(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] If you're watching this
you've probably finished all eight episodes
of "The Stranger", and are thinking...
- Ah shit, buddy, I got to dig a little deeper.
- [Narrator] So to help out,
I've broken it down into five questions
that trace the major mysteries.
Here's the whole thing, untangled.
- None of this makes any sense,
but that and the money and Corrine disappearing,
what am I missing?
- [Narrator] Let's start with the big one.
Who is the Stranger?
She parachutes into peoples lives
armed with a baseball cap and their darkest secrets,
but we don't give a hint of why
she's at the center of every drama
until the Michaela side plot.
The Stranger is insistent, borderline desperate,
that Michaela doesn't marry her fiance.
- My mother married the wrong man
and it cost me my entire life.
- [Narrator] That man turns out to be Killane.
While it might seem she's blackmailing strangers
to fund a beach bar, the Stranger,
real name Cristine Killane,
is powered by a deep-rooted desire for truth.
Chris grew up believing her mother, Natasha,
abandoned her and Killane,
but a major twist reveals Killane
murdered Natasha in a fit of passion.
(loud banging)
Killane's refusal to sell his home decades later
was not a byproduct of sentimentality,
but self-preservation.
- You raised your child in a house
with the corpse of their mother buried in the walls.
- Adam summarizes pretty neatly here
why the Stranger is messed up.
Her intense hatred of secrets stems directly
from growing up in a household cleaved by two.
The murder of her mother, and later,
discovering that Killane is not her father, Ed is.
That makes Adam her half brother
and leaves her with a burning ambition
to bring the darkest truths of peoples lives to light,
and where possible, get paid for it.
The very first twist of the series
reveals that Corrine Price faked her pregnancy
and miscarriage, but...
- This isn't what you think, there's more to this.
- [Narrator] So first things first,
she faked the pregnancy in a bid to keep
her marriage together after Adams' affair with a colleague.
But then, two years later,
Doug Tripp steals money from the local football club.
Corrine finds out and, as treasurer, is not best pleased,
so in a bid to buy himself more time,
Tripp tells the football coach Corrine stole the money
and she's going to try and pin the blame on him.
Furious, Coach hires Chris to dig dirt on Corrine,
and in the process, Chris discovers the fake pregnancy
and the fact Adam is her half brother.
- But how did this stranger know all of this?
- [Narrator] Good question.
Chris's partner, Ingrid, works at a detective agency
with the resources and materials
to dive deep into people's lives.
But investigating Corrine for Coach
sets off a chain reaction of events.
Chris warns Adam of Corrine's lie out of family loyalty,
Adam confronts Corrine, and Corrine thinks that Tripp
hired Chris to threaten her into silence over his crimes.
So she tells him, in no uncertain terms,
that his time is up.
In desperation Tripp murders Corrine
the day of the awards ceremony,
meaning Corrine is actually dead
for pretty much the entire season.
(congregation cheering)
And if you're wondering how Tripp kept that so quiet,
we get a sneak peak of his ability
to snake his way out of situations
when his son, Mike, is questioned by police.
- [Doug] It's a disgrace.
- Once again, Mr. Tripp, your roll is not
to answer questions on Mike's behalf,
but to assist if he doesn't understand the question.
- [Narrator] Slimey.
(light music)
Patrick Katz works with DS Joanna Griffin,
but spiraling medical bills for his sick daughter, Olivia,
have prompt him to find a side hustle.
He takes work as Head of Security for a nasty piece of work
called Larry Powers.
Chris and Ingrid blackmailed Powers
for using a sugar daddy website
while his pregnant wife sat at home.
So Powers instructs Katz to find a way
to avoid paying the cash.
This leads Katz to the Brown Sugar Cafe
where Heidi, the mother of Powers' sugar baby, works.
His attempt to interview her spirals out of control
when he realizes that Chris is blackmailing Heidi, too,
and she holds an envelope of evidence
that could expose his clients.
Katz kills Heidi to contain the secret,
not realizing that Heidi is his boss's best friend,
and in desperation, plants Corrine's key fob
at the scene in a bit to frame someone else for the crime.
In another plot twist,
it's revealed that's Olivia's mystery illness,
the reason Katz got involved in the whole sorted affair,
was caused my her mother who was
pumping her with rat poison.
- Very soon, I'm going to come into some money, okay?
And I'm going to be around a lot more for you, I promise.
And you and me are going to do such great things together.
- [Narrator] The show opens with a huge mystery.
How did a silent disco at a bonfire
lead to this guy running naked through the woods
and a decapitated llama?
- Alpaca, actually. - [Narrator] Right.
Any good mystery needs a red herring,
and this plot line is the strangest.
These events aren't linked to Chris or Corrine's stories
but instead the actions of a teenage girl, Daisy.
Dante ends up facedown in the woods
after hitting on Daisy at the bonfire.
She thinks his interest is inappropriate
so decides to teach him a lesson
by stealing his clothes when he suggests
skinny dipping in the lake.
Dante bumps into the sports club's groundskeeper in the dark
who gives him a bit of a freight
and sets him accidentally tumbling down the hill.
Meanwhile, back at the bonfire Olivia tells Daisy
Mike is responsible for spreading lewd photos
of Daisy's little sister, Ella, but she's lying.
Olivia spread those photos
because she's got a crush on Mike
and is worried he likes Ella,
so she wants to shame her.
Daisy believes the lie and punishes the innocent Mike
by lacing his joint with a dangerous
hallucinogenic drug called PCP.
- Sorry, Dais, but you've proven yourself
to be absolute trash when it comes to decision making.
- [Narrator] That leaves Mike Tripp
on the trip to end all trips,
initially befriending an Alpaca on the nearby farm
but then beheading it when he thinks it going to eat him.
But anyway, now that's cleared up.
Anyone else notice this woman
named her alpacas after One Direction?
- Harry, Zayn..
Louis?
- [Narrator] Aw, poor Louis.
Christine Killane may be at the center of "The Stranger",
but the heartbeat that pumps the show's actions forward
is a single question.
How far would we go for those we love?
- And we of course look after ourselves,
and our kids, and...
We're all corrupt.
- [Narrator] Here, Tripp foreshadows the dark deeds
he's about to commit as early as the first football game.
But plenty of other characters make extreme decisions
anchored in the needs of their relatives.
Daisy spikes Mike's joint for her sister.
Heidi is prepared to pay 10,000 pounds for her daughter.
Katz commits murder for his.
Killane murders his wife for Chris.
Even in side plots, Michaela is willing to
live in a lie to experience what she perceives
as true love from her fiance.
Joanna risks professional scrutiny to bring Heidi justice.
And Olivia shames a friend to draw the eye of her crush.
Each twist and each storyline in "The Stranger" can,
at some point, be traced back to a single person
and their desperate desire for those they love.
(light music)