Unforgotten season 6 sees Sinéad Keenan and Sanjeev Bhaskar back as Jess and Sunny for another baffling cold case - this time focusing on human remains that have been discovered on Whitney Marsh.
With Dr Balcombe’s expert analysis of the human spine that is found, it’s evident the remains are relatively recent, and her guess is the body was put there already dismembered. With this knowledge, Jess and Sunny begin to search the area, believing other body parts may not be too far away - but soon the case turns out to be more complex than they could have imagined, weaving the lives of characters from all walks of life.
Here's everything that happens in Unforgotten season 6 episode 2...
The second episode opens with Asif dropping his friend off at a new job on a farm, where he tells him that he doesn't know the man in charge himself, but he has it on good authority that he doesn't ask questions as long as people work hard for him.
At the station, Jess is briefing the team about Gerrard Samuel Cooper after he was identified as the body in the marsh. She tells the team that he was reported missing by his wife, who they are going to speak to as a matter of urgency and asks for the CCTV footage from the marsh car park. She also informs them that Gerrard was identified with a swab taken years ago when he was involved with an ABH case in 2019. His files from when he went missing suggested that the police thought he took his own life after his car was found by the Elizabeth Bridge in London two weeks after he was reported missing. Jess also tells them they will be talking to Ram Sidhu, the investigating officer at the time.
At the university where Juliet works, she is shocked to get to one of the lecture theatres and find someone has scrawled 'racist' on her whiteboard after a student reported her in epsiode one. She speaks to her boss, Paul, and he encourages her to take the online course the union has recommended, suggesting it is easier to say sorry even if she doesn't think she has done anything wrong.
At Marty's house, his mum, who he cares for, is desperately calling for his help to take her to the toilet, but he is nowhere to be found. Instead, he is at the mental health centre for his missed appointment. He is struggling to cope and his doctor ups the dosage of his medication and refers him to a new autism service being set up by Kent Council. His doctor warns him that upping his medication could come with side effects, but Marty isn't listening and walks off.
Later that afternoon, a carer comes to look after Dot, Marty's mum and can see that she isn't being cared for properly and that Marty is out of his depth. She tells them she wants to get social services to come and assess their situation, but Dot is worried they will put her in a home and Marty has a panic attack at the thought of it.
Elsewhere, Melinda is praying in an empty church when a priest comes to offer his condolences about the fact Patrick isn't going to walk again. He asks if she wants to talk about it and the next scene sees them having sex.
Juliet and her daughter, Taylor, are talking about the joint counseling session they have booked when Jess and Sunny arrive to talk about Gerrard. Juliet is devastated to learn that her husband was murdered and dismembered and tells Jess and Sunny that she always knew that he hadn't jumped. They ask how she knew, and she tells them about the money, which they don't know anything about.
Juliet explains that he took on the lease of a pub in Stepney in 2014 but they also had three flats that they let out which had big mortgages and also were a lot of work becasue each had multiple tenants. She explains that she works at Central London University as a lecturer in Modern History and so Gerrard juggled the flats and the pub alone.
Juliet explains that when the pandemic happened the pub was forced to close and the tenants stopped paying their rent, so they got deeper and deeper into debt. Gerrard borrowed money from people he shouldn't and she found out when he was attacked in February 2021 as he was putting the bins out. Juliet tells them that she called the police, but Gerry wasn't very helpful as he was probably scared about the trouble he was in with the money lenders as he owed them £17,000. She explains an Albanian man, Mark Cash, came to the pub looking for Gerry five days after the attack.
Juliet explains about the day that Gerry went missing, telling them that it was their anniversary and that he didn't come home for their celebration meal - she called his friends and family, but it was when she realised that he had canceled a work meeting that she knew something was wrong and called the police.
Becasue the police assumed that they'd had a row, it took them 24 hours to send someone out to take a statement and once they learned about the money troubles they assumed he had taken his own life. As they are talking, Juliet asks Sunny and Jess if they can continue their chat tomorrow becasue she wants to check on Taylor, but when the pair get in the car, it is clear they don't believe everything Juliet has said becasue of the nice house they are living in and the expensive school Taylor goes to, leading to Jess revealing that she suspects this could be a life-insurance job.
As Juliet tells Taylor about her father being murdered, Asif goes to collect his friend from the farm job and he gets into the car cross that he has been paid less than everyone else. He is ready to quit, but Asif tells him to get back out there and appoloisgise to his boss and that life isn't fair, and if it was then his brother wouldn't be dead.
At home, Jess is still paranoid that her husband is cheating and she checks his coat pockets for clues he is playing away. This leads to her calling her sister and asking if they can meet, which her sister is keen on, but Jess tells her not to tell their mum they're meeting.
Sunny and Jess meet with Juliet at the station and she tells them that she didn't know her husband had life insurance until after he died, and that he'd taken it out in 2015 without her knowing. It paid out £400,000 eventually. Sunny asks for a list of the tenants he had in the flats when he died as they might have been having disputes. Jess asks if they had a happy marriage, to which Juliet seems to be shocked by the question but says they were happily married. After the interview and once Juliet has gone, Sunny and Jess agree that something is off with her.
Later Jess and Sunny brief the team and they get them working on digging up old case files, speaking to anyone who worked at the pub Gerrard owned, and finding out why the leg found was still wrapped in a bin liner but the rest of his body parts appear to have been unwrapped before being dumped in the marsh.
Melinda visits Patrick in the hospital and he tells her that his insurance won't pay out because although he had only had half a pint of beer when the accident happened, and the other driver was drunk and went through a red light, they won't pay out because of the half a pint Patrick had consumed.
While Sunny goes to see Ram Sidhu in prison and asks about Gerrard's missing person case, Jess goes to see the money lender who denies killing Gerrard. Ram also says he doesn't think the moneylenders had anything to do with Gerrard's murder because dead men don't pay debts back so it wouldn't be in their interest to kill him. Both of them point the finger at Juliet, telling Jess and Sunny separately that they think she pushed the debt angle too hard and it was surprising. Ram says the person who attacked Gerrard before he died was a former employee, while the money lender tells Jess that Gerrand always had a woman in his car who wasn't his wife while he paid back his debts and that the police should be looking for her.
At the university, Paul tells Juliet that she needs to do the course, but she is adamant that she isn't. Meanwhile, Melinda talks to her mother on the phone and she tells her that a man they met in the pub once has been found dead - of course, she is talking about Gerrard Cooper, and Melinda seems spoken by the mention of his name, especially when her mother reminds her that she used to love having family picnics at the marshes when she was a little girl.
The next morning Melinda makes a threatening voicemail telling the listener that if they mention her name to the police then they will regret it - and it turns out the person the message is for is Juliet.
But how do Juliet and Melinda both know one another?
Unforgotten season 6 airs on ITV1 on Sunday and Monday evenings at 9pm. All six episodes are also available as a box set on ITVX now.
