The Responder season 2 ending explained contains spoilers... After a twisting journey filled with tension, stress and some fine moments of black comedy, there are no shortage of loose ends to tie up before the credits roll in this finale.
Tony Schumacher has always insisted the main theme of this re-up is fatherhood, yet redemption and the grey moral areas most of these characters inhabit have also been running topics throughout.
Chris Carson is clearly a man with both darkness and light inside him, yet he’s not the only person caught between good intentions and old weaknesses.
His father Tom (a wonderful final performance from the late Bernard Hill) was introduced as a bad man, but has earned some measure of redemption as the tale unfolded. Meanwhile Franny is clearly the main antagonist of the piece, yet is he a stereotypically ruthlessly two dimensional drug boss, or a more practical criminal than the ones we usually see on our screens? Marco and Casey also find themselves at an ethical cross roads...
As this finale opens, Chris finds himself in bed with Franny (or in Franny’s bed should that be). He initially refused to work for the drug dealer, yet it could be the quickest way to the kind of stability he craves. If he wants to officially become part of Franny's operation, he'll have to deal with the slimy Ray Mullen, who’s very much on to Debs and her criminal partner, which would put an end to Chris’ little scheme.
(How Debs has managed to keep this whole arrangement unnoticed by her colleagues for the last decade or so is beyond us tbqh and one of the most far-fetched areas of the plot..)
Meanwhile Rachel Hargreaves is still struggling to move past her abusive relationship with Steve and the demons started to come spilling out when she imprisoned his new girlfriend last time. Will she have the courage to face them this time?
Elsewhere Marco needs to decide whether he wants to be a good dad or not and his pal Casey is being hunted by Jodie for her part in the death of her late husband, Casey. Will she be able to escape? Here’s how the final episode went down…
The Responder season 2 ending explained
Franny unexpectedly pops in to see Chris while Kate and Tilly are paying him a visit in his new place. It’s clear he’s now on the drug dealer’s payroll, whatever his moral conundrums and protestations were.
However once Kate finds out his new life has come about due to his drug connections, she’s furious and vows to go to London, taking young Tilly with her. Chris rightly assumes that Ray Mullen is behind this revelation and gives him a beating in the back of the church after his daughter’s communion.
Ray may have simply been telling his partner the truth, but he’s still a slippery bastard and we’re not sorry to see him get a going-over. Where that leaves Chris is unclear and it seems we can add GBH to his lengthy charge sheet. The impact it will have on his relationship with Kate — and thus Tilly — could be more distressing for him down the line though.
His father is very proud of him though, which is something, and rightly or wrongly, the incident provides the catalyst for a shared moment we didn’t think would be possible earlier in the series.
What happened to Casey?
Meanwhile Casey heads to the police station to try and find Chris, hanging around in the foyer when she realises he’s not there. When Franny finds out Jodie will do "anything" to get hold of the woman who caused her partner's death, he instructs his crew to start looking for her.
Franny tells Chris his "first job" is to go and get her for him. With the troubled copper's world falling down around him and Father Liam’s words (“there’s peace in giving in to who you are”) ringing in his ears, he agrees and sets off to get her.
Yet when he gets to the police station, he smuggles her out the back, leading Franny to leave a threatening message on his answering machine. It seems his new bizzie still needs a bit of training before he finally crosses the Rubicon and abandons the straight and narrow for good.
While he’s deciding what to do with Casey, Chris and his partner Rachel are called to collect Damien, a youngster who’s absconded from a privately run children’s home. Rachel is determined to help him, yet when they get back to the home, Damien tells Franny where Casey is and he sends his men to bundle her and Chris into the back of a van.
Getting Chris wasn’t part of the plan, but when they get to the outskirts of the city and he starts telling Jodie it was his fault that her husband Carl died, she orders her men to give him the same treatment. Franny steps in to tell her Chris is off the table, but she offers him her shop, which is a high price to pay for revenge.
Yet Franny then comes up with a clever way of having his cake and eating it, by telling Jodie she’ll have to do the dirty work herself, handing her a hammer. She can’t do it, so Barry grabs the hammer and has a go, but he can’t do it either. "I’ll be round in the morning to pick up your keys," says Franny as Jodie walks away and Chris and Casey are cut loose.
Meanwhile, Rachel goes to see Debs to enlist her help and finds out from Ian where Chris and Casey are. Deb then explains that this whole sorry debacle started when Hodgkin took Franny’s phone. “If he’d handed that in, it would be me and Franny in prison and my son going into care.” She was quite happy to see Chris lose his kids though...
What happened to Marco?
Elsewhere, Marco gets in touch with his sister in the hope she can help him keep hold of baby Adele. We find out they were both in foster care together, with a nice family, although Marco had to leave after setting fire to the family's bedroom. His sister says she’ll help him, on condition that he comes to Runcorn with her. It sounds like a good move for Marco if you ask us.
He asks Casey to come with him and she agrees, however while she turns up to meet him at the train station, she gets cold feet and leaves the train just before it departs.
It’s a painful moment, but we feel Casey knew she would place Marco’s fresh start in peril by coming along and selflessly decided not to bring him down. As for Marco, he clearly loved Casey and is heartbroken she’s not coming with him, but it could be the best thing for him and Adele.
Did Rachel report Steve?
As Chris sits with blood coming from his head as the sun comes up, Rachel tells him she’s going to report Steve for the abuse he inflicted upon her. Chris says they won’t want to hear it, but when Rachel confides in her pal at the station, it’s an emotional moment that suggests at least one person wants to listen.
He tells her he’s leaving the police force and gives her his ID card, before calling Kate to tell her he’s sorry and that if she and Tilly want to go to London then he’s happy for them. He then goes around to see his father Tom and they sit down to watch TV together. Nice.
