Return to Paradise episode 3 sees DI Mackenzie Clarke (Anna Samson) investigate the murder of a hairdresser, while Glenn finally blasts her for ditching him at the altar.
We're at a hairdresser's where we meet Bianca. Daisy, Glenn's girlfriend, is getting her hair done for her anniversary. The three hairdressers tell Bianca they're going to take her out for a birthday lunch, she doesn't seem that thrilled and says she has to make some calls.
Daisy leaves and says she'll see them in 15 minutes or so. They go to chase Bianca up but she's still on the phone. We see them at lunch where Daisy is serving them, but there's still no Bianca. So they head back to the hairdressers and Bianca is dead! Three episodes in and I'm not entirely warming to the theme tune. Anyway, the episode continues with Mackenzie getting a call about the murder. Glenn, Colin and Felix join her at the scene.
Glenn is in one of those Silent Witness forensic suits, but not the other two? Surely they should all have one? He says Bianca has been strangled. Death occurred in the last couple of hours and they don't know how she was strangled. There's evidence of a struggle. Mackenzie finds a massage room with no smoke detector — this is bound to be important! Senior Stylist Tahnee explains how she organised the lunch for 12 but Bianca got stuck on the phone and they all left together. The other two are Skye, Bianca's sister, and Donna, the apprentice, who rubs her hands nervously. Tahnee, Bianca's best friend since year two, reveals they came back at one. There's no evidence of a robbery. Mackenzie looks at the appointments and sees that every minute of Bianca's day is booked out with something.
Donna is an ex con!
Donna goes out of the room and Mackenzie follows. She notes Donna's prison tattoo and asks her what she was in prison for. Armed robbery! Bianca took a chance on Donna and gave her a job. Donna says Bianca hated her landlord and they had a massive row the previous week. Glenn asks Mackenzie if she'd look after Frankie at the weekend and she says yes. Mackenzie and Colin head to see Daisy. She says the three hairdressers didn't leave during lunch. Colin then asks Daisy if this will ruin her anniversary weekend. Awks! Daisy says her and Glenn are going glamping.
Colin suggests it could be a random killer but Mackenzie says people are normally murdered by someone close to them. All three of the hairdressers though were seen at lunch together, so how could one of them have done it?
With her parents dead, Colin says in theory Skye will inherit. Philomena suggests an outsider could have done it. But Mackenzie says Bianca was working around the clock and the three employees were the main thing in her life, so she suspects one of them is the killer. Colin says, though, Bianca owed her landlord a huge sum of money.
Philomena tells Mackenzie she wants her to sign a permanent contract. She says she’s just here temporarily and she's sure she will be cleared in London. Mackenzie reveals a little about what happened in London. She says they had the suspect but then key evidence disappeared. Philomena says she either works here or she doesn't and gives her two days to decide.
They go to see Troy, who judging by his phone call is the type of person who gives landlords a bad name. Let's hope he's the killer! He reveals that Bianca had given him $42,000 in cash and was ready to give him the rest soon — so why would he kill her? She asks him why there's no smoke detector in the massage room and he has no idea. They go to see Glenn who doesn't know what the murder weapon is still. Glenn gets awkward when they ask him about his camping trip with Daisy. We reckon Glenn's in a bit of a tizz over Mackenzie being back in town.
Skye has a dark secret
Mackenzie and Colin go to talk to Skye. Mackenzie has dug into her past and discovered she was a teenage arsonist! You'd certainly want a smoke detector with an arsonist around the place! Mackenzie wonders why her teen accomplice was convicted and she wasn't. Her mum pulled some strings and chucked her out, she says. She reveals she was brought up in a strict religious family. She reconnected with Bianca after her mother's death. She's outraged when Mackenzie says inheriting the business gives her a motive.
At the station, Felix and Reggie reveal they have a witness who can place Troy at the scene of the murder. Mackenzie and Colin go to see Troy who, after they upend his alibi, admits going to the salon for the rest of the rent. He says he found her dead and bolted.
