The Briefcase
Episode 2 of Angela Black begins with Angela waking up and finding Olivier has taken the kids out fishing with him. Things are still tense between Angela and her husband, but Olivier nonchalantly apologizes for hitting her all the same. He claims he took the boys out to let her have a lie in. However, Angela soon brings up Yuki, leaving a tender bait on the end of the line and trying to get a bite. However, Olivier doesn’t fall for her tricks. Another chat with Ed though points toward Olivier’s briefcase holding the key to his deception. In the middle of the night she sneaks down, intending to open it up but coming unstuck in the process. Stupidly, she knocks a pen on the floor which spills ink all over the carpet. As she slips back into bed, Olivier happens to be awake and asks where she’s been. “I was just thirsty.” She replies. In the morning, Olivier is livid and confronts the boys about being in his office, blaming them for the ink spill. They’re adamant it’s not them (which it obviously isn’t) but Angela plays up this narrative and decides she’ll deal with the stained carpet herself. After all, if she admits to it then she’ll likely see more violence. Angela’s too busy with work and the subsequent dinner with Olivier to pay it much attention to this plot point so we continue on. It’s an important event too, but Angela can’t help but pry about Yuki while talking to Olivier’s colleague, Paul. Olivier sees green and ends up interpreting this as cheating, forcing Angela to head home before the night is over. Eventually Angela gets her chance, using a YouTube video to hack into Olivier’s briefcase and find the details hidden inside. Cool, sure is handy to have YouTube for these hacks! Among a host of other things, she finds a letter from Yuki along with several photos – a few of them with Yuki in her underwear. Angela rings Ed, informing him what she’s found. In order to quell her doubts, Ed suggests they meet up but Olivier gets there first, encouraging Angela to revel in his work, as they eat together at a secluded high-rise complex he’s working on. Olivier admits that he wants to be better and apparently he’s been seeing someone about his anger issues. Angela has heard all this before and asks outright whether Olivier is cheating on her. He swears on the boys’ lives that he isn’t, but Angela is not so sure, given what she found in the briefcase. Olivier is called away for work duties before she can pry, cutting short this dinner. So naturally Angela meets up with Ed who tells her she deserves to be free. He leads Angela out to the woods, and specifically to the spot where Yuki was allegedly killed. Ed admits that he helped bury the young woman, reinforcing that this is a battle of survival. Angela however, contemplates her next move.
The Episode Review
So Angela Black screeches to a halt after last week’s decent opener, with very little movement on the plot beyond looking up “how to open a briefcase” on YouTube. Brilliant. There’s definitely a feeling that there’s more to this story than meets the eye and I wouldn’t be surprised if the show pulls the ol’ bait-and-switch on us and reveals that Olivier is actually not a killer and it’s Ed all along. It could well be that Ed is obsessed with Angela (or even Olivier) and planted all of this himself but take that that with a pinch of salt right now! Instead, Angela Black focuses on Angela’s conflicted feelings toward her husband, eventually culminating in that ending where she decides to stand up for herself and face the music. This sets up an interesting conflict to come over the rest of the season but 6 episodes does feel like it’s stretching the premise a bit thin. Still, we’ll have to wait and see what the rest of the season has in store for us.
