Waking The Dead : What Happened and Why in
Duty and Honour

Who Was That?   |   Episode Summary  |   Talk About it in the Forum

Whenever you get one of those stories where some military unit returns home from combat and they have a secret it usually means they've done something wrong. Wrong can take the form of killing unarmed civilans, rape, destroying the wrong target or stealing some sacred or valuable object. In Duty and Honour the wrong was making a deal with a man who proceeded to execute women and children in a marketplace. The soldiers were not explictiy responsible for the act, but they were implicit in that they gave the killer authority and they were silent about the event after the fact.

I just feel the need to cut to the chase with this episode analysis since I was not all that captivated by the storyline and there were a lot of characters who were not fleshed out particularly well. So this time, let's summarize first and then step through how it unfolded.

The members of the fateful regiment were: Rob Lomax, Andy Tyrrel, Mark Bennet and Francis Duggan with Lt. Col. John Garret as their commander (the end credits spell Andy's name "Tyrrel" in the episode, it's spelled, "Tyrell" we'll use both, the important part is the double letters). Garret is the one who made the deal with killer Mushrat Badawi. Garret was essentially a screw-up and needed Badawi to help him control his territory. Badawi's method of control was to kill people who opposed him. One of the people killed in the marketplace was a young boy, Hadi Ahmed. Hadi's mother, Shahla Ahmed was wounded. She waged a one woman campaign to expose the truth.

Shahla knew the guys in the regiment and came to Britain to see if they would help her. She first contacte Mark Bennet. On March 25, 2006, Mark met with Shahla in a shopping mall, his wife found them and assumed they were having an affair. Later, Mark went to the base where they were having a regiment dinner and made a scene trying to get more of his colleagues to help. Garret caught wind of it and decided to silence Mark. Garret, Lomax, Tyrrel and Duggan all got on their horses and chased Mark Bennet through the woods. Lomax says he thought they were just going to talk, but Garret lopped off Bennet's head and hands. The hands seemed to ba a bonus, since Mark raised them as a defense to the sword bearing down upon him.

Now the gang has something new to cover up. Duggan really cannot take it and goes awol. Lomax buries himself in his military career. Tyrrel has a high paying job with Garret's mercenaries at APX. What not one of them does, is tell the truth.

Bad things happen when one of the regiment suspects one of them will break ranks. Bennet had started to drink a great deal, worried that, while drunk, he would blurt out something, Lomax got closer to Mark's wife, Nicola Bennet. He became a lover and confidante to keep tabs on Mark. When they thought Francis Duggan was going to talk, Tyrrel shot him to death as he was leaving his terminal sister's hospice.

At the end, when everything had been revealed, Lomax snaps Garret's neck. Boyd had arranged for Lomax to hear Garret in the interview room trying to make it look as if Lomax were Bennet's killer and that Garret never knew Badawi. The why of that, don't know, the only knew information Lomax learned was that Garret was willing to sell him out. Surely, he knew that before. Now Boyd and Spence are going to have to complete a mountain of paperwork to explain that in-custody death.

The case began when a dog found a decayed hand in the woods. The police later find most of a decayed corpse, missing its head and hands. Spence and Boyd travel out to the scene because it is a pretty woodland setting. They mention that the only other serious crime reported was a beating about 14 months earlier. It turns out to be a gay bashing. Homophobia is one of the themes this week. Unlike in Sins, where the homosexuals were either vicious rapist-murderers, run-of-the-mill vicious or imaginary Joe Luke.

Eve figures out that because of some metal fragments in the bones and that the hands were cut off while the victim was alive that the victim lost his hands while trying to protect himself from a sword coming towards his neck. The style of killing and the proximity to an army base lead them to assume the victim is Francis Duggan, who went awol. Don't get confused, it's not Duggan, but it is Bennet.

