'Annika' Recap: Season 2 Episode 1

Annika airs Sundays at 9:00 pm and is available to stream. Recap the previous and following episodes.
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Having just revealed to us that Michael is Morgan’s father, Annika leaves the pub for a quick breather. It doesn’t last long: a cellphone has been dropped off at the police station with a video of a man being drowned on it. Nothing else is on the phone.

Annika’s boss, Diane, worries that it’s too soon for Annika (and her team) to dive into a new case, and wants Annika to debrief about being kidnapped and nearly killed; maybe she can even see a psychologist. But Annika wants to work, so Diane loans Annika her own car, since Annika’s was blown up. Michael’s wife, Astrid, can bring Morgan to school.

The phone was dropped at the station by a young woman who then disappeared. Cameras at the station allow the police to identify her as Aisha Dunn and track her, and Tyrone and Blair set off in pursuit of her moped—but she manages to escape.

So Annika and Michael set off for Aisha’s house, where her mom says she’s not home. Moving through the house, Annika realizes that Aisha has snuck out a window onto construction scaffolding surrounding the home. Annika reluctantly crawls out after her, braving her vertigo, and convinces Aisha to trust her.

Aisha admits to stealing the phone from a middle-aged South Asian man in a suit after he knocked into her moped, which she bought with her own money. She took his phone in retaliation. He may have been coming from the nearby train station. Annika convinces Aisha to watch the station with her and point the man out if she sees him.

But first, some identifying information about the victim. A deep-water buoy can be heard clanging in the background of the cellphone video, so divers are sent out to search near them. A body is found, as is a witness who lives in a tent in the woods near where the video was taken. She says she saw a bald man holding someone under the water.

A wallet on the body identifies him as Dean Malone. A baseball cap for Red Line Cruises is fished up with him; perhaps it belonged to his attacker. Dean worked for the cruise line but was fired three weeks ago for misconduct. His boss explains that he was picking up drugs at ports and then trying to sell them to passengers. He tried to implicate a pool lifeguard named Richie, who was also fired.

Dean had a guppy that Annika takes home with her. She finds Morgan eager to talk about her time with Michael’s family; she might babysit for his daughters.

Blair may soon have a child: she tells Annika that she is pregnant. Annika and the rest of the team all react happily but awkwardly. Meanwhile, Tyrone tells Michael that he’s going to try to become an inspector, even though it would mean he would have to transfer.

Aisha stakes out the train station with the team and points out a man as the one she pickpocketed. He sees, and runs back into the station but is too late to get back on the train; he is caught.

Rihan Harijan works in insurance. He says he still has his phone and doesn’t know the man in the video; Aisha must have the wrong man. He has an alibi: he saw a movie with his sister that evening, although he can’t remember the French title of it. He claims that he ran from the police because he dodged the train fare, but his wallet has train tickets in it.

A neighbor’s doorbell camera shows Dean leaving his house the day he died, and a man in a Red Line Cruises cap following him. He’s identified as Richie, the lifeguard Dean got fired. Richie explains that he was going out with Dean, who made an effort to repair things with him after they both got fired. Dean stayed out after Richie went home, and bought his cap from him: there’s a bar that gives Red Line employees a discount.

Neither Rihan nor Richie match the description given by the tent-dwelling witness of Dean’s assailant. Neither is bald.

Rihan’s sister says he called her last minute to see the movie and paid for her, surprisingly. He doesn’t have many friends: he’s fairly angry at the world and likes to enact little retributions against people for perceived slights.

Video of the cab area where Richie said he left Dean shows Rihan at a cab. Dean, wearing the Red Line Cruises hat, walks up and punches Rihan, taking his cab. Another cab pulls up and the driver gets out and helps Rihan up and into his cab. He’s bald.

The driver is identified as Jaden Stanton, an ex-military man with some assault charges. He lives in the same town where the phone with the video of Dean’s death was bought. His cab showed up at Rihan’s house hours later.

A text comes through to the phone, addressing Rihan by name: where’s my payment?

Rihan admits that he hired Jaden, a hitman, to kill Dean after he punched him and took his cab. Rihan regretted it instantly. But Dean did it, telling Rihan to be somewhere public as an alibi: hence the last-minute French movie. Jaden then stopped by Rihan’s house to drop off the phone  with the video proof of Dean’s death.

Rihan will help the team catch Jaden.

He sits on a park bench with an earpiece and a bag of money that he is to drop in a trash can when he sees Jaden. When the hitman finally appears, Rihan freaks out. His earpiece shrieks and he puts a hand to his ear. Jaden runs, then fires a flare gun as police descend. He is captured. Rihan tries to run, too, but hits his head, hard, on a pole.

Case closed—but Annika still hasn’t told Michael he is Morgan’s father. She wants to, lest something happen to her and someone needs to take care of Morgan, but the time keeps not being right. Her boss thinks she is still traumatized by her kidnapping and wants her to debrief, when in fact she’s just stressed about telling Michael. She starts to reveal it at his house before picking up Morgan, who has been cooking with Astrid and the girls. But then she realizes how much Morgan enjoys the family, and worries that Morgan will want to leave Annika for Michael’s family if she finds out who her father is. Annika doesn’t tell Michael.