'Ridley' Recap: Episode 1

Ridley airs Sundays at 7:00 pm on WTTW and is available to stream. Recap the following episode.
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Alex Ridley’s life has suddenly become quite empty. He sleeps on the couch of a house on a lake where possessions are packed up in police evidence bins and the answering machine still gives the names of his wife and daughter, who both died recently. In the wake of that unknown tragedy, Ridley has also been encouraged to retire from the police force. 

So the visit of another retired colleague, Jean Dixon, is perhaps welcome. Except that Dixon is not there on a social call. She wants to warn Ridley that Jesse Halpin has been killed.

Ridley questioned Halpin years ago in connection with the disappearance of a three year-old girl named Zoe Lindsey from the trailer park where she lived. Ridley was convinced Halpin was involved because his answers were contradictory and he could never satisfactorily explain what he was doing in the area, but another man, Daniel Preston, had already been arrested for the abduction. Preston was a convicted sex offender, but the charges of abduction never stuck to him.

Ridley was from a neighboring police department, but Paul Goodwin worked the investigation on its home turf. Goodwin is now the chief inspector at the station investigating the death of Halpin, and he warns the recently promoted Carol Farman, who worked under Ridley, that he doesn’t want Ridley being drawn back into the case, given Ridley’s recent trials. 

But Farman schedules a dinner with Ridley anyway, and asks about Halpin and the Lindsey case. Ridley explains that he thinks the investigation was flawed. 

He then leaves dinner and wanders into a closed piano bar, where he sits down at the keyboard and sings a song. Annie Marling, the owner, engages him in a conversation. Ridley is an investor in the bar, which is barely breaking even, and had also performed there—but he’s not up for that anymore. He seems to be wrapped up in his grief, and no one knows what to say to him.

Jesse Halpin and his wife Moll also kept to themselves. Lorna Spalden, a tenant of theirs who has also worked on their farm for some twenty years, tells Farman and her colleague Darren Lakhan that the Halpins weren’t too popular. Spalden was the one who found Jesse’s body, on a footpath that runs through the forest from his house to the pub. He was killed by a shotgun. 

The owner of the pub says that Jesse was a regular, but he didn’t like Moll or his daughter Catherine leaving the house too much. Catherine was even homeschooled—and the police learn that a few minor red flags had gone up in official records about the homeschooling.

Steve Parry, the son of the pub owner, says he was working at the pub the whole evening that Halpin was killed, but a camera caught his truck’s license plate near the site of Halpin’s murder that night. He also has a conviction for stealing a truck. 

When Parry is arrested and Farman goes to question him, she finds Catherine Halpin waiting at the police station. She has been seeing Parry for a few months, and insists that he’s innocent. 

Jesse Halpin warned Parry not to date his daughter, and they had other disagreements. Parry’s dog was injured in one of the traps Halpin set out on his property’s woods. But Parry says he didn’t kill Halpin. He was out hunting on Halpin’s land with a friend in the darkness. They heard a gunshot and assumed it was Halpin scaring them off, so they fled. The friend confirms the alibi. Parry is released from custody.

Catherine Halpin tells Farman that her parents argued about money, and even sometimes talked about selling their land. They had argued not long before Halpin was killed.

Ridley is hooked on the case and its possible connection to the disappearance of Zoe Lindsey all those years ago. He visits a man named Michael Flannery in jail, bringing him books, as he often does. The relationship between the men seems complex; Michael says Ridley shares some of the responsibility for his sentence, as what Michael did “that” fateful night was Ridley’s fault. But Michael does offer Ridley some information when he asks about Daniel Preston, the man accused of abducting Zoe Lindsey. Preston was just recently released on parole—only a few days before Halpin’s death.

Ridley tells Farman this news, and they go to see Preston together. Preston recognizes Halpin as someone who also worked at the trailer park where Zoe Lindsey lived. But Preston didn’t kill Halpin; he has an ankle tracker and an early curfew as an airtight alibi. He accuses Ridley and Farman of police harassment, angering Goodwin.

But Goodwin does agree to officially bring Ridley on to the case, as a consultant. He lays down rules and warns Ridley that he can’t mess up, because Goodwin stuck his neck out for Ridley to allow him to work the case. 

Ridley and Farman question Moll Halpin about her husband’s work at the trailer park. She explains that it was a tough year: they had to cull their flock because of disease, so Jesse went to work at the park over summer for some extra cash. Moll is upset when she realizes Ridley is the cop who questioned her husband about Zoe Lindsey all those years ago, and is angry that he is once again asking about the case, just after Jesse’s murder. 

Farman is also put off by Ridley’s aggressive questioning of a new widow. She thinks Ridley is just trying to win a battle with Goodwin, who was part of the initial investigation that dismissed Halpin. 

Ridley and Farman then visit the trailer park itself and speak to Zoe’s mother, Penny, who still lives there. She believes Daniel Preston was the culprit, since she knows that child pornography was found on his computer. 

Is Ridley wrong?