Boyd, Spence and Eve visit the base and meet the reticent Colonel Douglas Malham, eager Paul Overton and the coy Corporal Rob Lomax. Lomax and Duggan were in the same reconnaisance unit, along with Andy Tyrrel, Mark Bennet and James Malham. While serving in Iraq, the unit was hit by a roadside bomb and Lomax saved Duggan but Lt. James Malham, Douglas's son, was killed. The men reported that they were ambushed because of an error by James and he was posthumously found guilty of gross dereliction of duty.

For no other reason then that he is a father with a missing and presumed gay son, Martin Duggan comes into the office for an interview. Francis left or was thrown out of his home at 16 and his father never knew he joined the army. Joe Boyd left home at 16. I can't tell you when Luke Boyd left home. Martin helps out with the line: "Don't tell me how to feel about my own son, whatever he is mixed up, it's his life." Subtle, like the waters of the Niagara as they fall over an almost 200 foot cliff.

Had papa Duggan come in a little later, they would have known that the headless corpse could not have been Francis Duggan, because Duggan had some surgical pins in his body that are not present in the now unidentified corpse. What we do learn about Francis is that he is the person who beat up Gerry Samuels after calling him a freak. Apparently, Duggan's gay bashing was an outcry of self-hate. Francis does have a gentler side, he has a sister, Susan Carlyle, who is in a hospice dying from leukemia. They lost touch in part because their father did not want Francis contacting Susan.

Nicola Bennet and her son Robbie are brought into the office and Stella gets to earn some more babysitting money. Nicola's husband Mark is also missing, but not awol since he left the army on good terms. Nicola reports that Mark was unhappy and began to drink heavily. One day she found an envelope of money even though they were supposed to be broke. I don't know where this money came from. She followed Mark and found him talking to Shahla Ahmed, who he introduced as a friend from Iraq. Nicola angrily hinted that she was having an affair with Rob Lomax. Mark angrily retorted he would not be back home. Poor guy, lost his head figuratively and literally in the same night; what are the odds? Nicola lies and says she has had no contact with Mark's army buddies. Later we learn that Rob Lomax has been giving her most of his salary since Mark's disapperance and she calls him all the time.

Stella the babysitter gives Robbie Bennet some juice, she later gives the cup to Eve to collect a sample of his dna. Last week in Sins, they collected a child's dna from some hair found on her stuffed animal she brought with her to the office. If not illegal, this seems firmly on the side of shady behavior that should be discouraged at all costs. A child should not forfeit all of his or her rights to privacy, simply because they are not old enough to stay at home alone. Gheesh, trample on the civil liberties of somebody your own size.

The team continue to investigate the unit, and find the last two, John Garret and Andy Tyrell. Garret had retired early and formed a private security firm, APX Solutions. Tyrell has taken a position with the firm. Boyd says to Garret, "you almost turn war into a decent event." At first glance, Garret and APX may appear to be viable alternatives to some of the ills that plague modern armies with respect to funding and training, but as it turns out, Garret is basically incompetent, ruthless and a cowardly killer, so nevermind.

Eve identifies threads from under Mark Bennet's fingernails as being from the red mess kit the guardsmen wear for formal dining occasions, such as the regimental dinner that was held on the night Bennet went missing. It convinces them that the killer must be one of the men from Bennet's regiment. Boyd enlists Garret to help him question Malham, who is hiding behind a diversionary base lock down. Garret gets Malham to talk. Boyd chooses to interview Malham alone, without Spence. Garret says he wants to see some old friends, Spence joins him. Garret's first stop is to nuzzle his horse. Garret observes, rightly, that Spence has to keep his potential in check. He makes Spence a quasi job offer, which in and of itself makes Garret a bad guy. Don't try to take our Spencer Jordan, get your own.

