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DCI Banks Season 1 Episodes
Season 1 Episode Guide
8 Episodes 2010 - 2011
Episode 1
Aftermath: Part 1
Mon, Sep 27, 201048 mins
Two police officers are called to an apparent domestic where they find Lucy Payne unconscious. Investigating a noise in the cellar they are attacked by her husband Marcus, who kills one of them with a machete before the other, Janet Taylor, knocks him out and he is arrested. D.C.I. Alan Banks comes to the house and finds the corpses of four missing blonde girls, though there is no sign of Leanne Wray, who also disappeared. The case is hampered when, due to an interfering hospital doctor perturbed that Janet put Payne in a coma, Alan is shadowed by annoying D.S. Annie Cabbot from the Professional Standards Department. Lucy, a frequent victim of her husband's violence, cannot help trace Leanne, being unaware that her husband was a mass killer and also unaware that he was having sex with Maggie, the concerned neighbour who wanted her to leave him and who called the police to the Paynes' house. After a chilly first meeting Annie suggests to Alan that they have a drink together and he agrees to, whilst wondering if she is using him for career advancement. Just as they are getting cosy, they get the call to say that Payne has died. Now there is nobody able to locate Leanne.
Episode 2
Aftermath: Part 2
47 mins
Thanks to a Chief Superintendent who is obsessed with damage-limitation, Janet is charged with manslaughter though Annie makes sure that she gets off. A friend of the missing Leanne leads Alan to believe that Payne had a female accomplice to lure the girls into his car and Lucy is the obvious suspect, though she denies it, at the same time admitting she knew her husband was a killer. She also blackmails Maggie into paying for a lawyer for her though Maggie counters by ringing the press to explode the 'accomplice' story. Investigations show Lucy to have been the victim in a famous abuse case as a child and she is diagnosed as mentally ill and incapable of having a mind to murder. Alan must discover to what extent she really was involved in the killings and if she knows where to find Leanne, alive or dead.
Episode 3
Playing with Fire: Part 1
47 mins
Banks and his team investigate when book-seller Leslie Whittaker's charred corpse is found on his burnt-out houseboat along with a strong-box containing twenty thousand pounds and a Turner painting. An informant links Whittaker to crazy artist Jake McMahon,who specialises in forgeries whilst Annie Cabbot seeks the advice of art expert Mark Keane and gets personal with him. Christina Aspen's body is also found floating in the river and her girl-friend tells Banks she was about to inform on her father,an elderly doctor with a very young wife, Miranda,whose car was spotted near the murder scene. After Banks has struck Aspen for insulting a black policewoman McMahon's corpse is discovered.
Episode 4
Playing with Fire: Part 2
47 mins
Banks gets a warning for hitting Aspen,after which more money and forgeries are found at the burnt out scene of McMahon's murder.Banks deduces that Gerry,Christina's girl-friend,is one of the forgers and she tells him she believes the killer is called Gary Morrison,who sold the artists' fake paintings but had a sinister hold over them. Banks is displeased to learn that Annie is having an affair with Keane - who also admits to being afraid of Morrison,though he has worked with him. With the evidence pointing to one of two suspects Banks must make a mercy dash to save a life before exposing a sordid secret.
Episode 5
Friend of the Devil: Part 1
47 mins
Whilst Banks investigates the rape and murder of student Hayley Daniels,arresting the shop-keeper,Timothy Randall,in whose store-room she was found,Annie investigates the death of wheelchair-bound,paralyzed Karen Drew,taken by a mystery woman from her care home and slaughtered on the site where,years earlier,serial killers Lucy and Marcus Payne dumped their victims. In fact Karen turns out to have been Lucy Payne,given a new identity on release from prison. Having satisfied himself that Hayley's lecturer lover Martin Austin is innocent he is called to another incident. This time young policeman Kevin Templeton has his throat slashed in a manner identical to Lucy Payne's murder.
Episode 6
Friend of the Devil: Part 2
45 mins
The team is in shock after Kevin's murder. They deduce that he was acting as a vigilante patrolling the alleys to prevent further murders but the witness who saw his death presumed he was out to harm her. She identifies the slayer as a woman but pathologist Dr. Waring disputes this and sees no link with Lucy Payne's death,causing Annie to doubt. Randall is cleared of Hayley's murder when he is given an alibi and,with several likely suspects,Banks is back at square one. Annie however learns of a former rape victim whose perpetrator was murdered before she disappeared,providing a link to Lucy Payne and a clue to the identity of the double murderer.
Episode 7
Cold Is the Grave: Part 1
48 mins
Petty crook Charlie McKay is found murdered in a gangland execution after stealing a van. Meanwhile Banks goes to London to bring back Emily, the erring schoolgirl daughter of Chief Superintendent Rydell, whose topless photos have appeared on the Internet. Banks tracks her down living with violent criminal Barry Clough and returns her to her parents. However, after Emily has implied she has a lot of incriminating evidence about Clough, his henchman Niall Gilbert follows them and she disappears again. Then a young girl's corpse is discovered.
Episode 8
Cold Is the Grave: Part 2
47 mins
The dead girl is Emily. The stress causes her parents to separate, her mother Rosalind telling Banks that Ruth, who was Emily's flatmate in London, is the illegitimate daughter that she gave up for adoption before she met Rydell. Banks is suspicious of Tony, the lad whose van was supposedly stolen by Charlie McKay and the team shadows him, saving him from being shot by Niall Gilbert. Banks gets Tony to confess that he and McKay were couriers for Clough, whom they robbed, Charlie paying with his life. Banks, noting the recent decline in drug arrests, also wonders whether Rydell was on Clough's payroll, the answer to his question coming after a further visit to Rosalind which solves everything.
