'Annika' Recap: Episode 2

Annika airs Sundays at 9:00 pm and is available to stream. Recap the previous and following episodes.
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A boat named the Valkyrie, drifting at sea. A dead man with a knife in his chest in the cabin. In Scandinavian sagas, Valkyries decided who would live and who would die in upcoming battles. Who decided the fate of the man on the boat?

The Scandinavian mythology is apt, given that the dead man, Ronnie Kidd, was a teacher on the Isle of Bute, which has a Viking history and residents of Scandinavian descent. A stone found near his body has carvings that look Viking. And the Valkyrie, which is Ronnie’s boat, has a mooring on Bute.

Annika’s team will have to visit the isle for evidence, given that any remaining on the boat is destroyed when it blows up shortly after Annika has driven it to a dock. The killer didn’t want to leave a trace, although it seems like their explosives went off later than they had planned. Michael is nearly hurt in the explosion, so Annika’s boss Diane tells Annika to order him to stay on the mainland and oversee the reconstruction of the boat for evidence—a light assignment after the near-death experience.

Annika’s daughter Morgan journeys to Bute with the team instead of Michael. She was caught with a water bottle full of vodka at school and has been suspended, so she has nowhere else to go. Annika asks Blair, the youngest member of her unit, to hang out with Morgan, who won’t speak to Annika.

The Valkyrie probably left Bute Friday night, and Ronnie’s killer likely escaped on its motorized dinghy, which is missing. The knife in Ronnie’s chest was an outdoor survival knife, of the kind used by climbers.

The stone found near Ronnie is schist, and his brother Grant works at a quarry full of the rock, as Blair discovers when she goes to question Grant. She’s oblivious to a planned explosion, and is thrust out of harm’s way at the last minute by Grant—but bursts an eardrum in the process. Tyrone and Annika take over questioning Grant, and learn that he went to Ronnie’s on Friday night and found that his brother wasn’t home. Grant was drunk and couldn’t drive, so he broke into Ronnie’s and spent the night there.

Annika gets him to admit that the stone found by Ronnie was not an ancient funeral stone but a love token. Grant explains that Ronnie was dating one of his students, a 15-year-old girl, to Grant’s disgust. The girl, Sigi, knows that Ronnie is dead, because she tried calling his phone and Grant picked up and told her.

Sigi also knows that Morgan continues to sneak alcohol. At a local cafeteria, she spots Morgan with a bottle stolen from the bed and breakfast where the team is staying, and asks for a sip. Morgan is intrigued by Sigi’s scarf, which is woven with Viking runes. Sigi says her godmother wove it, and gives it to Morgan.

Sigi then sets off to climb a nearby cliff with her father, Per. She puts down a stone like that found near Ronnie and starts up the rocks. Halfway up, she cuts her rope.

Morgan is there to witness the fall. She’s beginning to think she is cursed: the explosions that nearly hurt Michael and Blair, now Sigi’s fall—which did not kill her but sent her to the hospital. Blair comforts her a bit, and also encourages her to talk to her mother.

Annika is talking to Sigi’s parent, Per. He was excited when Sigi asked to go climbing—they hadn’t spent much time together lately. He had found out that she was dating Ronnie on Friday morning because he saw a text on her phone, which she had left lying out. He told the school to fire Ronnie, and is understandably furious at him—but he didn’t know he was dead.

When the police try to question Per further, he brings along his lawyer, Liz Dunbar, whom he also enlisted for help when he found out about Sigi and Ronnie and the school.

The head of the school, Karina, didn’t tell Annika about Ronnie and Sigi when she first met Annika. Karina admits that she concealed the truth, and that Ronnie had refused to resign. When he was found dead, she thought her problem had been solved.

She’s concealing other contacts with Ronnie, too. Blair notices on Sigi’s social media that Sigi went to a bar Friday night. Ronnie wanted to go public with their relationship. The bartender says Grant was there; Grant admits to seeing Ronnie pull up with Sigi and telling him to go home. That’s why he got drunk and went to Ronnie’s house—but he didn’t sleep there. He slept in a park, which a worker there can confirm. He had been two weeks sober.

He also reveals that Karina was at the bar, too. When confronted at her home, she admits that she was furious when she saw Sigi with Ronnie at the bar and argued with him, but then she went home. Annika notices a loom in her house, and Karina explains that her wife Liz sometimes wove scarves for Sigi, her goddaughter. Per’s lawyer is Sigi’s godmother and Karina’s wife.

When Liz pulls into her home and sees Annika and Tyrone, she speeds away. They give chase, realizing that she killed Ronnie. She used their questioning of Per to determine how much evidence they had so that she could plan her next moves.

They catch her at a small airfield, but are locked on the wrong side of the gate. Liz explains that she chose to do what was right, not what was legal. Ronnie hurt not just her goddaughter but her wife. Annika lets her fly away. She’s detained when she lands in Ireland.

Back on the mainland, Michael and Diana have spent a lot of time together. He has told her that his family was happy when he didn’t get Annika’s job. Diane also manages to get him to admit that he missed Annika and being on the ground with the team during their Bute excursion.

Annika has her own sincere conversation with Morgan. Alcohol doesn’t fix things, she tells her daughter. Something that might is a therapist, if Morgan is interested. “That would be good,” Morgan says after a moment of thought. You’re a good mom, she tells Annika.