Boyd asks why Malham did not tell him about his son. Boyd says there may be a connection between what happened in Iraq and Bennet's murder. Malham reminds us fondly of the old days when we could have a pleasant but harmless "Joe Boyd moment" when he asks Boyd if he has a son. Gone are the days, now the stench of Joe Luke enters the room. Malham is in deep despair because all of the hopes and dreams he had for a bright future for his son can now be buried in a shoe box. Malham says, "my son was a hero, I don't need to justify his actions to you." Niagara.

Lomax tells Boyd that he didn't tell him about Malham the younger because he does not like to think about that day. He doesn't have a real clear explanation of how being confronted by Malham the elder everyday helps him forget. Lomax and Tyrell meet a pub, Tyrell says that Shahla has reentered the country. Lomax says he thought that was all sorted. They are worried about what Duggan will say to her or to anyone else. They have to find Duggan before Shahla or the police find him. Lomax finds him very easily and tells him to get out of town. Shahla finds both of them. Duggan seems to cave in and says he will help her. Next thing we know a sniper puts two bullets through Francis Duggan and kills him.

Malham next meets with Boyd on Boyd's turf. They trade barbs. Malham says he is absurd, Boyd makes fun of the way Malham dresses, you know, the uniform. Malham says that Boyd can never understand serving and being part of something greater than himself. At least Malham has seen the first six series of Waking the Dead, maybe he should have been put in charge of the Joe Boyd story. Boyd says being part of something greater is only an abdication of personal responsibility.

Stella goes to APX to speak with Tyrell. He is demonstrating shooting someone, which is kinda funny seeing how the day before he was shooting Duggan. Stella does her flirty flirt bit and swabs him for dna. He says he has an alibi for the time of the shooting, but he was lying.

Boyd tosses Lomax into a holding cell. Grace infers that a duty and honour type of guy like Lomax would have confessed his own crimes by now and that he must be protecting someone else. Except of course, Lomax is covering up his own crimes as well as the crimes of others. Grace tell Lomax that she "can't always honor the small print in [her] police contract. [She has] to decide what [she] believe[s] is the right thing to do." Boyd wants to know what she means by that. I can't believe she thinks the people she interviews are patients.

In another display of letting the fox into the hen house, Garret is called in to try and get Lomax to cooperate with the police. Lomax pretends to provide more details of what happened when Bennet showed up at the regimental dinner. All he says is that Bennet was drunk, he had harsh words for Douglas Malham and Malham ordered Lomax to throw Bennet out. The next day, Malham told Lomax to keep quiet about the incident. As Garret is leaving the office, Grace asks his opinion of Malham. Grace notes that Malham has put himself in a position where he is feeding off of his anger and his grief. Boyd wants to know where she is going with this. I can't really hear any of them over the sound of the rushing water.

In his office, Douglas Malham does the only thing he thinks he can do to avoid having to speak with Boyd again. He shoots himself in the head. Boyd says he was a man consumed by grief and agony, he's referring to Malham, of course. Spence decides he'd like to take a trip in a wooden barrel and says to Boyd that Malham could have been faking his grief because his son died over two years ago. This gives Boyd the opportunity to morosely say: "So he's over it by now? It doesn't work like that Spence."

Eve has the car the sniper drove while killing Duggan. How she got hold of this car is anybody's guess. Spence refers to it only as a car we recovered. Eve finds a shell casing with Tyrell's dna. The ongoing theory is that Tyrell killed Duggan as part of his duties to Garret Really, they don't much care why Tyrell killed Duggan. It all plays into making these guest characters rather boring..

Shahla goes to APX to ask Garret for help. She runs into Tyrell and tries to get him to help. He lies and says he will. Tyrell tracks down Lomax. Lomax of course knows Tyrell killed Duggan and he says he's tired of it all. Tyrell tells Lomax to contact him if Shahla finds him. Spence and Stella roll up to the scene and we learn why they try to keep Stella in the office. Before he can stop the junior officer, Stella says they have to find out what Garret and Tyrell have over Lomax and bounds out of the car into the pub.

