Sherwood recap: season two, episode two – TV doesn’t get any more tense than that

Spoiler alert: this recap is for people watching Sherwood on BBC One. Please don’t read it unless you have watched series two, episode two.

Mission to Skegness

Once again, we opened on an outlaw striding through the famous forest. This time it was crime family patriarch Roy Branson (Stephen Dillane) testing handguns with loose cannon nephew Kyre (Conor Deane). As he proceeded to buy a used car, it all spelled serious trouble. Having learned the location of the Bottomleys’ safehouse from their police insider, Ann Branson (Monica Dolan) was keen to embark on their revenge road trip – and take young Ronan Sparrow (Bill Jones) along for the ride to identify the targets.

Lioness mother Daphne (Lorraine Ashbourne) insisted on coming along – “Fine, I’ll pack extra cobs” deadpanned Ann – before using some mobile phone subterfuge (like a true spycop) to contact the mystery companion who’d witnessed the shooting with Ronan. She was stunned to be reunited with long-lost daughter Rachel (Christine Bottomley). Both women went wobbly. A gut-punch scene, powerfully performed.

Daphne reminded Rachel that she “ran away, leaving a frightened boy with a corpse”, pressurising her into taking Ronan’s place. “Nobody will get hurt because we’re going to stop them,” she vowed. Elder son Rory (Perry Fitzpatrick) equipped her with two burner phones. She planned to smuggle one handset to the Bottomleys and text them a warning. Could she save the “walking corpses”?

Dodgy dossier dropped bombshells

District councillor and new sheriff Lisa Waters (Ria Zmitrowicz) was having a bad day. She was trolled online over her opposition to the proposed new pit and was petitioned by the Bransons for a street to be named after their murdered son. “We just have to persuade the neighbours? Easy peasy,” they concluded ominously.

At a community meeting in the “clubby”, Lisa looked to Julie for leadership, as a representative of the miners’ strike generation. Julie insisted it was the next generation’s decision, echoing her previous speech about the need to look forward not back. Developers were buying up local farmland to cover with solar panels. Like a true Sparrow, Rory was hostile but agreed to a sitdown about leasing his family’s land. That should be fun to watch.

We last saw Lisa receiving a dossier that shed new light on the past – and present. Amid news cuttings about “Thatcher’s spies” were photos of smarmy mogul Franklin Warner (Robert Lindsay). Could he be another spycop? Or, indeed, the unnamed father of Daphne’s daughter?

Bent copper? Send for AC-12

Lisa expressed concern that DCS Harry Summers (Michael Balogun) was still traumatised from the turf wars and compromised by knowing the Bottomleys from the victim support group. Her fears proved founded when Harry visited their safehouse and ended up having a whisky-fuelled heart-to-heart with Denis (David Harewood, outstanding). He spoke of Chloe, who’d been “an innocent bystander” (a wife? a daughter?) before falling asleep on their sofa and experiencing noisy night terrors.

The morning after, poor Harry was still off his game. Visiting blood-spattered crime scenes hardly helped. He failed to spot the Bransons passing him on the road to Skegness or that sidekick DC Marcus Clarke (Jorden Myrie) was feeding them intel. Surely it can’t be long until Ian is dragged out of retirement to lead the investigation instead.

M&M: Manville and Morrissey

Amid the grimness came a glimmer of potential romance. Ex-detective Ian St Clair (David Morrissey) paid a visit to Julie Jackson (Lesley Manville) for a cuppa. When he asked about the “for sale” sign outside, Julie confessed that she didn’t know why she was still in Ashfield. Ian looked momentarily bereft. He found a flimsy excuse to return and ask Julie out for a drink. After some spiky back-and-forth, she said yes. A divorcee dating a widow is never going to be simple, but it was a winningly sweet moment.

We don’t like to be beside the seaside

What an unbearably tense final 20 minutes. A bravura sequence saw the unlikely hit squad of Roy, Ann, Daphne and Rachel head to Skeg Vegas to hunt down the Bottomleys. At least they planned to kill one of the siblings, not both: “One life for one life. There’s a code.”

As the siblings took Stephie (the brilliant Bethany Asher) for a day down the seafront, suspense was ratcheted up. Rachel spotted the family having a pub lunch. Agonisingly, Daphne was about to tell them to run when Ann gatecrashed. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said. “Oh. Maybe you have.” Daphne managed to slip them the phone but its battery was flat. She cursed Rory. So did viewers.

As Kyre arrived tooled up, bent DC Clarke warned them to grab the burner phone too. Balaclava-clad Roy and Kyre burst into the safehouse. Roy shot Pam (Sharlene Whyte) in the head execution-style (“For Nicky!”), before Kyre gunned down Denis on a ride-on lawnmower. Two deaths broke their precious honour code. Roy phoned the handset which sent the warning text but it buzzed silently in Daphne’s pocket. Phew. He left a voicemail, telling the traitor they were “Dead, dead, dead”. In summary: dead.

Still time for one last tragic twist. While metal-detecting on the beach, Stephie saw the Bransons flee the scene of the slaughter. She gave chase and stabbed Kyre with the garden shears Denis had taught her to use before he died.

It was a messy mission, littered with mistakes. Kyre’s corpse, locked in his van along with the burner phones he was meant to destroy, will lead straight back to the Bransons. The police mole should be identifiable by call logs. Ann’s discarded water bottle and Roy’s cigarettes could be DNA-tested. Trouble awaits the Sparrows, too. Rachel used her bank card in the pub and Ann was suspicious of Daphne’s behaviour. She also now realises that Ronan overheard “that” spycop conversation. Sparrows are coming home to roost.

Line of the week

It recalled EastEnders (“You ain’t my muvver!” “Yes I am!”) when Daphne speculated on Rachel’s relationship to Ronan. “Friend? New girlfriend? Fuck buddy?” “Sister.”

Notts notes

• A doff of the flat cap to Stephen Dillane, whose glowering performance was full of telling details – from breaking down over his son’s old voicemails to disgust at smoking a blood-stained cigarette.

• One of those voicemails was from the 2022 play-off final, when Nottingham Forest did indeed end their 23-year wait for top-flight football. Hopefully James Graham is now forgiven for series one’s “Notts Forest” faux-pas.

• Ann turned out to be a Thatcher fan, quoting her “no such thing as society” speech. Who’d have thunk?

• RIP the Bottomleys. You were indeed “good people, respectable people”. Detectorists who dreamed of buried treasure. Lovers of crumpets, supermarket sandwiches and pub pies. But I fear for Stephie.

Rejoin us next Sunday for the next Sherwood shakedown. In the meantime, please leave your theories below. I’ll pack extra cobs …