The End?
The Season finale of Save Me Too begins with Nelly speaking to Claire about their daughter’s words and eventually heading in to see her, where Jody thanks him for what he’s done. Nelly goes on to mention Grace and what happened with Gideon but Claire feels like it’s too much and tells him to leave the situation alone. Nelly races off to salvage the Grace situation, losing Zita in the process as she asks him to hand over his keys. Outside, he runs into Shola who tells him that Grace won’t co-operate. Mulling it over, Nelly agrees to be there in the morning. Jody speaks to her Mum and tells her that the men who abused her threatened to kill her family if she said anything. As Claire holds her in her arms, the aftermath of this sees Jody phone Nelly tell him they’re going to go through with the therapy in order to learn what really happened to her. Only, they have to be there between 9.30 and 10…the exact same times Grace is being questioned at the station. Torn between his daughter and Grace, Nelly finds himself at a cross-roads. He makes his choice though and Nelly abandons Grace in favour of Jody, which seems like the obvious choice given she’s the one he’s been trying to find all this time. Instead, he leaves a message to Grace apologizing to her for not being there. At therapy, Jody is asked difficult questions while her parents sit listening to this horrific ordeal. At the same time, Grace is shown numerous pieces of evidence being used against her, including clothes and the bloodstained hoody where the knife was kept. With these different items, and Grace continuing not to co-operate, Shola decides to keep her in custody for the time being. Nelly however, is far from done with this case and starts sifting through a list of different addresses to find Paul and pin Gideon’s murder on him. Startlingly, he finds him. Unfortunately things go awry and Nelly finds himself on the ground with a knife to his eye. Paul threatens Nelly and tells him to leave the situation alone before watching as our protagonist hobbles away. The next day, Jody decides to go it alone and talk about her ordeal to the therapist. As a horrifying trickle of information is revealed, Nelly takes the opportunity to take the knife that killed Gideon and try to pin it on Paul. To add fuel to the fire, Jody reveals that the first person to abuse Jody was actually Paul. Unfortunately he’s packed up his things and is no longer at the shop when Nelly goes to see him later on in the day, leading Nelly right back to square one again. That evening though, Jody heads to the pub where he meets all of Nelly’s friends. As pictures are taken, Nelly leaves Jody with his phone but unfortunately she sees pictures of Paul he’s snapped which causes her to head outside and wet herself in fear. Claire confronts Nelly over what’s happening and it’s here we learn that Paul was actually the one who picked up Jody and drove her away from the library. While Claire and the others leave, the party ends and Nelly makes a call in the morning to try and help Grace out. Before we find out who he was on the phone to, Nelly takes Samson to school and makes up with Zika again, giving her a passionate kiss before he leaves. In prison, a solicitor is assigned to Grace while Nelly races to the station and into the interview room where he talks to Shola. He hands over all the evidence he’s collected thus far, including the phone, ID and car. He also shows her his old coat with blood spatters from Gideon and admits to murder, saving Grace from her fate as the episode ends. With a big cliffhanger ending and Lennie James keen to see this through to a third season, there’s plenty of questions left unanswered here. With Paul still out in the open and the horrific ordeal these girls have had to endure causing a ripple of misery to consume the community, Save Me Too has been a wild and bumpy ride this year. If you can look past some of the questionable character motivations at times, Save Me Too has been a really good drama and a solid watch from start to finish. The early season editing certainly stands out, as does the continuous usage of the colour yellow. On top of that the dialogue and script work has been very good and a couple of dolly shots early on give the show a creative edge. While it’s understandable that Nelly feels some affection toward Grace given everything she’s been through, it begs the question why he’s sacrificing himself to save her rather than trying to play the system from the outside and be there for Jody too. Given he now knows who Paul is and what his relationship was in relation to his daughter, surely this would have sparked an even deeper hatred and rage to try and pin this murder on him, especially given his conviction last season in saving his daughter. Still, there could still be a master plan at work here and Nelly’s mysterious phone call just before the end still begs the question as to whether this is all part of the long-game. We’ll have to wait and see of course but with a third season in the pipeline, there’s plenty left in the tank to explore in what’s otherwise been a very good series of drama.
