Down Cemetery Road Recap: Guess Who?

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By the end of the second episode of Down Cemetery Road, the mysteries of Dinah Singleton’s whereabouts and Joe Silvermann’s murder are solved. However, those answers surprisingly lead to even more questions. The episode leaves viewers wondering who “the Department” is really after and how the Singletons fit into their plans. We also don’t know who shot Axel and Sarah, or what their motive is, and what part Gerard is playing in everything. I’m starting to suspect everyone, just like Sarah. The episode ends with a strange detail: Mark is staying in London, and he receives a peculiar text message saying simply, “Hey, hey?”

As a film buff, I’m really intrigued by Zoë Boehm’s character. She’s thrown into this incredibly tough situation – identifying her husband, Joe’s, body. She’s fiercely determined, practically threatening this unnamed police officer – the same one who dismissed the Dinah lead – that she’ll find Joe’s killer if he doesn’t. The scene where she receives the news is particularly jarring; she’s in bed with another man, an Irishman who’s married. The police, though, seem stuck on the idea that Joe took his own life. I found myself rooting for Zoë as she vehemently argues against that, insisting Joe loved his job as a private investigator, even if it wasn’t glamorous. They try to build a case for suicide – debt, a strained marriage, even that he read poetry! – but it just doesn’t ring true. A rough life and a love for poetry aren’t enough to drive someone to suicide, and Zoë points out a crucial detail: Joe was reportedly squeamish around blood. If he did take his own life, slitting his wrists wouldn’t have been the method. It’s a compelling setup, and I’m eager to see where this investigation leads.

Zoë quickly sees Sarah leaving the police station and discovers Sarah was the one who found Joe’s body. In the car, Mark is puzzled by why Sarah hired a private investigator to look into the case of a child she doesn’t know. Despite his confusion, he’s supportive and offers to work from home to stay with her, even trying to comfort her with a blanket. However, he accidentally pulls out Paula’s scarf, which gives him an idea to contact Gerard. Mark then suggests they drive to the Cotswolds, where the Inchons have a beautiful cottage featured in magazines, to return the scarf personally. He even asks if Sarah would get it dry-cleaned first. Sarah is shocked by his request, especially given her distress over Joe’s death, but after an argument, she agrees to take the scarf and go with him.

Sarah doesn’t make it to the dry cleaners. Instead, she’s drawn to the Oxford Investigations office and sneaks inside, despite the warning tape. She notices blood on Joe’s desk, but before she can look closer, she’s stopped by the man who took Dinah from the hospital. He pretends to be a police officer and tells her to stay out of the investigation, suggesting she read mystery novels instead. We later learn this man is Amos Crane, one of Malik’s operatives and brother to the even more unstable Axel Crane. Malik’s boss is unhappy with the Crane brothers’ behavior, but Malik claims Amos scared Sarah off the case and that Dinah is hidden safely. However, the real target is still out there, creating a significant problem. The story now centers on identifying this target and determining who will reach them first: Malik or Zoë?

Honestly, the investigators are focusing on the wrong person – they’re too concerned with Sarah when it’s Zoë, the real pro at digging up dirt, who’s making the actual discoveries. She tracked down one of Sarah’s old professors at Oxford, but he couldn’t place Sarah from a photo. What did stick with him was a tragic story about a student who somehow survived a fall from a college tower after taking something…pretty intense. And while Zoë was poking around near the ruins of the Singleton place, a neighbor told her something really strange – the gas to that road was shut off years ago! Which means the whole story about a gas explosion just doesn’t add up.

Wigwam completely believes Rufus’s story about the gas main, and this makes us wonder what Rufus actually knows. Sarah worries Wigwam because she questions whether Joe’s death was a suicide. Things get even more complicated when Sarah realizes the young girl she thought was Dinah is actually Gracie, Lucy’s daughter, who is still alive and living with her mother.

Dinah is recovering at a small house with a nurse named Steph. Amos and Malik visit to see how she’s doing. It’s a simple place, not fancy, but she seems safe. Malik is concerned and asks Amos to bring Dinah’s favorite teddy bear. He emphasizes they aren’t trying to hurt anyone. Amos intends to use Dinah to lure their target, hoping they’ll come looking for her. Malik points out this plan won’t work if they don’t know where the target is and can’t reach Axel. Amos explains that his brother, Axel, is a free spirit and needs to do things his own way.

Sarah is deeply shaken by what she’s learned about Dinah. After a panic attack and turning to alcohol, she goes to the old tower where she jumped years ago, landing on the lawn of St. Magdala’s. There, she’s met by Zoë, who is determined to find her husband’s killer. Sarah desperately wants to believe Joe’s death was a suicide, but she can’t ignore the fact that his life seemed ordinary before he started investigating the Dinah Singleton case, and now he’s gone. She confides in Zoë, sharing everything she knows: a man with a ponytail seen near the explosion, the hospital, Gerard, and a grey van. Zoë believes the house was intentionally blown up and suspects the man with the ponytail – who she nicknames “The Stranger” – may be responsible for both the explosion and Joe’s death. However, she wonders why anyone would kill Joe when his investigation hadn’t uncovered anything significant.