Back at the salon, Mackenzie looks again at the smoke alarm and tells Felix to keep an eye on Troy. Colin boasts he saw dolphins this morning. "In Dolphin Cove?! Well, I never!" retorts Mackenzie, who wants to be in rainy London. Mackenzie finds a brochure for a nursing home in a cupboard and an unpaid invoice for $42,000.
Mackenzie sees Tahnee and asks her how she feels about her grandma losing her nursing home place. Tahnee used the money to buy into the business not realizing what a terrible financial state it was in. So Bianca lied and we reckon that gives Tahnee a very strong motive. Tahnee found out when she saw Bianca giving the money to Troy. Tahnee says she knew they could get through it.
Felix and Reggie are spying on Troy, who's fetching stuff out of a skip to use in his rentals. Felix is unimpressed Reggie has taken a beauty sample from the crime scene. Think he has a point.
At the salon, Colin and Mackenzie ask Donna how she feels about not being paid for the last 11 weeks. Donna admits to nicking some cash to pay for the team coffees. It seems Bianca was a bit of a nasty piece of work. She knew she had a hold over Donna, so Donna carried on working for free. She admits hating her but says she didn’t kill Bianca. Felix talks about all the stuff Troy was picking out of the skip, but Mazkenzie asks him about what Troy was throwing away. Felix didn’t look! Perhaps Felix isn’t quite the brilliant officer he thinks he is. She tells him to look the first thing the next day.
The next day they all head to the skip. On a side note, it seems incredibly unfair that Reggie isn't getting paid despite seeming to do almost the same job as Felix! Mackenzie congratulates Glenn, who’s helping in the skip search, about his five-year anniversary. Glenn finally snaps and asks Mackenzie what did she expect him to do after she walked out. Just at that point, Felix finds something in the skip and it's the smoke detector! Troy threw it away because it contained a camera and he's been illegally filming women in the massage room.
They watch the footage from the smoke detector camera at the time of Bianca's death. Mackenzie gets excited because there is a speaker on the shelf which vanishes. Why did someone move the speaker? Looks like Mackenzie has got it! Colin is lost and so I imagine is most of the audience!
The murderer is revealed — and an unlikely murder weapon
Mackenzie wants all the suspects at the salon — and Daisy! Mackenzie lists their motives and says she knows it wasn't Troy due to Skye's perfume. Mackenzie says the killer wanted her to think that when they left for lunch at 12 Bianca was alive but when they returned at 1 she was dead. Mackenzie tells Skye she killed her sister!
We see Skye strangling Bianca in the office. But Tahnee and Donna say they saw Bianca alive after that when they left the lunch. But it wasn't Bianca on the phone they saw but Skye! Skye had changed her hair and dressed herself up as Bianca. We see Skye on the phone pretending to be Bianca, while Bianca lies dead on the floor. Donna says she heard Bianca in the washroom, but Mackenzie says no she heard her voice coming through the speaker, which was in fact Skye using her phone. OK, this is starting to get very confusing! Anyway, that's why the speaker was moved. Hang on, Tahnee was in on it as well! Tahnee pretended to check in with Bianca. She also distracted Donna while Skye took off Bianca's top, but leaving her incriminating perfume on it. Mackenzie says this all created a false time for the murder. At this point, Daisy arrives. Mackenzie says the murder weapon was something you'd find in a salon. She then cuts a bit of Daisy’s hair off! What!! OK, they're hair extensions but still! And we see Daisy's hair extensions were the murder weapon! Skye and Tahnee are arrested.
Mackenzie goes to see Glenn and Daisy to collect Frankie. Daisy isn't altogether impressed that Mackenzie didn’t warn her hair was a murder weapon! Alone with Glenn she finally apologises for leaving him at the altar. She gets rather tearful and they have a moment but then Daisy beeps the car and the moment is broken. He leaves and it's just Mackenzie and Frankie. She looks at her computer to see rainy London, which she's missing.
