Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Tower 2: Death Message’ On BritBox, Where A New Case Forces Adama And Collins To Work Together

The first season of The Tower did a good job of telling its complex story over 3 episodes that spanned just over 2 hours. The second season, also based on Kate London’s novels, tells a bit more complex of a story, with two cases being solved at the same time. Despite this, though, the season is a very manageable 4 episodes that clock in at just about 3 hours. Is it as gripping as the first season was?

THE TOWER 2: DEATH MESSAGE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: DS Sarah Collins (Gemma Whelan) puts a bottle of wine in her basket and checks out at her local convenience store.

The Gist: Collins needs that bottle of wine as she watches reports about the end of the inquest into the conduct of PC Lizzie Adama (Tahirah Sharif) after she witnessed her partner and a teenage girl fall off a tower block building two months earlier. While Adama has been cleared of any misconduct and has been cleared to return to work at the Farlow police station, Collins is pretty convinced Adama shouldn’t be in the clear. However, Adama’s fellow beat cops and her boss, DI Kieran Shaw (Emmett J Scanlan), are happy to see her back.

Collins has been transferred to Homicide Command, and one of the first things she sees when she walks in the office is her former partner, DC Steve Bradshaw (Jimmy Akingbola), who was transferred to the plum position before she was. Her boss gives her the case of a 17-year-old who went missing back in 1997; an incarcerated criminal has come forth with a new lead that she needs to pursue.

Adama’s first case is a domestic violence call at an apartment complex not far from the tower where her partner died. When Adama questions the alleged victim, Georgina Teel (Rosa Coduri), she runs into reluctance and a friend who insists on being in the room. Adama sees that Georgina has covered up some bruises and convinces her to press charges against her boyfriend, Matthew Brannon (Charley Palmer Rothwell), before he starts abusing the daughter they have together. However, the charges are soon dismissed when Georgina reports that Adama scared her into entering those charges.

The inmate’s lead on the cold case is a pervert named Ray Walker (Brian McCardie), who seemed to know all about the missing girl. But Collins is more interested in what a former person of interest, Robert McCarthy (Benjamin Beresford), has to say about the girl, who was a friend, getting into a Jaguar with a mysterious man.

But as that case is going on, Collins gets a call for a homicide detective to arrive on the scene of a woman’s murder. The dead woman is Georgina Teel, and when Collins is briefed about the domestic violence call from a few days prior, she realizes that now she and Adama are crossing paths once again.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? As we said before the first season of The Tower, the series was adapted from Kate London’s novels by Patrick Harbinson, and it’s not a stretch to say that it feels like some of his previous shows, most notably Law & Order: SVU.

Our Take: The second season of The Tower has different stakes from the first; instead of Collins and Adama being on opposite sides of a case — despite both being cops — now they have to reluctantly work together. What makes this season interesting is that, despite the fact that the cases that Collins works on seem like standard-grade police procedural mysteries, the layer of the two cops’ recent past and interaction will color everything they do.

Remember, this isn’t years after the tower case, it’s a couple of months. Emotions are raw, and Collins has absolutely no faith or trust in Adama. It’ll be interesting to see whether they end up pulling together on the case of Georgina’s murder or will still be in conflict. It’s interesting, though, that the way Adama got Georgina to file against her boyfriend is immediately called into question; the way she deals with DV cases is certainly not purely according to the protocol she learned in her training, and we wonder how many other times she’s gone rogue. How she feels about Georgina’s fate will also likely guide how she deals with the case.

We’re unsure how the cold case ties in with the domestic homicide case that brings Collins and Adama together. It may not, but it seems that having a second, unrelated case taking Collins’ time would be a waste of plot if it didn’t tie into the other case somehow. We also are curious to see if Collins’ personal issues, plus her anger with Bradshaw, will factor in.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Collins and Adama eyeball each other at the scene of Georgina’s murder, and Collins has an especially distressed look on her face.

Sleeper Star: Julie Woodson (Camilla Beeput), who taught the teenage girl who died in the tower incident, shows up in Collins’ life completely unexpectedly. It seems that, while Collins can’t talk about the case with her, both seem to be eager to talk to each other about anything else. How a romance between the two of them might work under these circumstances will be a narrative trick we’d like to see.

Most Pilot-y Line: When the detective who questioned the inmate about Walker tells Collins that “it was all about wanking,” Collins’ boss quips, “it’s the title to my first novel.” It’s a tired joke that may say a bit about her boss, but it seems superfluous.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Tower 2: Death Message starts out a bit spread out, but we have faith that the story will come together over this season’s four episodes, anchored by good performances from Whelan and Sharif.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.