Sarah receives an invoice from him, delivered by Zoë. Both women are driven to uncover what’s happening, but also feel responsible: Sarah for involving Joe in this situation, and Zoë for not being attentive enough to her husband. Mentioning Joe upsets them both, and Zoë quietly goes to the bathroom to cry. However, a good investigator follows every clue, and notices Zoë’s deception – she claimed not to know where Sarah lives, but was briefly seen looking for her address. What she doesn’t realize is that a mysterious stranger is watching Sarah’s house.

Sarah decided to review Mark’s recording of the explosion, hoping to get a better look at a person of interest, which irritated Mark. He was already stressed because Gerard had backed out of their agreement, and Sarah had been sneaking around at night, turning off her phone. It’s understandable why he’d call Sarah’s focus on Dinah Singleton an unhealthy obsession, especially since he felt it jeopardized his important business deal. He believed Sarah was getting involved in something that didn’t concern her. However, Sarah couldn’t ignore the mounting evidence. While holding Paula’s scarf – the source of their argument and still uncleaned – she discovered bloodstains on it.

Sarah rushed to the police station to show the lead officer her discovery. She recalled finding Joe with a scarf clutched in his hand, snagged on a doorknob. She believed the killer had overlooked wiping fingerprints from the doorknob while cleaning up. The officer sent the scarf for forensic analysis to see if it had Joe’s blood on it. As this happened, Sarah became increasingly worried, and for good reason. Malik, aware Sarah was still investigating, authorized Amos to escalate their efforts, instructing him to tell Axel to make any actions seem accidental, believable, and like a personal matter.

I have a particular annoyance with mystery stories where important reveals feel random. A good mystery author carefully builds the groundwork for the crime, subtly guiding your attention so the eventual reveal is both surprising and logical. The moment Rufus is revealed to be Axel Crane does this perfectly. Rufus always seemed a little off, but never enough to be the main suspect. When he and Wigwam find Sarah fleeing her home after hearing strange sounds, and he immediately offers to protect her by securing the house, it raises a red flag. Plus, the mysterious Stranger is still lurking nearby, possibly causing those very noises.

The suspense builds over a lengthy scene. The untrustworthy Rufus and Sarah switch from tea to wine. Sarah, unaware of Rufus’s true nature, endlessly shares her suspicions, even pointing to blood on a scarf as solid evidence the killer made a mistake. Rufus discovers an envelope belonging to Joe, which fell when Sarah snatched the scarf during a fight with Mark. I braced myself, expecting Rufus to keep it, but he surprisingly returns it to Sarah. When he reaches for dental floss in the kitchen, I thought something was about to happen, but it wasn’t until Sarah read a note from Joe – revealing he was dropping the case as it fell outside his jurisdiction, but had requested information about the Singletons and urged her to investigate the blast victims – that Rufus finally made his move.

He’s stopped drinking wine, determined not to make another mistake. He confesses everything: his name is Axel, and he was responsible for both Joe’s death and the bombing of the Singletons – actions he regrets, as dealing with Dinah is proving difficult. Then, in a sudden, disturbing act, he uses dental floss to strangle Sarah. It wasn’t the subtle method Malik suggested – like making it look like she choked on a fishbone – but it’s irrelevant. The Stranger arrives and immediately shoots him.

Paper Trail

I’m really trying to figure out who Wigwam is and what role she plays in all of this. Does she know the truth about Rufus? And if not, will she believe Sarah when Sarah finally tells her everything? Their friendship might not survive if they disagree, but it’s also possible Wigwam is working with Malik – which would explain why she insisted Sarah went inside with Rufus. It’s also strange that Axel connected with Wigwam before the explosion. They were already a couple before the Singletons were targeted, and that feels like more than just a coincidence. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but it’s bothering me.

This episode also gives us a glimpse into Zoë’s personal life. We see she has a cute cat named Betty, but her fridge is empty. She reluctantly attends a memorial service for Joe, which his mother, Janice, organized. Janice is upset that the delay in releasing his body is preventing the family from observing the traditional mourning period, known as shiva. She also hints that Zoë is responsible for Joe’s unhappiness, pointing out he knew Zoë no longer wanted to be married. It’s a moving scene, and Emma Thompson, while portraying Zoë’s often frantic energy, subtly reveals moments of deep emotion. I was particularly touched by her crying in Sarah’s bathroom as she wrestled with guilt and grief.

This episode features a recurring image of doorknobs, and it’s worth paying attention to. We see blood on Joe’s doorknob, and at Sarah’s house, the doorknobs in the bathroom where Zoë is upset are damaged and falling apart. Significantly, Sarah tries to grab onto these doorknobs while she’s being attacked, and they break off in her hands. Could these be clues to something larger?

As a longtime reader of Stephen King, I really appreciated a small detail in the adaptation – the dental floss. It’s a seemingly minor thing, but those familiar with Down Cemetery Road will recognize it as a point of contention between Mark and Sarah. In the book, Mark is incredibly lazy and insists on floss being always available in the kitchen so he can floss at the table – yeah, it’s a bit disgusting. It represents a larger unhappiness in their marriage, a fight over something small that Sarah dismisses as unimportant, while Mark views it as just part of what a wife should do. Now, the show makes a smart change here. Book-Mark is a real jerk – prickly, uncaring, and even willing to drug his wife to avoid dealing with her feelings. TV-Mark, though still emotionally distant, is much softer and more attentive. It’s a subtle shift, but it makes him far more sympathetic, and frankly, a more compelling character.

• It kills me that Joe, such a sweetie, didn’t have to die. He was going to drop the case!

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2025-10-29 17:59