'Annika' Recap: Season 2 Episode 6

Annika is available to stream. Recap the previous episode.  
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Annika’s father Magnus is on dinner duty, as Annika is using his car in her investigation of a houseboat fire that killed a retired detective. Given that Magnus and Annika are slowly reconciling, he asks Morgan if she has ever wanted to know who her father is. She says that she’s nervous, because once she knows, she can’t un-know.

Morgan has another reason to be nervous: a test that will qualify her to start getting her license. She goes to the police station later that day and runs into Michael – her father – who is kind and helpful in assuaging her concern. She passes the test, and can begin driving lessons the next day.

Annika also has a pending big step in her life: Jake has told her he loves her, and has proposed moving in with her. 

Annika has enough to distract her with the houseboat fire. It was bought by Jacqueline Drummond the day she retired, three years ago. Forensics show that it was doused with fuel, so the fire that incinerated her wasn’t accidental. 

Jackie’s houseboat neighbor and friend, Alex Carrigan, says that someone was living with Jackie, and that someone ran from the boat just before the fire. Alex identifies the fleeing person as Leon, the person who was staying with Jackie. Jackie met him at a bereavement center where she volunteered and took him in, trying to help him with his problems with addiction.

Jackie’s daughter Imogen goes to university in Glasgow, although she was raised elsewhere by her father after a bad divorce. She and her mother were reconnecting; Imogen was putting together a podcast about having a cop for a mom. She didn’t get to record many interviews, but Jackie was always using a Dictaphone, even after she retired. Imogen doesn’t know anything about Leon, because Jackie always asked him to leave when Imogen visited.

The only unusual phone activity for Jackie before she died was a short call from an unregistered phone number a week ago.

Three months ago, a man named Gary Nair was released from prison. Jackie put him there, after he burned down a house with a family in it. He has recently relocated to Glasgow, and works at a pub.

CCTV near Jackie’s houseboat shows a man that might be Leon kicking over a trash can and then angrily boarding a bus right before the fire was called in. He then got off near a factory known for housing homeless people. The police still don’t know his last name, but they are getting fingerprints from the bus.

When Michael and Harper go to the factory, Leon sees them asking after him and tells another man that they’re traffickers. The man angrily attacks Michael with a pipe, but Michael subdues him while Harper runs after the fleeing Leon. She loses him.

But maybe Jackie’s neighbor Alex is the culprit. The fire was probably started from a can of diesel found on the boat that’s similar to some seen on Alex’s boat, and her alibi was that she was playing a gig – but the gig was canceled. She explains that she leant the can to Jackie, and that she ended up playing a set at a pub near the gig, as is confirmed by the pub. 

Magnus has cooked a Norwegian lamb-and-cabbage stew, and invited Jake to stay for dinner. Jake helped him decide not to leave his wife; Magnus is going to return home the next day. At the table, Morgan suddenly asks if Michael is her father. After a stunned silence, Annika tells her yes. Morgan says ok and goes up to her room. The dinner is over. 

Morgan wants some time to process, so she tells Annika to go to work the next day. So Annika sets off with Michael to talk to Gary Nair at his pub, talking about Morgan’s driving lessons and then mentioning that she revealed Michael as Morgan’s father while they wait for someone to answer the door at the pub. Gary appears and offers himself up for handcuffs.

He seems almost eager to go back to prison, not answering questions and taunting Annika and Michael. But there’s photo evidence of him racing his greyhound at the time the boat was set on fire. Annika’s boss warns her not to reveal any personal information to the sociopathic arsonist, and they release him.

Meanwhile, Blair has gone into labor. Magnus sets off for the airport, leaving his cherished car for Morgan now that she’s learning to drive. Annika tells Jake to move in, if Morgan okays it.

A trace of antifreeze has been found on Jackie’s lips, suggesting she was poisoned before the fire. 

The police finally get Leon’s last name – Archer – from prints on the bus. He has a few charges for theft, and tried to sell electrical stuff to one of the people at the factory. Harper goes to nearby pawnbrokers to see if he tried to fence his goods and spots him. He darts into a building, but she catches him and brings him in for questioning.

His backpack is full of items stolen from Jackie’s boat. He says that he took them to fund his addictions, because Jackie was trying to dry him out. But he changed his mind and was going to return them when he saw the boat on fire. He wouldn’t hurt her. 

He admits that he saw an older man leave the boat just before he got there, and provides a description of an icon on his coat and enough detail for a mock-up to be made of his face. 

Annika receives a call that Morgan wasn’t picked up from school for her driving lessons – even though Morgan sent Annika a photo of her with the student car. Gary overheard Annika talking about Morgan at the pub before he appeared, and has gotten a student car to abduct her. Annika and Michael desperately set off in chase.

Morgan is wily, however, and soon realizes that something is off. She asks to go home, saying she’s not ready for lessons yet. Gary has taken her phone – a distraction from driving – and locked the doors. He asks her for her address so he can take her home. She asks to get out and go to a nearby pharmacy for a tampon.

Michael and Annika reach the student car, having tracked its license plate, and find it empty. To their relief, Morgan emerges from the pharmacy; Gary is gone. Annika brings Morgan home and has Jake stay with her for the evening. There are also police patrolling nearby. Annika goes out on a limb and asks Morgan if she would be okay with Jake moving in and she says yes.

Annika heads back to the station, where an old newspaper article about Jackie’s brother has been tracked down. She had the date of his death as a tattoo, Imogen has said. He was a diver working on an oil pipeline when he drowned due to what was concluded to be diver error, but Jackie didn’t believe it was his fault. 

Jackie’s Dictaphone has also been recovered, and there’s an interesting phone call on it – but Annika asks her boss to leave her alone before she listens to it. Magnus worked on pipelines for the company Jackie’s brother dove for, and the details Leon shared of the man he saw leaving Jackie’s boat match Magnus. 

When Annika listens to the recording, it’s a call to Jackie from Magnus. She says she’s going to publish her findings; he asks to give his side of the story. She gives him ten minutes on her houseboat.