This review contains spoilers. The first episode’s strength was in the gloomy atmosphere it created where a sense of foreboding seemed as present as the loch itself. This week’s need to get the plot going properly means that atmosphere is set to one side a little. There’s still that ominous tone to everything, but it is more focused in on certain characters rather than the grand, sweeping shots of the dramatic Scottish landscape. In the wake of her unceremonious dumping from the investigation, Annie gets a couple of moping scenes in which Laura Fraser has to do her best with a couple of thudding lines. However, as the episode goes on, it seems to get better at knowing what to do with Annie’s character. Her ongoing troubled relationship with her daughter is confined to one scene, ensuring that Annie gets more to do than act parental. As with last week, it’s her local knowledge that advances the case in that rather icky discovery of Niall’s brain matter and it gets her back on the case. The focus on the main investigation means that we speed through a few plot points here, particularly Jonjo’s, who goes from wolf liberator to kidnap victim via a bottle of pills in what feels like about five minutes. Is he the killer’s next victim? Then there’s the first chief suspect hauled in front of Quigley and Albrighton’s dynamic duo. It turns out Leighton has a murderous past and it unsurprisingly puts him as a suspect for Niall’s murder. It’s another plot point that burns out fast, given that Leighton has an alibi, but another suspect is off the list and there’s plenty of people acting suspiciously enough. Petrie surely has to be at the front of the queue now. Yes, it’s piling trope upon cliché and there’s occasional clangers in the dialogue, but it’s easy to get swept up in the mysterious goings-on of the townsfolk. There’s something comforting about its formulaic aspects and the cast are all assured hands with the material. Hopefully they have a few more twists for us too. I do find myself asking one question though: why hasn’t anyone named the killer the Loch Ness Monster yet? It’s right there…