Durham County 2: Ep. 1 - Little Lost Children
Season 2 - Episode 1
Newly promoted homicide detective Mike Sweeney struggles to keep his head above water. His family has been torn apart by serial killer Ray Prager, who’s now in lockdown after murdering two women and traumatizing (perhaps raping) Mike’s teenage daughter Sadie. Though Sadie denies Ray physically assaulted her, Ray has said otherwise and her rebellious behaviour has Mike uneasy that she may be keeping secrets. Already hanging on by a thread, the family is dealt another blow when Audrey, Mike’s wife, announces that she wants a divorce, leaving Maddie, Mike’s youngest daughter, detached and furious and blaming Sadie. Meanwhile at work, Mike deals with what seems to be a homicide involving the death of a baby. He brings on a forensic psychiatrist, Pen Verrity to help him understand the murder, but he’s already decided that the mother (Elodie) is the killer, and he’s going to do whatever he has to, to get her. It’s his guilt over his failure to save Sadie that drives him, and when he and Pen come across Elodie revisiting the scene of the crime, Mike’s buried rage is unleashed and he stops her cold and breaks her ankle. Pen Verrity sees it all, but his violence seems to her the just punishment for a bad mother. Just like Mike, Pen is driven by guilt for the drowning death of her autistic daughter just months before. She’s also going through a difficult and messy divorce. Their mutual loneliness, anger and pain brings them together sexually, and when Pen offers to treat Sadie privately, to get to the bottom of the young girl’s trauma and help her prepare for trial, the bond between the two is strengthened. But it’s clear that Pen is deeply troubled herself. When teaching her young son to swim, she suffers a psychotic break and he almost drowns. And when later in the lockdown, called to the young mother’s aid, she helps Elodie in a way that could qualify as murder.