Stella asks the barman if he is looking to hire more staff. At the bar as well is helpful young Overton. He pegs Stella as French and being a student, he's one fourth right. Stella agrees to have a drink with him and his army friends, she has orange juice. Lomax watches from a barstool. Overton brags that he is excited to go to Iraq, but better than that when he returns he is going to work for APX. He asks Stella if she wants to come back to the barracks with him, Stella wisely declines. Overton unwisely gets physical by snatching Stella's phone while she is trying to call Spence. His mindless buddies join in trying to detain her. Lomax lunges across the room and chokes Overton. Spence who heard the commotion rushes in and subdues Lomax.

Stella and Spence bring Overton in to see Boyd. In the interview room, Stella handcuffs Overton. Boyd tells him they are going to detain him but before they put him in a cell he will have to be stripped search inside and out - by Stella. Overton begins to open up, but Boyd decides not far enough and Stella and her plastic gloves lead a panicked Overton out of the room. Overton said that for the past year Garret has had him keep an eye on Lomax. Overton was also at the March 2006 regimental dinner and according to him, Bennet was threatening to tell everyone the truth about some girl.

Spence diligently searches lots of cctv footage and finally finds Shahla. They bring her in and she fills them in on her side of the Iraq story. She says the land rover unit were friendly until the day they showed up with Mushrat Badawi. Badawi identified certain women to be pulled aside. The troops complied and then Badawi's armed gunman came and slaughtered the women in cold blood. The land rover unit panicked and fled. Shahla was shot but she did not die from her injuries. Her son did die. She came to Britain to get help. Mark agreed to help her and then disappeared. Her visa ran out and she had to return home, where she says she "tried to rebuild her life, she really tried." Poor woman, doesn't she know when you are trapped in an episode where everyone reminds a certain police officer of how his life is spinning out of control because of a kinda missing presumed either dead or gay son, then everyone suffers. Didn't she read the small print in her contract?

Shahla returned to Britain to try one last time to make the soldiers see what a monster they created in Badawi. Anyone who could tell what happened is either a murderer or murdered. Too bad that Iraqi marketplace didn't have cctv cameras, cctv solves everything.

Boyd antagonizes Garret to the point where Garret gut checks him. Boyd tells Grace that he sacrificed himself to get an assault charge. Boyd also wants to provoke Lomax, who Grace says is suicidal. Lomax is back at the barracks in uniform. Wasn't he just in a bar drinking? Boyd taunts him by saying he only stood by as the women and Hadi were murdered. Lomax seems convinced by making sure his legacy isn't that of a murderer. Give him some time, he changes his mind real quick.

Grace says Lomax needs a psychiatrist, Boyd says "so do I." Yes, Boyd you do.

Boyd has Lomax watch as he re-interviews Garret. Boyd says Garret has a perfect motive to kill Bennet. Garret says that Bennet threatened to kill Nicola before Lomax could have her. He says Bennet was so drunk they hid his car keys from him. Bennet ran out into the woods and Lomax chased after him on horseback. In truth, Bennet confronted Garret about aiding Badawi. The four horsemen ride out and find Bennet. Garret rushes him and uses his 150 year old sword to behead Bennet. They take both Garret and Lomax to the cells. While Spence and Boyd unlock the cells, Garret tells Lomax to not trust the police. Lomax knocks Garret to the ground and then snaps his neck.

Was Lomax acting suicidal or was he demonstrating his love of duty and honour. If he wants to reduce his time in jail he should play up the suicidal route, Grace will help. But more likely, he killed Garret because Garret was willing to betray Lomax to save himself. I'm not really sure how Lomax could not have seen that coming since Garret was willing to murder soldiers to save himself. Garret dishonoured the regiment when he made the deal with Badawi, so why wait so long to snap his neck? But then again, who knows what the final bit will be to get a man to commit murder. I can't believe they missed the opportunity for Boyd to say during this scene. I guess they didn't want to be heavy handed with their recurring themes.