The Bungled Assassination
Episode 3 of Angela Black begins with tensions still high between Angela and Olivier. While he leaves with his briefcase, a cold and standoffish Angela heads over to Ed’s place for answers. Ed reminds her that it’s either her or her husband, and urges Angela to think of the kids. Specifically, he wants to set up killing Olivier. I mean, she could always go to the police instead with an anonymous tip about a potential murder victim in the park. But hey, that would be logical and that’s not how ITV rolls! That evening, Angela crushes up some pills and puts them in Olivier’s drink. While he takes sips of his whiskey, Angela shows how bad her poker face is, trembling and heading off to get a glass of water. It does the trick though, and Olivier soon stumbles upstairs like a zombie, instantly falling asleep in bed. When he does, Angela shuts off all the lights in the house as Ed rocks up wearing all-black out the front door. With a mask on, he heads upstairs to do the deed while Angela races off to her neighbour’s, phoning the police to let them know. Oh, so NOW she decides to ring them! Anyway, after waiting for some time, police surround Angela’s house. She hurries back over but Olivier is still alive. In fact, he wanders out the house looking confused – Ed is nowhere to be seen. Well, Angela tells Olivier that there was a strange man in the house, hence why she left to get help. It’s a pretty shaky alibi but it works well enough for Olivier to teach Angela how to hold a gun and defend herself in case there’s another invasion. In the morning, Angela is still frazzled and rings Ed, asking just what happened the previous evening. Eventually they meet at a secluded parking lot on the roof. Apparently he was ready to kill Olivier but he woke up, and as a result ED decided to leave it for a less-risky time. Angela has had enough though and tells Ed to leave, refusing to indulge this idea anymore. When Angela returns home, Olivier is packing his things. An urgent work trip has called him away for the night, leaving Angela alone with the kids. All goes swimmingly until Ed rings and tells her she needs to leave asap. With a car showing up at the front door, Angela immediately panics and expects the worst. She screams at her kids, telling them to pack their things and prepare to leave. Gun cocked, Angela prepares for the front door opening…where the police show with Olivier behind her. Given she has a gun in her hands, she’s arrested for possession of a firearm. In prison, Angela does absolutely nothing to help her case for sanity, incredulously claiming that Olivier was trying to kill her. As she mentions Ed the hitman, the police have a grim confession. They’ve gone back over Angela’s statement ad it doesn’t add up. Ed’s place has ben empty for months. And if that wasn’t enough, Ed doesn’t show up on the cameras and in fact, there happens to be a book from Ed Harrison that describes the plot of this series completely. But is Angela actually imagining Ed or not?
The Episode Review
So Angela’s delay in going to the police backfires bigtime as she finds herself now on the cusp of being declared insane. It would appear as if Ed isn’t real but personally, I don’t think that’s the truth. I’m pretty confident this is a red herring (although that statement may come back to bite me in future recaps!) Personally, it seems more likely that Ed is real and is actually obsessed with Angela, adopting the Ed Harrison name for himself and acting out the plot of this movie because he’s in love with her. It would make sense, given the whole “falling in love” part of this tale, but the bedroom antics of not killing Olivier doesn’t quite add up. Another theory here could be that Olivier has staged all of this to make Angela look insane, and that Ed is actually still working for him. The main goal here being to win the kids by default as Angela is declared insane. Stylistically, Angela Black has a tendency to be a little too over-indulgent, with lots of long shots around the house and plenty of material for Joanne Froggatt to lap up while she plays the main protagonist. While there’s nothing wrong with that per-se, it does sometimes get in the way of actually progressing the story forward. There’s just enough intrigue to stick with this to find out what happens but nowhere near enough to remember this long after thee credits roll. The show has done okay to string its mystery out thus far but nowhere near enough to make for one of the better entries in the murder mystery field. Hopefully the second half of this show can pick things up after a promising first episode. Based on this showing though ,we’re going to be graced with more methodically paced, mediocre drama before we get there.
