Coldwater episode 1 recap: 'Perfect evil' (contains spoilers)

This Coldwater episode 1 recap contains spoilers... The Walking Dead star Andrew Lincoln makes his long-awaited return to British TV in this twisting ITV thriller about a man whose move to a beautiful town in rural Scotland quickly turns into the stuff of nightmares.

His troubles begin when he falls under the spell of his charismatic new neighbour, Tommy (Ewen Bremner), a malevolent individual harbouring some dark secrets.

Here's how episode one played out...

The story begins in London, with John (Andrew Lincoln) witnessing another father hitting his son at a children's playground. A woman next to him confronts him about his behaviour, but the man punches her and knocks her to the ground viciously, in a truly shocking opening to the show. Rather than intervene, John flees, forgetting his daughter in the process. It’s not a great introduction for our main character.

Not content with running away on that occasion, John decides he needs to do more of it and moves his young family to Coldwater in Scotland. Will they be happier up there? Well, they’re soon invited to dinner by the neighbours, or "the Christians" as John’s wife Fiona (Indira Varma) dubs them.

It’s clear the couple have lost the spark in their marriage, as John refuses the advances of his wife, claiming there’s "too much" going on to have sex — such as seeing his therapist.

While taking the kids to school, John meets his Christian neighbour Tommy, who invites him to his bible group before they have dinner. John doesn’t seem keen.

'Perfect evil'

John tells his therapist Williams (Jonathan Watson) about his awkward encounter with his wife that morning. “She tried to grab my penis,” he bleats, before revealing he was thinking about Fergie at the time. Not the Duchess of York, but the Black Eyed Peas singer, which is at least something to hold on to - as it were.

John wants to go for a run, but he needs to pick up cough medicine for his son Harry, so he heads to the shop where he bumps into Angus (Lorn MacDonald), a local yob who’s terrorising the young woman behind the counter. He doesn’t intervene, yet accidentally distracts Angus when he drops his shopping, before meekly running away with the lout’s threats ringing in his ears — abandoning another vulnerable woman in the process.

That evening John and Fiona head round to have dinner with their neighbours, Tommy and Rebecca (Eve Myles). John peaks into the bible group and finds them all discussing serial killers as Tommy explains how it was Ian Brady and the like that helped him find God, which isn’t disturbing or weird at all. “If perfect evil exists, then so too must perfect good,” he blathers strangely.

After that, John discusses his encounter with Angus and local pastor Rebecca says she has a soft spot for him, before recounting the tale of Susie Bissett, a sex worker who was murdered in Coldwater a couple of decades ago. “The killer was never caught,” she says. We’ve only been in Coldwater for 10 minutes, but we know where we’d start looking on that front. Maybe with the Christian who loves serial killers!

Later on, John confesses his trauma over the incident in the playground and how he abandoned his girl to Tommy. His new neighbour seems very interested in the whole fiasco and reassures him that he’s a “good man” (he’s not) before urging John to pray with him. When Fiona sees what they’re doing, she’s quite confused. “Call me anytime,” says Tommy as they leave. “He makes my skin crawl,” Fiona tells her husband later on. We know what she means.

'Shower, sleep, silence'

Unable to sleep that evening, John decides to go out for the run he’s been so keen on and soon finds his route taking him through the woods. For someone who’s petrified of everything, it’s a strange move and he instantly regrets it when he bumps into Angus, who lives in a cabin out there.

Rather than just running off — after all he’s probably in much better shape than the local yob and has plenty of form — he stands and takes the abuse Angus hurls at him, before the pair end up in a tussle. As John’s being strangled on the ground, he reaches for a rock and smashes Angus’ face in, before running away (natch) and leaving him for dead.

However, when he gets home, he meets Tommy and tells him all about the terrible thing he’s done. John wants to tell the police, but Tommy tells him not to tell anyone. “There are three steps out of this. Shower, sleep, silence,” he says, telling him he’ll deal with the body.

However, what John doesn’t realise is that he didn’t kill Angus - but Tommy does when he heads off into the woods after parting ways with his new friend, before burning the young man’s cabin with him inside to make it look like a terrible accident. But not before taking Angus’ necklace and stashing it with some other pieces of jewellery in a dusty box in his shed. Did that other jewellery belong to Susie Bissett, who was murdered all those years ago?

Creepy.