'Miss Scarlet' Recap: Season 6 Episode 5

Miss Scarlet airs Sundays at 7:00 pm and is available to stream. Recap the previous and following episodes and other seasons.
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After a week apart following Alexander’s request for some time to think, Eliza has come to see him at his office in Scotland Yard. She wants to inform him that she’s going to Paris to visit Moses, who has just had a child. Alexander wonders if she’s telling him the truth; last time she said she was going on a trip to visit someone, it was actually a job. 

But he tries to tell her that he has missed her nevertheless – unfortunately, Scotland Yard is short-staffed due to an outbreak of stomach illness and riots, so he keeps getting interrupted. She leaves; he notices after she has gone that she has forgotten her glove.

The lack of staffers at Scotland Yard is unfortunate, as the crime boss Dylan Cooper is due to be transferred to a prison that night. Cooper warns Alexander that the riots might soon reach the prison he is to go to – and his prediction proves correct. He not only knows about the riots; he knows that much of Scotland Yard is out sick. The transfer to the prison is canceled for the night.

Alexander kicks everyone but the remaining staff and the prisoners out and shuts down Scotland Yard, locking the front and back gates. He fears that Cooper himself has caused the riots in order to help him escape.

He calls for back-up – or at least tries to, but the phone lines are dead, as Isabel Summers, the only female clerk left, tells him. The dead lines could be due to the thunderstorm – or it could be sabotage.

Yelling from the jail cells brings Alexander to them. Cooper demands to be moved from his cell: his cellmate has a knife, and Cooper fears for his life. Alexander refuses. He returns upstairs and arms his two men with rifles to guard the gates, leaving Detective Willows to help him. 

Willows is dating Isabel, whom he tries to reassure about the ominous situation. She thinks she recognizes one of the two men on duty, Murray, who is new at Scotland Yard. Willows tries to subtly quiz him on his background before getting upset at his comments about Isabel. 

Isabel then finds Willows to show him why Murray seemed familiar: she used to work on collating mugshots. Her brother used to be teased by a boy with a scar just like Murray’s, but the boy had a different name. Indeed, that name is in the book of mugshots, with the photo ripped out. Dylan Cooper is listed as a known associate.

Willows rushes to check on things and finds the second on-duty officer, Watkins, knocked out, the keys to the back gate missing from his belt. Willows spots Murray and makes him put his rifle down, patting him down: he has a pair of keys. Willows and Alexander handcuff him.

Murray says Watkins gave him the keys when Watkins went to the bathroom. He denies having a criminal record, and is able to name officers at the police precinct at which he says he previously served. 

Shouting again breaks out from the jail cells. Cooper’s cellmate has him in a chokehold; Alexander makes him release Cooper, who begs to be moved. Alexander reluctantly puts Cooper in his office, chaining him to a chair. Cooper admits that his men started the riots, and that he also caused the illness sweeping Scotland Yard: he knows the person who supplies the meat. He warns that armed men are on their way to free him, with dynamite to blow open the locked gates. 

Willows continues to question Murray, who says he doesn’t feel well and maintains his innocence. A carriage pulls up to the front gate and the driver abandons it. Cooper warns Alexander to block his ears; an explosion is coming.

Alexander reluctantly unlocks the front gate and carefully approaches the carriage. He opens the door to find it empty.

Murray meanwhile tells Willows that there must have been something in the tea Isabel prepared; he and Watkins both became ill only after drinking it. As further evidence, he tells Willows that he passed out and woke up to find Isabel searching Willows’ jacket for keys.

Watkins is only just rousing, but says that he saw Isabel go into the room with Murray and Willows’ jacket. 

Willows rushes to the switchboard room and finds the phones unplugged: that’s why they weren’t connecting. Alexander finds Cooper is missing from his office. Willows finds Isabel helping Cooper escape, keys in hand.

The next day, she explains that Cooper planted her at Scotland Yard – a foresight he found useful once he was arrested. There were never any armed men coming; she was the escape plan. She drugged the tea, which Alexander and Willows fortunately passed over in favor of something stronger. And she framed Murray to distract them.

Alexander tells Cooper that he is still being transferred to a new prison – and that Alexander has requested a jury from out of town that is supervised continually for his trial, so that they can’t be bribed.

Willows submits a letter of resignation to Alexander for being taken in by Isabel. Alexander refuses it; we were all hoodwinked, he says. There will be an investigation, but Alexander will defend Willows in it. 

Alexander goes to Eliza’s house to return her glove just as she’s about to go see him before leaving for Paris. For all your faults, I love you, he tells Eliza. I hope you love me, too.

Of course I do, she says. She left the glove in his office deliberately.