Diksha Sundriyal
In Apple TV+’s ‘Down Cemetery Road,’ a normal woman gets caught up in some deeply abnormal circumstances. Starring Ruth Wilson and Emma Thompson, the series centers on a mystery that deepens with each step. The first two episodes lay the groundwork for the story that has much more to it than meets the eye. The twists and turns keep the audience guessing, while the web of lies gets even more twisted. In the midst of this, the complicated pasts of the troubled protagonists also play an important role in how they react to certain situations, and that sets the tone of a turbulent and intriguing season. And it all starts with an explosion. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Sarah Gets Entangled in a Shocking Conspiracy
Sarah Trafford is an art conservationist. It is a fulfilling job, in some ways, but it doesn’t pay well. Fortunately, Sarah’s husband, Mark, earns enough for the both of them, and that gives Sarah the freedom to explore her true passions. At the same time, it has also created an unresolved rift between the couple. Supporting her husband’s career choices means opening the door to people like Gerard Inchon, a wealthy man and a highly valued potential investor for Mark. Gerard and his wife come to the Trafford house for dinner. When their sophisticated friends bail on them, Sarah invites their hippie neighbors, Rufus and Wigwam, to accompany them to dinner. Gerard’s entitled and crude ways clash against Sarah’s beliefs and Rufus and Wigwam’s unusualness. The food is just as dismal as Gerard’s words, but that’s not the most memorable thing about that night.
The evening comes to an abrupt stop when a nearby house blows up, and the impact knocks out the glass wall of the Trafford house. While no one is hurt, everyone is shaken up about it. It seems that the only survivor is a young girl named Dinah. Unfortunately, both her parents died in the fire. The next day, one of Wigwam’s children makes a drawing for Dinah, and Sarah takes it upon herself to deliver it. When she reaches the hospital, she is brushed off by a nurse who seems visibly upset about Sarah coming to see Dinah. This strikes her as suspicious, along with the fact that Gerard is also in the hospital. She asks him to find out what’s happening with Dinah, but he advises her not to put her nose in others’ matters.
As she leaves, she is followed by a man whom she’d previously seen near the house while the paramedics were getting Dinah and her parents out. Elsewhere, the explosion and its aftermath have caused a stir for a government spy agency, which seems to be behind the blast. A clumsy man named Hamza enters the building to update his boss on their current mission, but his boss, known only as “C,” has already had a meeting with the heads of other departments. It seems that the explosion has raised some concerns that must be addressed as soon as possible. Hamza enters the office just as the others are leaving, and C tells him to get a grip on the situation. They don’t want anyone to come nosing around their business. It seems that Sarah’s line of questioning has already been reported to them. It is revealed that Sarah is not the only one interested in the truth behind the explosion.
Sarah Reaches Out to a Private Investigator for Help
A struggling PI, Joe Silverman, also believes that there might be something more to it, that it could be a part of a government conspiracy. While he is excited to investigate the explosion, his wife, Zoë Boehm, thinks that he is on yet another wild goose chase. She advises him to focus on getting their money from the clients who still haven’t paid for their services. To emphasize the situation, she points him towards the ever-increasing stack of bills. Meanwhile, Sarah sees a report about the fire in the newspaper. However, when she sees another report online, she notices that Dinah has been digitally removed from it. This makes her more concerned about Dinah, and while on one of her walks, she stumbles upon Joe Silverman’s offices. She first meets Zoë, who thinks she is there to look into her husband’s affair. When Zoë leaves, Sarah talks to a more amiable Joe, who realizes that they are following the same case.
Interestingly, Sarah’s meeting with Joe is reported to Hamza, and pressure mounts on him to end the matter as soon as possible. At her house, Sarah notices the strange man again, lurking around the neighborhood, and slightly panics. Meanwhile, Joe decides to go to the bar frequented by the hospital’s nurses to get some concrete information on what’s happening with Dinah. Before he leaves, he tries to show Zoë that he is going to settle the bills and take care of the business and himself. However, she doesn’t seem too concerned with his words, which shows that there isn’t anything left in their marriage anymore. Or at least, nothing’s left for Zoë, since Joe clearly wants to patch up and go back to the way they were. However, he is not able to express his real feelings. Later that evening, Gerard shows up at Sarah’s house and tells her that Dinah is in the ICU and is being taken care of.
