• Episode: 1 of 8
• Title: Series 2
• Transmission (TX): Mon 19 Feb 2018
• TX Confirmed: Yes
• Time: 9.00pm - 10.00pm
• Week: Week 08 2018 : Sat 17 Feb - Fri 23 Feb
• Channel: ITV
• Status: Returning

Series overview 
Original multi-layered ITV crime drama series Marcella, written by internationally renowned screenwriter and novelist Hans Rosenfeldt (The Bridge) and starring International Emmy award winning Anna Friel (The Girlfriend Experience, Broken, American Odyssey) returns to ITV. 

Returning alongside Anna Friel as the lead Marcella, in the highly praised drama are Ray Panthaki (One Crazy Thing), Nicholas Pinnock (Fortitude, Guerrilla), Jamie Bamber (Fearless, NCIS) and Jack Doolan (White Gold). 

New cast members are also welcomed; Nigel Planer (Episodes, Comic Strip Presents, The Young Ones), Keith Allen (Eddie The Eagle, My Mad Fat Diary), Sophia Brown (Beauty & The Beast, Clique, Disobedience), Peter Sullivan (Cuffs, Critical, The Borgias), Jason Hughes (Three Girls, Midsomer Murders), Victoria Smurfit (Once Upon A Time, Trial & Retribution, The Beach), Yolanda Kettle (The Crown, Love Nina), Josh Herdman (Harry Potter) and Harriet Cains (Line of Duty, Safe House). 

The eight-part series is once again set in contemporary London and the new series unfolds in the unique style of Rosenfeldt’s Nordic style.  Interweaving storylines and characters from all different walks of life and backgrounds will lead the audiences on a complex and emotional journey and keep them guessing until the very end. 

The story begins with the discovery of a body inside a wall. The body is clothed in a school blazer and surrounded by soft toys; a devastated Marcella soon works out that the body is that of schoolboy Leo Priestley, who was abducted a few years beforehand and a friend of Marcella’s son, Edward. 

A task-force is quickly pulled together by newly promoted DCI, Tim and we are introduced to a new member of the team, LeAnn. As the investigation progresses, we’re introduced to a number of new characters – a former famous musician Reg and his manager and friend Alan; edgy businessman Vince Whitman and his charity boss wife Maya; a previously convicted criminal Phil Dawkins; sister and brother Gail and Eric; and Becky, the new girlfriend of Marcella’s ex-husband. 

Whilst the storylines entwine, Marcella is still battling with her ongoing sporadic fugue states which she struggles to come to terms with and is getting increasingly worried about the effects it is having on her and her family around her. 

Episode 1 
Five months after the events of the last series, DS Marcella Backland is called to a house where a workman has drilled through a wall and discovered an ear. When the wall is taken down, Marcella is horrified to discover that the ear belonged to Leo Priestley, a 7-year old boy who’s been missing for four years and who knew her son.  Leo was meant to walk home with Edward, Marcella’s son on the day he went missing.

Leo’s discovery puts Marcella in confrontation with a previously convicted child abuser, Phil Dawkins. Dawkins is open to Marcella about being a non-practising paedophile – his urges are deemed unacceptable by society and he takes precautions to control them. Following his release from prison he’s tried to move on to an acceptable life but Marcella struggles to move past Phil’s admission.

Forensics alerts the team to the fact that Leo was put in the wall cavity from one of the neighbouring flats belonging to Reg Reynolds, a former drummer with the hit 70’s band Swiss Coast.

Reg can’t remember his whereabouts at the time Leo went missing. His manager, Alan Summers, tells the team that Swiss Coast were out of the country on tour at the time but it seems like they are hiding something.

Marcella visits Edward to who is staying with Jason and his new partner Becky.  She breaks the news to him about Leo and when Marcella leaves, it’s apparent that Edward is troubled by the re-emergence of past events.

When Marcella arrives home Tim is there, cooking dinner and we realise that they’re relationship has developed further. Marcella’s restless with Tim and can’t sleep. During the night, she heads to the place where Leo was buried to pay her respects and incident occurs.Back at work, the team send forensics back to the flat, interview Alan Summers and then Marcella gets a text from Edward asking her to come get him from school. When she arrives, Edward is nowhere to be seen and Marcella gets worried and enters a fugue – her first in six months. She chases a car that Edward was seen getting into with unforeseeable consequences.

Marcella comes out of her fugue and is faced with confronted by Jason. Marcella has to tell him the truth about the fugues but Jason tells her to get help or he won’t allow her near the children anymore. When Jason has left, we cut to a grainy live image of Marcella, as someone covertly watches her through the webcam on her computer.

The dynamics of the police team have shifted since the last series. Laura has moved on to a new position, Tim is now the new boss of the team and he brings with him DC LeAnn Hunter.

In the course of the episode we meet Eric and Gail, siblings who are struggling to make ends meet in contemporary London. Eric tries unsuccessfully to get money from the father of Gail’s child and an encounter at a foodbank and his general demeanour hint that Eric is suffering some form of PTSD having returned from military service in Afghanistan.Eric is working on a zero hours contract in the warehouse of Red Cow Gifts, a company owned by self-made millionaire, Vince Whitman. Vince is under fire from the press for his shady employment contracts and it begins to affect his wife, Maya Whitman’s, successful children’s charity, The Whitman Foundation.

Press contact: 
jo.blanket@itv.com

Picture contact: 
patrick.smith@itv.com