Episode 4

The fourth episode opens with Eamon Cunningham on the telephone, being told where Jimmy Kinsella is, and ordering his people to get Michael. The family's answer to the hunt is money and paperwork. Amanda takes her son Anthony out of the city to Glenwoods College, a boarding school, ostensibly to keep him safe; Anthony asks whether he may use the family name, and she tells him to use her maiden name, Larkin, and promises to visit. Michael, meanwhile, is being tested for epilepsy and is seen studying a pamphlet for an epilepsy institute before putting on a Kevlar vest.

The supply lines are closing. Amanda meets Ged Delaney at Kingsford Motors and learns that Eamon is threatening anyone who deals with the Kinsellas; Eric suggests buying from the Devitts and Frank says they are refusing his calls. Frank asks Beady to arrange a meeting with his former Tunisian supplier in Antwerp, though he admits he does not trust him, and Amanda warns that Eamon may be luring Frank out of the country where he has no protection. It is she who asks who supplies Eamon, learns that the wholesaler is Con Doyle, and proposes stealing Doyle's stash; Frank agrees reluctantly.

Two killings land in the hour. Fudge Flynn is shot twice by Glen Wright while on the telephone to Eric, in front of a drug user he has just refused; Kem finds the body, flees, and tells Eric. Frank summons Kem, scans his phone, finds an outgoing call to an unknown number, and accepts Kem's claim that it belongs to Roddy's burner after dialling it and hearing Roddy confirm the story. In the other strand, Amanda is questioned at the dealership. Detective Liz Cullen tells her it is possible Jamie was killed in retaliation for an earlier shooting involving a car registered to the business, and Detective Paul Breslin reads out the registration. Amanda enters the number, sees the car was registered to Eric, lies to the detectives and deletes his name from the record. They tell her they will seek a court order for the computers if necessary.

Elsewhere, Amanda tells Jimmy about Fudge's death and warns him not to attend the funeral, and Birdy tells Michael that she understands why he killed Caolán and that it was the right thing to do. Anna, drunk, telephones Michael to ask why he killed her mother; he says he was off his head, that he shot her by accident, and that he loves her.

The resolution is the season's mid-point fact stated plainly. Amanda asks Michael whether he ever questioned whether Jamie was his son, and tells him that Jamie was his. The episode also settles the family's next move: Amanda pays Angela Cunningham 30,000 euro in connection with Noel and presses for the registration books and VRT documents Noel held, and the family decides to keep Dotser Reid out of the robbery, Birdy warning that Eamon could use Dotser to reach Frank.

The confrontation between Amanda and Michael in the near-dark of the house is the episode's best scene, and the Irish Times called it the show at its best, with Dunne and Cox convincing as damaged people who would have chosen another life. The weakness is the balance: the Irish Examiner found the epilepsy thread a distraction and the hour unable to settle whether it is a family drama or a crime thriller, and called the pacing inert. What distinguishes it is the paper trail, the first episode where the police and the family's own records, rather than a gun, are the source of the trouble.