We’ve reached the halfway point of the first season of Ashes to Ashes and the reason for Alex Drake’s trip back to 1981 is beginning to take shape. She’s suspected all along that it has something to do with her parents’ tragic death. The latest chapter reveals that mommy and daddy were involved in all kinds of questionable activities which had them butting heads with the British government.
All of this surfaces when Alex and Gene investigate the murder of a socialist handyman named Martin Kennedy. They find among Martin’s belongings a scrambled code card and Alex’s mother’s phone number. Hmm… interesting. Mr. Kennedy also worked at a weapons testing facility. In his spare time, he liked to hang out with the anti-government Revolutionary Workers Front (RWF). Geesh, this guy got around, eh? Oh, one last thing; he enjoyed blackmailing certain people using compromising photos.
And by certain people, I mean Alex’s mother, Caroline Price. Caroline was sleeping with her colleague, Evan, who happens to be Alex’s godfather. Yikes! Martin took some lovely 8×10 photos of the affair in hopes of bribing Caroline out of some cash. In Gene’s mind, this provided Caroline motive to kill Martin, but it turns out momma Price told the bum to take a hike. However, Alex is none too pleased with her mother’s infidelities. Their confrontation makes for some tense moments.
The plot thickens after Martin’s body is swiped from the morgue by a mustached man claiming to be a DI. In reality, this mysterious corpse thief is an MI5 agent. Martin stumbled upon some top secret documents while working at the weapons facility and was planning on selling them to the RWF. His scrambled card contained the code to enter a file vault located in the bowels of the weapons testing facility.
Armed with the cracked code, Gene and Alex infiltrate the weapons facility to retrieve a filed labeled “Artemis.” After getting locked inside the vault and nearly suffocating, they escape with the file. Gene locks Artemis inside his desk. MI5 wants the file for fear it might fall into the hands of the Russians. The Russians? Wasn’t the Cold War grand?
Anyway, Alex’s parents were sympathetic to the RWF’s cause. Caroline tasked Sarah, a RWF member, to retrieve Martin’s secret information, but Martin became violent and raped the poor girl. So, Sarah iced him. Crime solved. Still unresolved is the exact contents of the Artemis file. Does it have anything to do with Alex’s parents being killed by a car bomb? Will Alex be able to save them? Is Alex really dead? Too many questions, not enough answers. Only four episodes remain.
Clacked by Scott Tunstall 
on Mar 29, 2009 @ 16:14 EST5EDT
One important thing a lot of American viewers might miss is that this whole episode was an homage to a BBC show from 1985 called Edge of Darkness which was one of the finest political/technological/spy/police thrillers ever made for British television.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_Darkness
It was written by Troy Kennedy Martin and directed by Martin Campbell, so the dead man’s name “Martin Kennedy” pays tribute to them both. The plot involved a policeman haunted (literally) by the murder of his daughter, who turns out to have connections with a radical group investigating a secret nuclear facility. Without giving too much away, the episode duplicates a lot of the plot points and twists of the original…although this version plays them more for laughs.
Eric Clapton fans may also have heard of Edge of Darkness because he performed the soundtrack. There’s a movie remake in the works, but the tv original is well worth tracking down!
I actually did read about Edge of Darkness while researching Ashes, but I didn’t want to make the comparison since I’ve never seen it before. However, it sounds like a really cool series. I think I’ll try to find it ;0)
RAB, well spotted! I loved Edge of Darkness but missed this connection. It means a lot more now—even to the underlying mystery of why Alex Drake is in the 1980s.
I was so happy to see this series because I am already jonesing for the American series Life on Mars which is cancelled after this finale coming up….
I do have a hard time understanding some of the dialogue, and the captions are hit and miss.