Nigel confesses that he didn't do it but he still feels responsible for the boy's death.
So who killed the boy????
I found it a rather absurd ending. In the others, Cracker always seems to get his man...
Hi,
Having just finished watching this episode, I can conclude that for once the man focus of this episode is not catching the killer. This episode focuses on how even someone as brilliant as Fitz can go wrong. Therefore the identity of the real killer is not important - it can be whoever you want it to be.
Did you catch the little nuance at the beginning, where he found the heart in the row of diamonds?? He seemed more concerned about being right than he was ten seconds later when his face got smashed and he lost his money.
"We're Paratroopers, Lieutenant, we're SUPPOSED to be surrounded" -- Band of Brothers
Indeed. Fitz is a perfectionist and being right all the time is his main priority in life. It keeps him in the job he loves so much. This is why he is so distraught wen he realizes that Nigel isn't the killer and he pleads with Bilborough to release him.
Having watched this and To Be A Somebody in the same day, I noticed a very subtle reference to One Day A Lemning Will Fly. Katrina describes Bilborough as a man "who will never lock up an innocent man" or something to that effect. Can we take this to mean that more happened with Fitz, Bilborough and Nigel that we didn't see after the episode was finished? Did Bilborough eventually come round to Fitz's way of thinking? Did Nigel retract his confession?
Was the real killer eventually caught?
Early on in that episode Fitz berates Bilborough because "there's a man called Cassidy serving life for a crime he didn't commit". Bilborough dismisses him.
shareI really liked how it showed Fitz's desire to always be right and how he can make mistakes. However I didnt understand when the suspect said the victim was actually a girl, in what sense he mean? Also I thought it was completely implosible somebody would be willing to be thought of as a paedophile and murderer, go to prison and ruin their entire life just to show Fitz up.
shareFirst off the victim was so gay he was more like a girl than a boy.
Secondly the teacher felt so guilty for the following reasons: having nearly had sex with the boy. Allowing the boy to be pestered at school for being different. Treating the boy more sternly then perhaps the boys fellow pupils. The last point stems from the previous statement and is what I see as the root of the guilt. Teacher was a gay and was ashamed, he tried adamantly to live as a straight but it was so hard and so he blamed the boy for having made his life that much harder.
Who the killer was is not the point of the episode. The episode is about how the police sometimes get put under so much pressure for a result that they care more about making a prosecution than prosecuting the right person. It is also about the dangers of Fitz believing he is never wrong and about how murder often leads people to blame themselves when they are not to blame which is what Tims parents do and is what leads Nigel Cassidy to confess. Cracker isn't a conventional police show and not having Fitz get the right person is another example of them not following what other shows do. In real life sometimes nobody ever knows who the killer is and I like the fact that Cracker showed that.
When Cassidy and Tim's father said Tim was a girl they meant that he was a girl in a boys body and Cassidy wasn't gay he was only attracted to Tim for his feminine qualities.
The more I read these replies, the more I understand what's being written about Fitz's perfectionism about **some** things and not others. I still don'b believe that Cassidy was the murderer, but given the episode and the way it ended there is no way to know who really did kill the boy, and I guess we won't ever know.
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My thoughts:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105977/board/thread/145477519
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Agreed that the father of the victim was squirrely all along.
Also, dad was involved in the smashing of Cassidy's apartment with the backhoe. That behavior seemed over the top, but makes more sense if dad is going out of his way to show everyone how aggrieved he is. (I.e., to deflect suspicion away from himself.)
Similarly, the older brother assaulting one of the bullies at school who had picked on Tim was inconsistent with his own treatment of Tim. The older brother admitted to Fitz that he'd stood by and done nothing when his own friends picked on Tim. Seems like his slugging the bully might have been for show as well.
If Cassidy is innocent, then my top suspects are dad and the older brother. Both of them seemed to resent Tim's effeminate qualities.
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I've always considered this episode particuarly clever for tearing down convention by not only letting the killer get away, but never even revealing his identity. It's probable that nobody in the episode was or knew the killer. It's simply a coincidental event that happens to set the extraordinary story in motion.
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