"The Hollow Tree Part 1" Reopens a New Cold Case on 'Ridley'

“There’s a storm a-comin’...” Ridley opens with our titular detective singing to an entranced crowd at the jazz bar as his love interest, Annie Marling, hangs out behind the bar with jewelry shop owner Harry Bentham. Art imitates life as outside a storm brings down a large tree, which splits to reveal a corpse inside. It's not quite the British mystery equivalent of cutting open a green pepper and finding little peppers growing inside, but it's not not the equivalent of that experience. Edward Gorey would have had a field day if they had let him draw that for the credits, is what I'm saying. 

DI Carol Farman and DC Darren Lakhan arrive, where Dr. Wendy Newstone reports it was once female, strangled, and several years decomposed. The pockets have an ID: Kathy Hadderly, who went missing six years ago. Kathy’s husband, David (Ryan Gage), waited six days before reporting her missing, and the leads fizzled out. With no real evidence, former DI Jean Dixon (Elizabeth Berrington), who was in charge, declared Kathy'd run off with a lover, leaving David and their 13-year-old daughter, Sam, deeply traumatized. (This is not a surprise if you remember Dixon from Season 1; she was the one who pinned a missing kid on a local sex offender without evidence in "The Peaceful Garden.")

Carole and Darren visit David and Sam Hadderley to tell them the case is reopening. David sticks to his original story: Kathy disappeared one night; things were rocky between them, and she'd said if she left, she wouldn’t come back. He'd assumed that's what happened until she didn’t call for Sam’s birthday, which she would never do. Sam (Eleanor Kirby), now grown, leaves the room. Carol follows her and learns Sam never believed her mother was dead but goes quiet when she sees David listening. 

DCI Goodwin calls Jean to see if she'll share her recollections of the case; she ignores him. So Ridley is dispatched to visit. She hesitates when she learns it’s Kathy Hadderley’s murder but still refuses to help. Jean's partner, Ross Enderby (Kevin Doyle), hovers protectively. Defeated, Ridley visits the bar and finds Annie and Harry fretting over the bar’s books. Ridley, as co-owner, is upset he wasn't consulted (he doesn't trust Harry's schemes to solve the issue), but Annie says she’s tried to tell him many times they were losing money; this is her livelihood, whereas Ridley has his consulting job, dream house, and a big fat pension. After thinking about it, Ridley admits she's right and agrees to let her and Harry take charge.

Ridley and Carol visit David’s brother Andy (Steven Elder) and his wife Lynne (D. Henry). Andy, the last person to see Kathy alive, also sticks to his story: He’d seen her two days after she disappeared, getting into a stranger's car. Lynne notes David suffered from depression and drank heavily; Kathy's leaving wasn't a surprise. Darren calls; Sam wants to talk but will only speak to Dixon, boxing Jean into agreeing to help. (Notably, Jean tells Ross she's meeting up her daughter Molly (Megan Trower).) Sam shows Jean why she believed her mother was alive: Kathy's number had been texting her up to six months ago. 

Sam admits that her mother said goodbye the night she left; she feared her father would blame her for mom leaving, so she stayed silent. Grudgingly, Jean heads to the police station, fills them in on everything she remembers, and submits the texts into evidence. Jean then meets up with Molly for a drink, ensuring she wasn't totally lying to Ross. Speaking of, although she’d arranged to eat pizza with Molly, Ross calls and says he’s making dinner, forcing her to choose, and, to Molly's disappointment, Jean goes home. If it weren't obvious, Ross is emotionally manipulating Jean and Molly, setting them against each other. Jean comes clean about interviewing Sam, and Ross starts praising her for being a good sport. 

The reopening of the case calls for a press conference, presenting the new evidence of the rope that strangled Kathy, her earring, and other details, ending with a brief statement from David, appealing for someone to come forward. A few neighbors call about David and Kathy, but it's all old stories, nothing helpful. The text message origins are hard to trace, so the team asks Jean to talk to Sam again. She agrees and tells Ross she’s going into town. 

Jean and Ridley meet Sam at Andy’s house, only for David to emerge from the garage, where his boat is stored. Ridley grabs a look at the boat's knots before David drives off. Jean goes inside to talk to Sam, who admits she thought her father was asleep but didn’t see him. Despite her earlier resentment, Jean and Ridley are working well together now. After they leave, Lynn searches through a military backpack and hides it before Andy.

Carol's family continues to deal with teen drama after Geri (Bhavna Limbachia) catches Jack (Tareq Al-Jeddal) getting a ride from a doper schoolmate. She is furious because he is late, and she needed him there to babysit while she was on Zoom for work. Jack, usually sweet-natured, stomps off and slams his bedroom door. (He wasn’t consulted about the family having a baby!) Geri sighs and calls Carol.

Molly drops by her mother’s house and finds Ross there, who refuses her entry. In town, Jean finds a note under her windscreen wipers: Keep your nose out, or I’m coming for you too. She looks around nervously and calls Ridley, worrying it might be David Hadderley warning her off since he wasn’t thrilled she was back on the case. Jean says she doesn’t want Ross to know about her continued involvement with the case, but Ridley (who should ever be listened to) advises her to come clean. Ross may be in danger, too! (Nope, don’t care.) Meanwhile, he’ll check the security cameras to see who left the note.

Ridley heads back to the crime scene, where David has shown up to poke around. He’s arrested for trespassing and questioned, with Ridley noting there’s a locked, abandoned military area nearby, which was operating at the time of the murder. (The rope has been identified as a military issue.) David says he served in the Reserves, and he suspected Kathy of having an affair with someone in the unit. They quarreled violently, and he claimed she taunted him with her affair, but he swears he didn’t kill her. Ridley believes him, and the team decides to look into the officers who were in the camp at the time of Kathy’s death.

Jean gets home after hearing from Molly and confronts Ross about not letting her daughter into the house. Jean mentions the note on the car, almost like she’s checking to see if he left it, but he turns it around, declaring it strengthens his case for “keeping her safe.” When Jean tells him she wants time apart, he refuses to let her go. Molly is manipulating Jean; it’s all her fault they’re fighting. Of course, he’s been following Jean to protect her from Ridley, an obvious stalker. When she tries to argue, he shoves her out the door. She tells him the relationship is over and wants him to leave.

Ridley Season 2 continues with new episodes on Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on most local PBS stations, the PBS app, and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel. PBS Passport members will have access to all episodes of Season 2 to watch as a binge (or as initially intended, i.e., as four two-hour-long episodes). As always, check your local listings and streamers.