Marcella Season 2: 13 Questions for the Finale to Answer

Warning: contains spoilers for Marcella season two episodes 1-7.

While the penultimate episode of Marcella season two appeared to reveal the killer, it still left plenty of questions still to be answered. Here’s a run-down of the most pressing ahead of the finale…

Why was Techy Mark spying on Marcella?

Frustratingly, on discovering that Techy Mark had installed spyware on her laptop, Marcella didn’t ask him why (it’s not quite as clear-cut as, say, her discovering that he’d installed a camera in the women’s loo at work). She handled it her way, which was to smack his head against the table and use it to blackmail him. So, why was Mark spying on her? Pervert theory aside, the likelihood is that, having spotted her on the CCTV footage around Grace Gibson’s house on the night of her season one murder, Mark was investigating Marcella’s involvement in Grace’s death. Or, was he spying on her then-boyfriend Tim? Now that Techy Mark has breathed his last, we’ll never know.

Where is Gail?

Last we saw care worker Gail, she was being led away by Jason’s fiancée Becky for a chat about her paralysed patient, Joel. Gail’s phone was seen on the ground in the car park of the care home in which she worked. Entirely uncharacteristically because of her young child, Gail has now been missing without explanation for a couple of days.

Gail had been conducting an experiment with Joel, helping him to communicate information. He’d told Gail that the car crash in Norway that left him paralysed was ‘no accident’. Gail shared this information with her boss Dr Lewis, and was later asked about it by Becky, whose link to Joel isn’t yet known. We do know that Becky was Jason’s rehab nurse following his stabbing by Henry Gibson in series one, so it’s possible that she was employed at the same care home as Gail, or had previously cared for Joel.

What is the significance of the locations in which the children’s bodies are hidden?

Leo Priestley was discovered inside the wall of Reg Reynolds’ flat, where teenager Debbie Canavan had overdosed thirty two years previously. Seema Faiq was discovered under the lift shaft in Edgware Road police station, Marcella’s place of work. Foster child Luke’s body was being driven somewhere when the car collided with a cyclist and was abandoned – but what was the intended destination? What is the significance of the locations the killer stashes the bodies? Was Leo put in Reg’s flat as a talisman against the evil that took place there (underage sex and drug overdoses?).

How does the killer select their victims?

Though several of them were, it’s not confirmed that all of the killer’s victims had been clients of child welfare phone life Kids Call. If Kids Call isn’t the connection between them, then what is? How does the killer select and make contact with their young victims?

How did the box of toys traced to Maya Whitman end up in the murder farmhouse?

The same toys were seen being handed out at the food bank Gail and Eric visited in episode one. A box of them was also spotted in the boot of Maya Whitman’s car as she drove away on the day Vince was investigated by the police. If Maya has nothing to do with the killings, how did a box of toys traced to her wind up in the killer’s farm house?

Why owns the blue estate car that picked up Little Adam?

Much was made of the orange Peugeot parked outside Jane Colletti’s house in episode seven. Was that the car Edward failed to properly recall in his hypnotised state? The car that Adam was seen getting into before he disappeared and woke up chained in the farmhouse though, was a blue estate. Does Jane Colletti simply have access to multiple cars, or is there another explanation?

Is Little Adam going to wake up?

In a coma since the car he was rescued in was hit by a train, Little Adam is the key to the killer’s identity. If he wakes up in the finale, he’ll be able to point Rav, Marcella and co in the right direction.

Why did Jojo have a tattoo of one of the symbols on the discs?

This Eagle-eyed Twitter user spotted that one of Jojo the vet’s tattoos bears the same symbol as used on the four discs inserted into the victims’ abdomens. A red herring, or incontrovertible proof that Jojo is involved somehow?

Who caused Joel Lawrence’s car ‘accident’?

Joel Lawrence, the young paralysed man bearing a similar abdominal scar to that of the killer’s victims, was seriously injured in a car crash in Norway (what Norway has to do with any of this I can’t rightly say). That crash was “no accident,” Joel spelled out to his care worker Gail. If Dr Lewis was behind Joel’s ‘accident’, that would explain why he refused to demonstrate his finger mobility in front of her when Gail asked.

Was Alan involved in Leo’s disappearance?

“I missed you in Belgrade,” said Reg Reynolds to his band manager/lover Alan Summers. The band’s Belgrade show four years earlier was Alan’s alibi for the date of Leo Priestley’s disappearance. Was Alan back in England at that time? And did he therefore have something to do with Leo’s murder? We know that Alan’s capable of murder (he drowned Reg) and that he’s violent (he attacked Marcella at Reg’s flat when he went there to retrieve the Silver Linings scrapbook containing the press cutting about Debbie Canavan’s disappearance). Did Alan and Jane Colletti stay in touch after Debbie’s disappearance? Is Alan’s story on Marcella not over yet?

Did Edward kill Juliette?

The last time Marcella tried to hypnotically access the memory of discovering baby Juliette’s body, she cried “Edward!” and refused to see beyond a closed door in her mind. The business with Edward killing his pet mouse and poking that maggoty fox made many suspect that he was also responsible for the death of his little sister. Will Marcella revisit the night that kick-started her dissociative amnesia again and find out the truth?

Why did Nigel Stafford say “them” and “they” instead of him or her?

Perhaps the murder farmhouse’s neighbour was simply being considerately cautious about pronoun usage in today’s world, perhaps he had no idea whether the person holding his girlfriend captive was male or female, or perhaps he knew that he was dealing with more than one of them?

Is Marcella going to jump?

Things have gone from bad to worse for our heroine this series. If Edward is killed by the murderer and Marcella loses another child, it could very well push her over the edge, literally. The series began with a flashforward to twelve days after the discovery of Leo’s body, when Marcella had climbed up onto the roof of the Edgware Road police station and seemed ready to jump. Can Rav persuade her back down onto solid ground?

And finally: what did happen to the taxi driver’s brother in series one?

We’re never going to find that out, are we?

Both seasons of Marcella are available to stream now on Netflix.