Episode 1

Eighteen months have passed, and Catherine Cawood is back to spinning plates. At work there is a dead body and, soon enough, a murder investigation with Catherine in the middle of it as a suspect. At home Ryan is approaching his tenth birthday, and the boy's father is the one man Catherine hoped never to think about again.

Tommy Lee Royce is serving a life sentence in a high-security prison, which turns out not to matter. From behind bars he finds a way of keeping a watchful eye on Ryan, and the episode doesn't pretend the bars make that any less frightening. A man can run a campaign from a cell if he has the patience, and Tommy has always had that. Catherine becomes a murder suspect after finding the body, and the two problems start to look connected in ways she can't yet prove.

Being suspected of murder is a particular kind of nightmare for a serving officer. Catherine knows how the machine works from the inside, which means she knows exactly how much trouble she is in and exactly how little she can do about it. The episode keeps her on the outside of her own case, watching it happen to her, and the frustration reads in every scene.

Sally Wainwright wrote and directed the opener, and she uses the confined spaces well: a prison cell, a family home, both doing the same kind of damage. Sarah Lancashire is Catherine, Siobhan Finneran is Clare. Robert Emms plays Daryl Garrs, Susan Lynch plays Alison Garrs, with Ishia Bennison's Joyce Metcalfe and Shane Zaza's Shafiq Shah. Margaret Jackman turns up as the Little Old Lady, and Ellis Todd, Jamie Dorrington and Tom Kilby are the three lads.

It is a potent, uneasy opener. The first season ended with Catherine exhausted but standing. This one starts with her back under water, and the tide is already coming in.