0 5 mins 12 yrs

All is revealed in the final part of this tense drama.

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Mark finally finds out what happened on the night of his parent’s death but was it all we expected?

Although this drama was progressing really well I was a little disappointed with the ending if I’m honest. The conclusion was tragic, but realistically I was somewhat suspicious of the character that had been present since the start but didn’t seem to fit into the story until the end.

The two ladies who worked in the florists were great and a welcome distraction from the darkness of the rest of the story but they really had no part in any of the story making them pretty superfluous characters. By the time the end of their story was played out I felt happy for them but really saw that their characters were wasted in all of the drama, which was a shame.

The acting was still very impressive and the actors were really giving their all, but the conclusion of the story was nowhere near as shocking as I expected it to be. I won’t spoil the ending but after watching the whole drama I felt that it could have been a bit weightier when it came to the plot.

Mark started the episode in the police station, questioned on the disappearance of Chris Franks who had been having an affair with his mother when she was alive. After all night questioning, Mark was finally freed but poor Betty had collapsed with exhaustion and was taken to hospital by Daniel who worked at the hotel.

Jodie was still with her older boyfriend Ashley and had even gotten a tattoo in celebration of her sixteenth birthday that everyone had forgotten. Mark tried to make it up to her with a cake and some flowers and he found out from the florist that his mum used to buy flowers on the same day every year for a graveside. Mark explored the graveyard and found the grave that his mum had left the lilies and the person had died on the same day many years ago that his mum and dad killed themselves. Mark sought to find out the family of the grave and was surprised to learn some things about the past.

Betty discovered that Daniel had being mentored by her son in-law and that he was missing the man who had been a father figure to him. I was a little disappointed that this storyline wasn’t really any more complex than that – if he had turned out to be Tom’s son or something similar, this would have been a bit more dramatic. Jodie decided that her boyfriend Ashley was not the man for her after he expected sex in return for all the things he had done for her and when she refused he manhandled her only to be stopped by Harry who came to her rescue.

Mark was beaten roughly by friends of Alice’s husband for his affair with Alice, this led Alice to issue Mark with a declaration of her feelings but he was distracted by his quest to solve his parent’s death.

At the end the person who was responsible for the death of Mark’s parents was arrested but it wasn’t made clear if he was arrested for the forced suicide or for assault on Mark so I can only assume it was for the forced suicide.

All in all, the build up to the conclusion was excellent but the climax of the story was a little predictable, even if the path to the explanation wasn’t obvious. Chris Franks disappearing then reappearing was a little pointless it seemed. I felt that having a high profile star in the show that seemingly doesn’t fit in the story being found guilty was a little obvious sadly. Poor Andrew Scott got beaten so many times in this drama; I hope that his next role is a little less damaging to him. Despite the disappointing ending, The Town was a complex and well played out drama with a great cast and interesting storyline. Worth a watch but perhaps only for the performances and build-up.