'Ridley' Recap: Season 2 Episode 3

Ridley airs Sundays at 7:00 pm on WTTW and is available to stream. Recap the previous episode.
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A storm topples a diseased tree in the night, and the next morning a dog walker is shocked to find a body tucked into the hollow of the tree. The body has been tied with rope and elaborate knots into the fetal position in order to fit inside the narrow space of the tree. A piece of rope was also stuffed down the throat. The body has probably been there for years – and a credit card found with it belongs to Kathy Hadderly, who went missing six years ago.

The now-retired detective Jean Dixon investigated Kathy’s disappearance, but she is still upset by the way in which Ridley and the team revealed some shortcomings in another cold case of hers involving the Halpin family. She doesn’t want to speak to Goodwin or Ridley when they contact her for help with the Hadderly case. They ruined her reputation, as she tells Ridley when he visits her at the home she shares with her partner, Ross Enderby.

But she’s eventually drawn back out of concern for Kathy’s daughter, Sam, who was 13 at the time of the disappearance and traumatized by it. She’s the same age as Jean’s daughter, Molly. Sam still lives in the same house with her father, David; she felt the house was her only remaining connection to her mother.

Kathy and David’s marriage was unhappy, and with the absence of a body or any evidence, it was concluded that Kathy must have left of her own accord. But Jean always thought David was suspicious, given his oddly unemotional reaction and the fact that he took six days to report Kathy as missing. He and Kathy had argued the night before she disappeared and Kathy told him she wouldn’t come back if she left; David believed her. He only reported her missing when she failed to contact Sam on her birthday.

David’s brother Andy was the last person to report seeing Kathy alive. He glimpsed her getting into a car with another man outside the council building two days after she had left the house – not that Andy knew she had gone missing. He and his wife Lynne explain that David was always an introvert while Kathy was more outgoing and fun, which always made David jealous. Lynne supported Sam as David retreated into drink after Kathy’s disappearance.

With the case into her mother’s disappearance reopened, Sam has new information to share – but she will only do so with Jean, whom she grew to trust six years ago. Jean reluctantly agrees to help with the case, but lies to her partner Ross that she’s going to see her daughter Molly.

Sam explains that the body found inside the tree can’t be her mother’s, because Kathy has been texting her for years on her birthday and holidays. But DNA testing has confirmed that the body is Kathy – so who has been sending the texts?

Sam also reveals that she and her mother fought the night before Kathy disappeared, when Kathy told Sam that she was leaving. Sam accused her of always being more interested in herself and men than in her own daughter, and said she shouldn’t have had a kid. Sam couldn’t sleep that night, and heard her mother talking on the phone around 2:00 am before leaving the house. Sam followed, but quickly lost her mother in the dark outside. She never told anyone because she thought her dad would blame her for saying cruel things to Kathy and driving her away. And she never revealed the texts from after the disappearance because “Kathy” said she would be in danger if she did; she also promised to eventually return and collect Sam.

Kathy had a burner phone, which she got because David would suspiciously check her phone for evidence of affairs, as Jean learned in her investigation. But the burner phone was never found.

Jean leaves the interview with Sam to corroborate her lie to Ross and visit her daughter Molly. But Ross calls her and is disappointed to learn that she’s planning to eat dinner with Molly; he made paella. Jean cancels on Molly and returns home to Ross – whom Molly dislikes. Ross apologizes when Jean gets back and tells her that she did the right thing in refusing to help Ridley with the case. When he sees a call from Molly on Jean’s phone, he dismisses it before she can see it.

There’s also some drama in Ridley’s personal life. Annie and her new boyfriend, Harry – whom Ridley dislikes – have been going through the accounts of the jazz club she and Ridley bought and opened with Ridley’s late wife, Kate. The business is in bad shape. But Annie’s determined to make it work, for Kate, with Harry’s help.

Farman’s family is facing the struggle of adapting to a new baby. Jack is late in getting home to watch his baby sister, leaving Geri to try to work with Meadow crying in the background.

The detectives announce to the public that Kathy’s body has been found and appeal for information – including on a dove earring found in the tree with her body. One of the pair of earrings is missing.

Neighbors of the Hadderlys report that David and Kathy often argued, sometimes violently. Ridley and Jean go to speak with Sam again, thinking she is protecting her father. When they ask her about her alibi for her father – that he was asleep in his room when Kathy disappeared that night – she admits that the door to his room was closed, but he told her to tell the police that he was inside.

David overhears Sam reveal this to the detectives, and goes outside and quickly drives away, ignoring their calls to him. Ridley notices intricate knots on rope inside David’s garage holding up a boat – similar to the ones used to tie up Kathy’s body inside the tree. The rope is military issue – David was in the reserves – and there’s a military camp near the tree where Kathy’s body was found.

And that’s where the detectives find David. He’s standing by the tree, crying. He tells them he wanted to say goodbye to Kathy before being arrested, as he knew would happen after overhearing Sam tell them that he asked her to lie for him.

Although David was in the military reserves, he eventually stopped going because he convinced himself that Kathy was seeing someone in his unit. She would often goad him about other men. The military tell Ridley that all the reservists would share a tent during training at the camp near the tree, so there would likely be witnesses if someone snuck out.

While Jean is out, Molly comes to her house and asks Ross to wait to see her mother. Ross tells Molly that she needs to grow up and learn to be less dependent and sends her away.

In town, Jean receives her own warning: a slip of paper on her windshield telling her to stop digging, or else. She admits that she hasn’t told Ross she’s helping out with the case, and Ridley tells her that she has to inform him now that she has received a threat.

Back at home, Jean does so and Ross becomes overly protective. But she also tells him that Molly called her and told her about being turned away by Ross. He mischaracterizes the encounter to his benefit, pitting himself against Molly and asking Jean who she can trust. Jean tells him she needs some space; he refuses to give it to her, since she needs protection from the anonymous threat.

But when she later tells him she’s serious and would like to spend some time apart, he accuses her of lying about being involved in the Hadderly case – he’s been following her. She orders him to move out, but he grabs her and pushes her outside, telling her to think about what she did and then come back and apologize.