Even if it meets Franny's initial price, Chris is on this new drug dealer's hook, and he doesn't have the history that he had with Carl to leverage to get out of even worse scrapes. He has Rachel by his side, but even Chris knows that she's still struggling after turning on her abusive ex Steve (Philip Baratoni) last season. Chris is doing what he can to look out for her, but that only ever gets them in more trouble. 

Chris also never got Deb to put the promise of a day job in writing. Meanwhile, Ray (Warren Brown) already told Kate that Chris didn't get the job he promised her, so she turned down her London job for nothing. The next time Chris visits Tilly, it will be an absolute nightmare, and that's if he can get through the exchange with Jodie and hand off to Franny. Considering that we have four more episodes, this is absolutely going to get messier before anything gets better. If Chris is already in this much crap in the premiere episodes, he's going to need a prayer circle to make it through the rest of the season.

The Responder Season 2 debuted on BritBox with two episodes on Thursday, July 11, 2024, and will continue with two episodes a week on Thursdays through the end of the month.