Loveday Writing

Later, Clara and Daniel go to see Angus at the Lang house to tell them what happened and Vincent arrives, saying that the blood at the house matches Heidi.

Later at Daniel’s house, Margie, Ollie and Clara meet up with him, where they all call their loved ones and make sure they’re accounted for. The police then show up with a search warrant for Daniel’s house, where they find Heidi’s necklace and show Daniel the knife that was used to stab Heidi was his and therefore has his fingerprints on it. When Clara is also brought in by the police, she is charged as an accessory to murder.

While Clara and Daniel spend the night in jail, Margie and Trish collect Clara’s passport and Trish offers to pay for Clara’s legal defence, meanwhile Ollie is at Daniel’s looking after Zoe. When Ollie asks Zoe about the girl who gave her the concert ticket, he starts to believe that Heidi set it up to prevent Zoe from being contacted, however when they go the library and look at the surveillance footage, they don’t see her. Meanwhile, a travelling family who has pulled over finds a wounded and bloodied Heidi after she begs for their help.

Whilst Margie, Clara, Daniel and Ollie are at Clara’s house, Dom comes over and gives her a copy of an emergency full custody order for the kids. When he leaves, the four of them watch Heidi tell her story on the news. Clara grabs her handbag and leaves to go and talk to Heidi at the hospital. Heidi tries to convince Clara it was Daniel but Clara doesn’t buy it. As she leaves, she runs into Anita, Heidi’s mother, who tells Clara to be careful around Heidi.

Later, Margie, Ollie, Clara and Daniel explain Heidi’s crimes to Trish, although they question how Heidi could have stabbed herself and still lived. Trish offers up the possibility that she could have drawn her own blood using a syringe as you can take about half a litre of blood without it having a major effect on the body, and stabbed herself later to set up a crime scene. Clara looks through Belinda’s photo album and notices the dove that Heidi gave Margie in the background. When Clara asks if she still has it, Margie reveals that after Trish binned it, she un-binned it and gave it to another hospice patient. Ollie and Margie retrieve it, and Clara asks Paul about it. He reveals that Belinda bought it in Tasmania and it’s rare. Margie, Ollie, Clara and Daniel give this information to the police and they tell them that Heidi was seen on CCTV in the vicinity of Belinda’s father’s apartment the day he died.

The police has Clara wear a wire and go to a party Heidi is throwing at a club. When the police asks her to take Heidi somewhere quiet, they go to a rooftop bar. Clara tries to catch Heidi in her lies but she lets it slip that she’s wearing a wire when she responds to the police telling her to keep Heidi calm. Heidi then grabs Clara and holds a knife to her throat, telling her a story she’ll make up to cover up her murder. When Daniel senses something is wrong, he runs to the club and tries to break through the rooftop bar door. When Heidi hears him, Clara elbows her to break free, only for Heidi to catch her. Daniel breaks through and he and Clara manage to tackle her to the ground. Margie, Ollie and the police follow soon after and when Heidi tries to say Daniel attacked her, Margie says they saw her attack and the police arrest her.

Later, Daniel and Ollie are fishing at the pier near Daniel’s house, where Ollie convinces Daniel to take a chance on dating Clara, as he has been avoiding her. The episode and the season ends with Margie, Ollie, Clara and Daniel putting fresh flowers on Belinda’s grave and talking about the fact that Heidi’s retrial for triple murder (Belinda, Belinda’s father, and Walsh) starts in three weeks, and Daniel telling Clara they’ll be late for their dinner date. The four of them leave the cemetery talking about another recent murder trial where the verdict didn’t seem right, joking that they should investigate it.

Overall, I felt that this was a solid season finale as Heidi’s guilt was finally confirmed and she was arrested. I also appreciated that seeds were planted for a possible future season, with the four protagonists discussing another murder trial that they should investigate. However, I don’t think this premise for a second season would work as they weren’t part of the jury for that trial. I would honestly be surprised if the show is renewed for a second season as it operates on what I call a limited premise – once they figured out Heidi was guilty and she was arrested, where can the show realistically go?

As for the season as a whole, I felt it was well-done as I was kept on the edge of my seat in this episode and the overall mystery kept me intrigued the entire time. I also appreciated the motif of Clara constantly seeing Belinda’s ghost in her bloodied form, which came to a perfect close with a clean Belinda waving goodbye to Clara when Heidi was finally arrested.

Overall, I enjoyed watching and reviewing After the Verdict.