River recap: season one, episode six – 'Solve this, Magoo, the end is in sight'

The final episode brings resolution and revelations for Abi Morgan’s detective as we learn the truth about Stevie’s murder

Spoiler alert: this recap contains details about the sixth episode of River, showing on BBC1 on Tuesday nights.

This is it, the end of the road. Or River. Who was Stevie really? What was she investigating and will River find the peace he seeks? We are about to find out.

We begin the final episode with Tom, Chrissie’s husband, in custody, River and Rosa’s relationship hovering somewhere between clinical fascination and possible romance and Stevie’s killer still at large.

Stevie is heavily present tonight, as is right and proper. “Solve this, Magoo, and you know what happens,” she warns him. She’s preparing River for her leave-taking. I’m not at acceptance yet, do you hear me? She can’t go.

Cream taunts River that he couldn’t tell Stevie how he felt, couldn’t say the words. He uses a version of that King Lear quotation about heaving your heart into your mouth. I’ve always liked that description and I love Abi Morgan’s little nods to Shakespeare.

Back at the office, Ira is doing the real police work, scouring Stevie’s case notes, and finds one of her last investigations has strong links with Uncle Mickey’s car company. The dots join up neatly from Bennigan Cars to African immigrants paying for quick visa resolutions, to Judge Tom Read. I knew my hunch about Mickey was right.

Sitting there in his enormous, vulgar house he seems unrepentant as he tells River, directly and indirectly, how this whole horrible mess began. I know some of you have been pulling towards a secret son storyline from almost the start. But I didn’t see this one coming, quite the way that it did.

Uncle Mickey raped a 14-year-old Stevie, and her Catholic mother shipped her off to Cork to give birth in secret, whereupon Bridie pretended the child was hers. With no question of an abortion taking place, the unfortunate child (and that’s all Stevie was) was made to go through with the birth and the pain of that secret. All of them claim they were protecting Frankie, but it gets so much darker than that. As the immigration racket grew to include the car firm and the judge in Mickey’s pay, the threat of discovery became too great.

Mickey paid to have Haider killed after Stevie sent him into Bennigan Cars to see how the system worked. But worst of all he ordered the death of his own niece as she got too close to the truth and it looked like the family secret would also be blown in the process.

Now we understand why Stevie gave River the £10k: to take care of her son. But little did she know that the boy she was protecting would pull the trigger on the instruction of her moral wasteland of an uncle.

Frankie’s vulnerability was, apparently, the reason he was persuaded to shoot his own “mummy” and the reason she had to die. They were all determined he would never find out the truth. I don’t know if I believe he could have pulled the trigger, drunk or no.

It’s only when River spots the coat on Bridie’s coat rack that he really understands the family’s full involvement in Stevie’s death. “Did you shoot your own daughter? Did Michael kill her?” demands River as he interrogates her at the station. She is cold, a closed door. Sorcha Cusack plays that hardening of heart so perfectly. What a horrible cow Bridie turned out to be.

The case buzzing in his head, River returns to Rosa’s group therapy session to open up about his childhood and his mother’s abandonment of him. As Stevie stands across the room, he tells her how he misses her and she smiles.

The tenderness is shattered by Cream’s appearance, goading him to let the hate out. He turns on him and starts hurling chairs, yelling that he is not listening to him any more. The rest of the group cower on the other side of the room and he leaves, apologising as he does so.

“Ask me why I did it,” says Frankie, as River finally confronts him, gently, at his Weightwatchers meeting. Frankie gets his gun out as he tells River Stevie was going to break his family, parroting what the others must have told him. He recounts the whole thing, how Stevie abandoned him and the anger and hatred comes surging forth. He’s suddenly a different man, hard like the rest of the family. As River reads him his rights he’s never looked more like a little boy.

The team at the station all watch the CCTV of Frankie getting into the car in silence. Mickey and Bridie are hauled in for questioning along with the other brother. It’s over. Case closed.

As the final act begins, the dead girl from episode one chooses River a tie as he gets ready to go out. He walks along the street clutching flowers as Reiley from episode one tells him not to be nervous. He enters the Chinese restaurant where he last dined with Stevie and sits down opposite her.

They are going to re-enact her final moments one last time, to give him the chance to say what he could never say to her, living.

As River is about to tell Stevie, “I love you,” he notices everyone else in the restaurant is staring and runs outside, shouting for her because he knows what must come next. They are going to re-live that dread moment one last time, so he can finish this.

“Screw you, Mr Magoo,” she grins and is obscured by the white van for the last time. The shot rings out. “I love you,” he finally sobs over her lifeless body. And she opens her eyes, smiles and says “And then you say? Sing, you nutter, sing.” And he does. Their song from episode one – I Love to Love.

That last dance, the singing and the grinning and all that affection all but finished me off. He holds her so tight and just as he’s about to kiss her, it all disappears and he is alone again. He has finally said good bye.

“I love you too,” says Stevie as she disappears from the rear view mirror. I can’t see the screen now for tears. In a final scene of hope, he holds Ira’s son while Ira’s wife unpacks them an office picnic. He looks at the smiling baby. “Hello,” he says, smiling back.

It’s over and for once the river is all mine. This hankie looks like it’s been run under the tap.

Stream of consciousness

• In video footage, we see River’s interview with Chrissie immediately after Stevie’s murder. He is in total shock, covered in her blood. He watches like he can’t even remember being there.
  
• A brilliant bit of roaring feminism when River asks Chrissie “Where’s your balls?” and she barks at him, saying she never needed balls to get her to the top.
  
• But I’m sad that Chrissie’s end has to be a defeat. She says she regrets the 33 years of sacrifice for her job and that she should have been at home, cooking and cleaning.
  
• River and Frankie’s midnight swim was beautiful. A chance to be carefree and for River to revisit his own childhood, swimming in the lakes of Sweden: the thing he was doing the day his mother left him.
  
• I think I’m content with the ending Morgan went for. This story is over but I fervently hope that River’s story is just beginning. He is, without contest, my favourite television detective in decades and I want him back, soon.
  

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