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Shetland 10 of the Best Moments
The wait is over. DI Perez is back as drama Shetland returns with another must-see murder-mystery!
But before we delve into the sixth series, here’s some of the most memorable moments from the Shetland archives.
S1 E1 - Tosh’s first body
In the series pilot, Sandy discovers the body of his own grandmother Mima Wilson, shot dead outside her croft on the island of Bressay. Perez arrives and calls his junior detective. Cut to an unknown living room strewn with sleeping bodies, now disturbed by an incessant ringing phone. From underneath a duvet in the corner, a hand gropes around to take the call. This is DC Alison “Tosh” McIntosh. She thought it was her day off and now she’s got to go and conduct the forensic examination of a corpse with a head splitting hangover. No wonder that when she sees Mima’s lifeless body and open shotgun wound, she throws up. “Your first body?” asks Perez. “It’s not that,” Tosh replies. “It’s the Dutch chocolate vodka from last night."
S2 E2 - Perez takes Magnus Bain home
Perez investigates the murder of 17 year-old Catherine Ross. Suspicion falls on Magnus Bain not only because of his recent contact with Catherine, but also because he lives life as a recluse in a dilapidated croft with only a raven for company. Local rumour has Magnus as strange and sinister, but Perez wonders what happened to make him crave solitude. We learn that Magnus was wrongly arrested in 1969, physically abused by the local police force and admitted to hospital with severe injuries, broken ribs and a fractured skull. Perez finds Catherine’s killer and exonerates Magnus once and for all. He apologises on behalf of the police and personally accompanies him home.
S3 E2 - Michael Maguire assassinated
After Robbie Morton’s body is found, suspicion falls on businessman Michael Maguire, who was seen fighting with Robbie on the overnight ferry. Maguire seems strangely hostile to Perez’s attention, then Perez discovers that Michael Maguire is actually Michael Thompson, a former gang member working for crime boss Arthur McCall in Glasgow, who is now living under police protection until he can testify against McCall in court. At the end of episode two, we find Michael being hunted across the remote clifftops of Eshaness by a merciless, professional assassin, who with a single bullet sends him over the edge and down onto the rocks far below.
S3 E3 - Perez and Asha’s first kiss
The death of Michael Maguire brings Perez into contact with his witness protection handler, Asha Israni. Asha needs the privacy of Perez’s hotel room to brief him that McCall’s crime group may have compromised the Procurator Fiscal Service. Perez was previously suspicious of Asha but now senses she is on his side. Their conversation moves on to their own personal pain and, seeing something shared in one another, they kiss.
S3 E5 - Perez finds out what happened to Tosh
When Tosh goes missing investigating the links between murders in Shetland and organised crime in Glasgow, Perez fears the worst. He is relieved when the call comes in that Tosh has been found safe and well. It’s only when Tosh asks Perez in private to drive her to the Sexual Assault Referral Centre that he realises the truth of Tosh’s ordeal. Later, Tosh confesses her shame that as a police officer she made herself vulnerable. Perez challenges her that it’s up to her who she tells, but no one is to blame except the men responsible.
S4 E1 - Perez and Duncan wait anxiously for Cassie
Cassie phones to say she’s coming back from Glasgow. It’s the middle of the university term and so her sudden return rings alarm bells for her two dads, Perez and Duncan. Duncan is Cassie’s biological father, but divorced her mother Fran when Cassie was only young. When Fran started a relationship with Jimmy Perez, he became her step dad. The two were close and brought closer by Fran’s tragic death some years later. As Perez and Duncan stand side by side in Arrivals at Sumburgh Airport, Duncan speculates that Cassie might be pregnant. Jimmy turns pale at the thought, until Cassie walks through the gate and into the arms of her unconventional family unit. It turns out she is suffering from a broken heart.
S4 E6 - Donna Killick confesses
Series four sees the twenty-three-year-old investigation into the murder of Lizzie Kilmuir reopened and the personal history of Donna Killick come under police scrutiny. Donna was in a physically abusive marriage to Kevin and is outraged when Perez exhumes her husband’s body to establish whether his DNA was a match to the murder weapon, but only because it reveals that her son, Alan, was not Kevin’s, but Duncan Hunter’s. Lizzie Kilmuir found out about Donna and Duncan’s affair, that she was pregnant with Duncan’s child, and planned to tell Kevin. In a shocking police interview, Donna confesses to killing Lizzie in fear of what Kevin would do to her and her unborn child: "I didn't know what else to do! I tried to talk to her, I tried, and she just wouldn't listen! I had no choice! It was her or me! And the baby." Series six sees a terminally ill Donna Killick, having been granted compassionate release from prison, return to Shetland and a community that is not prepared to welcome her.
S4 E6 - Thomas Malone's death
After twenty-three years in prison for Lizzie Kilmuir’s murder, Thomas Malone returned to Shetland when newly disclosed DNA evidence quashed his conviction. Thomas struggles to adjust to life on the outside in a community which doubts his innocence. It’s not long until a young journalist is killed in similar circumstances to Lizzie and vigilantes head straight for Thomas, who is buried alive in a horrific attack. After Donna Killick’s confession, Thomas is finally exonerated and free to live out his life in peace, only for the stress of his ordeal to trigger a fatal heart attack in the police station.
S5 E5 - Duncan wakes up on the beach
Series five sees the modern scourge of international people trafficking making contact with Shetland. As Perez investigates the death of a young Nigerian man, Daniel Ngara, who came to Shetland in search of his younger sister, Zezi, herself now missing and in the hands of the traffickers, Duncan deals with the collapse of his second marriage and imminent financial ruin. Turning to drink, Duncan ends up sleeping rough on the beach. At dawn, he wakes to a skull-crushing hangover and a truly horrifying discovery, the bodies of several trafficking victims floating eerily in the shallow bay.
S5 E6 - Olivia and Zezi are reunited, only to say goodbye again
Olivia Lennox was forced to give her infant children up in order to keep them safe. They grew up in Nigeria and she has not seen either for eighteen years. She is now grieving for her son, Daniel, and has been forced to contemplate the loss of her missing daughter Zezi. At the point of total despair, Olivia gets the call from Perez that Zezi is safe. They are reunited and Olivia asks if Zezi will come and live with her in London. But almost two decades of distance cannot be repaired so quickly and Zezi intends to return home to Nigeria. Olivia understands Zezi’s anger, but tells her daughter that the best thing she has ever done for her children was give them away. If she could turn back time, she would do it again. As they part ways, Zezi says that if Olivia writes to her, she will read her letters.