Miss Scarlet is back for its sixth season, and it quickly gets into the secrets that are being kept and the lies that are being told. We also get to meet the two new characters on the Miss Scarlet season 6 premiere.
Caution: This post contains SPOILERS from the Miss Scarlet season 6 premiere.
With the Miss Scarlet season 5 finale ending with a hint of romance between Eliza and Blake, we waited impatiently to see if they would be together in season 6. Well, it turns out that there is some good news, but this causes issues for their professional relationship.
But first, we open with a group of men celebrating in a warehouse. As they all start collapsing, we’re shocked to find Eliza taking a box that they were all celebrating over. It’s okay, though. She was stealing back an artifact for the British Museum, and she told Scotland Yard all about it after it had happened so they could get to the collapsed men.
Eliza isn’t accepting work from Blake on Miss Scarlet season 6
Blake and Eliza are together in secret, and they’re enjoying their time together. However, it’s taking a toll on Eliza’s business, as she is turning down the work that Blake sends her way. Clarence is curious about this, because it doesn’t make sense considering the effort Eliza has done in the past to get work from Scotland Yard.
She’s not told Clarence that she’s been turning down work. However, she does end up picking up a case when two women turn up dead with the same drug on their person: potassium bromide.
The medication has been tampered with, but not in the way you would expect. The label was incorrectly written, and that led to the women taking an overdose. This was only found out when the man who was apparently a patient called Zebediah Sawyer was found in Dr. Cole’s secretary’s room. Miss Mason recognized him, and Cole immediately figured out who he was.
He has issues with the “demons” in his head, and Cole believes that he may have been a danger to those who took the medication. Maybe he believed he had to kill them and was switching out the pills.
However, it turned out that the man wasn’t Sawyer at all. Clarance learned the real Sawyer was in Manchester Prison, and so Cole had been covering up for something. When Eliza and Blake get to Cole’s office, Sarah Mason has shot him in the arm.
The man, who was actually called Sloan, wasn’t there to switch out the medication. He was there to tell Sarah that Cole was her biological father, a man she never knew, growing up in an orphanage and workhouse. Cole had taken her in once he learned the truth, but never told her who he really was. He taught her to read and write, and it was Sarah who accidentally mixed up the medication labels.
The deaths were accidental, but Sloan’s death was at the hands of Dr. Cole, who tried to keep his identity a secret. Sarah found out anyway and shot him in anger, but Cole didn’t blame her for that. There is some hope that Sarah could not face prison if she puts in a guilty plea, but Cole is definitely going to be charged with murder and imprisoned.
Eliza struggles to keep her relationship a secret
Throughout the Miss Scarlet season 6 premiere, Eliza tried to keep her relationship a secret from others. Blake would also like that, but he knows that Eliza is a good detective and deserves the work. He wants her to work with him, but she worries that people will figure it out.
In fact, when she is scared in an alley, thinking that “Sawyer” is following her, she kicks herself for how relieved she is when Blake turns up and the new detective, Willows, sees them. Willows doesn’t know enough to know that this isn’t usual for Eliza, so he pays no second thought, but Eliza can’t help but feel like she’s struggling with the secret.
In the end, Blake tells her that keeping control over everything isn’t going to help. She needs to let some of the control go, and she needs to confide in someone. The only person she can confide in is Ivy, who already overheard that they were together earlier in the episode. Ivy is just happy that Eliza has now told her, and the secret is safe with her.
In fact, Ivy has other things to deal with, as Barnabus is fired. He questions where the Chief Examiner, Wormsley, is time and time again, and with that comes him being fired. There is clearly something going on with Wormsley, so I suspect that will come out over the course of the season, and Barnabus will get his job back. After all, he’s currently taking on the household duties, and Ivy probably won’t like that!
As for the new detective, we learn that he is looking after a teething baby, but it’s not his child. The “complicated” relationship is actually that his sister is staying with him, and she’s the one with the baby. So, he’s free to date Isobel Summers, the new secretary at the clerical office.
Miss Scarlet season 6 airs on Sundays at 8/7c on PBS.