'Annika' Recap: Season 2 Episode 3

Annika airs Sundays at 9:00 pm and is available to stream. Recap the previous and following episodes.
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After Annika revealed to Michael that he was her daughter Morgan’s father, he took two weeks off work. Annika thought he had quit. But he returns sooner, finding it difficult to be at home. He has not forgiven Annika, however.

But there’s a case to investigate: the green tech entrepreneur Florian Hyde has been found dead in the aquarium in his house. He was found dead at 8:15 am by his house manager, January, but a clock in the aquarium is stopped at 11:11 pm, the same time Florian’s smartwatch stopped registering his heartbeat. He died from drowning, preceded by blunt force to the back of his head.

Florian should have been in Dundee, not at home, according to January. She left at 6 pm, and when she returned in the morning the CCTV was off and she found Florian’s body.

Before the CCTV went out, it showed the delivery of a package and the arrival of a man who angrily banged on the door. Florian came out and pushed the man, who then went inside.

The man is Greg Connolly, the CEO of Florian’s Doxon Holdings. The CCTV was manually switched off from inside the house eight minutes after he went in. He released a video after Florian died (but before the public knew) announcing that he had to close Doxon due to Florian’s failures.

When Michael and Tyrone arrive at Doxon, they encounter angry workers. They jump out of their car and pull Greg from his as a front loader moves towards it and crushes it – the workers are upset to lose their jobs so suddenly.

Greg says he argued with Florian at his home, then left – and his car’s GPS confirms that he was driving at the time of Florian’s death.

Florian has a daughter, Katherine, who lives in the village near his home with her daughter, Grace, who is deaf but can read lips if someone is facing her. Her boyfriend, Dylan, is often at the house, too. His parents own a fish and chips shop in the village, and recently organized a petition against Florian, their landowner. Florian owns much of the property in the village, and had just raised rent. Rumor has it that he wanted to free the land up for fracking, despite his environmental, do-gooder image.

Dylan says he asked Katherine for support with the petition. She refused; Dylan says she’s a coward. CCTV shows him and his parents at the shop when Florian was killed.

Katherine’s social media shows her with Ross Kincaid, against whom Florian filed assault charges a few months ago. The charges were dropped. Ross explains that he is Grace’s father; he and Katherine have been together for years, but Florian never approved. Florian banned Ross from Katherine’s house, which Florian owned, and wouldn’t even let Ross drop off a present for Grace at her birthday party. That’s when the assault charges were filed; Katherine must have convinced Florian to drop them.

Ross says Florian was even trying to turn Grace against him by training him as his heir apparent for his work.

Michael is familiar with being separated from his daughter. He asks Annika if she has told Morgan. She hasn’t; the deal has always been that she will when Morgan asks. Michael feels like he is now lying all the time.

At the beginning of the case, Annika held a press conference about Florian’s death. Now a deepfake video of her has emerged, in which she is made to say she only cares about solving high-profile crimes. The fake video is traced to a defiant woman who believes the police neglect the small crimes that affect poor people. Where are the press conferences for those, she asks.

Tyrone has received his sought-after promotion, and decides after hearing the woman’s complaint to take it, since it is in a poorer community, like the one in which he grew up.

Florian’s house manager, January, hasn’t been back to her home since the detectives spoke to her – they’re having her residence watched. They have discovered a series of payments from Florian to her with no pattern – including one on the night he died, at the very time that he was arguing with his CEO.

The police get an alert that January is trying to leave the country on a ferry and apprehend her. Florian was a bully, so she got back at him by stealing money from him. She would transfer money using his computer when he was away on trips, like he was supposed to be that night. She’s the one who turned the CCTV off, so she wouldn’t be seen. But she didn’t kill him.

The package delivered to Florian that day is found in his safe. It contains a vicious letter with no return address postmarked in the village, but Annika recognizes Katherine’s handwriting. When she questions Katherine, Grace is there, and says she saw Katherine sneak out that night. Katherine says it was to see her divorced mother, who was asking for a handout. Grace resents Katherine for her family life and cutting Ross – her father – out of it.

If Katherine was gone that night, she can’t verify Grace’s presence at home. And the smart fridge in Florian’s home recorded that it was opened fifteen minutes before his death, and a bottle of the water that Grace drinks was taken out.

When the police approach Grace and Dylan, they flee but get stuck at the edge of a quarry. Grace says Florian’s death was an accident. Florian told her he would cut her off if she didn’t dump Dylan, who comes from a poorer family. Florian then turned his back on her, so she couldn’t read his lips, and she threw the clock at him. He fell into the aquarium.

Morgan is also a young woman who has made a mistake. She is hosting her friend Femi’s sixteenth birthday at Annika’s house, and is excited to have her girlfriend Erin come in from out of town for the party. But then Erin says she’s not coming, and Morgan decides to take her friends out on her mom’s police boat. But she forgets to drop anchor when they land on an island, and the boat floats away, stranding them.

Annika ends up driving with Michael to save Morgan. Seeing no other available craft, they get into a paddleboat to reach the island. While they paddle, Annika tells him that she had a dad who didn’t love her mom and then didn’t love his child because of that; she thought she was protecting Morgan by not telling Michael about her. He was a different person back then, and he was leaving the city. Now he’s a great father.

When everyone is rescued, Annika grounds Morgan for the first time while Michael watches. Morgan tells Annika that Erin dumped her by text. Annika feels like she never makes the right decisions.