There is nothing to worry about there, but he warns her that Mark is out of his depth at work and should not get involved in dealing with people he knows nothing about. He’d come under the pretense of getting his coat back, but as he leaves, he forgets to take his wife’s scarf. Elsewhere, Joe talks to the nurses and discovers that Dinah is being moved to an undisclosed location the same night. Sarah immediately leaves for the hospital, and as she tries to find Dinah, she notices the strange man again. She pulls the fire alarm to push him out, but there is another man, named Amos, who is already on the task. As Sarah frantically looks for Dinah, the girl is put in a car and driven away. Sarah tries to follow the car but is hit by the strange man. She immediately heads to Joe’s office to apprise him of the situation, but is shocked to find him dead in his chair, with both of his wrists slit.
Joe’s Death Prompts Zoë to Look Into the Explosion
Zoë is in bed with someone else when she receives the news of her husband’s death. She immediately makes it to the police station, where she is told that Joe died by suicide. They ask her about his mental state, with the mounting bills and the strained marriage, but she repeatedly states that he wouldn’t have killed himself. As she is taken to the morgue, she notices Sarah in the hallway, who is being taken home by Mark. When Zoë looks at Joe’s body, she vows to find the person who did this to him. Meanwhile, a visibly shaken Sarah is taken home by her husband, who chides her for looking into Dinah and hiring a private investigator for it. At home, he finds the scarf and decides to use it as a way to meet Gerard again and convince him to finalize the deal he has been vying for all along.
Sarah is angry with him for overlooking her trauma, but in anger, she decides to take the scarf for dry cleaning. On the way, she stops at Joe’s office, but it turns out she is not alone. She meets Amos, who makes not-so-veiled threats, telling her to stay away from the case, be it Dinah’s or Joe’s. Zoë looks into Sarah and discovers that during her time as a prized student in Oxford, she tried to kill herself by jumping off the roof of the building. She also pays a visit to Sarah’s neighborhood and discovers that the official explanation of the explosion being caused by a faulty pipeline doesn’t stand because the gas had been cut off from the houses in that line a while back. Meanwhile, Hamza receives an earful from his boss about the mess around Joe’s death, which means there is another thing that needs to be cleaned up.
Sarah confides in Wigwam about what she thinks is going on with Dinah, but even her friend believes that she is making things up in her head. And then, Sarah sees the girl she thought was Dinah and realizes that she has been chasing someone she hasn’t even met. Later that night, she gets drunk and ends up going back to Oxford’s roof, but before she can jump, Zoë finds her. She tells her that Joe’s death and the explosion are both suspicious, and she is looking into it. As they part, Zoë hands Sarah an envelope from Joe, which she believes is nothing more than an invoice. Elsewhere, Dinah is taken to a safe house where Amos looks after her. Hamza tells him to pass on a message to his brother, Axel, that he needs to clean up after himself without raising suspicions. And that he needs to take care of Sarah as well.
The Stakes Get Higher for Sarah
The next morning, Sarah wakes up with renewed enthusiasm. The conversation with Zoë has convinced her she was right all along. She remembers that Mark made a video the night of the explosion, and sure enough, when she looks at it, she sees the strange man who has been following her since then. She also notices a message from his secretary, which suggests that Zoë may have been right about him having an affair. When Mark notices her looking at the video, he calls her out for getting involved with things that don’t concern her. They argue, and he leaves with the decision to stay in a hotel in London that night.
Later that day, when she comes back home from the office, she has a nagging feeling that she is being followed. This feeling intensifies when she gets home, prompting her to run out of the house. Right outside her door, she meets Wigwam and Rufus, and while Wigwam leaves, Rufus stays back to check things at the house and make Sarah feel safe. He tells her to make tea while he locks all the doors and makes sure no one is around. When he has confirmed that there is no one in the house, he and Sarah start to drink. She tells everything she has found out about Dinah’s case, and eventually opens Joe’s envelope.
It seems he left a letter for her, telling her that he was backing out of the case, not because there was nothing in it, but because it seemed too deep for him to follow. However, Sarah’s excitement turns into confusion and then horror as Rufus reveals that he is Axel, the friendly neighborhood assassin. He has been sent to put an end to Sarah’s investigation. He ties a string around her neck, while she tries to free herself, and just when it seems she is going to die, the strange man who has been following her all this time barges in and shoots. Considering everything, it is fair to believe that his shot is meant for Axel, not Sarah, which means she will be saved, and now, face-to-face with the man, she will finally get some answers.
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