Donald
31 December 1999
Episode 2 of The Twelve takes us back to the night of Britt’s murder as Fri attends the New Years Eve party drunk and watching as Britt walks away from her partner. It turns out she’s pregnant but he’s made it clear he doesn’t want kids. In the morning after the party, Fri answers the phone and hears the news about Britt. Racing to the canal, it’s here she bears witness to her body being raised from the watery depths below.
Present Day
Cricket-munching retired cop Donald Vantomme is the next man to face the court room. While he prepares for the day ahead, Mike finally unlocks the bathroom door and faces Delphine. It’s clear they have a pretty toxic relationship as he apologises for his actions and slithers away. Arthur meanwhile, pays his respects at the graveyard for his wife Elvira but finds it vandalized by looters. Silently, he replaces the gravestone while Yuri and Bjorn come to blows over the best way of moving the business forward. In their own mode of transport, the various jury and family members (including Marc) make their way to the court.
The Courtroom – Day 2
This time around we’re honing in on Britt Vogel’s death and in particular, Donald Vantomme who was in charge of leading the case between 2000-2016. On the 1st January he received a phone call and decided to wait 24 hours to see if Britt showed up. It turns out there had been officers stationed to watch Britt under police protection for a while but sadly they made a big mistake and abandoned their post. Marc then phoned in a panic to inform that two dogs were killed outside with a gunshot. With no leads to go on, Donald turned his attention to the cattle farmers, especially given they had threatened Marc in the past. On Day 4 of the investigation, the police received a threatening video and this is what we saw before during the first episode; a video showing Britt begging for help and admitting that they’re going to hurt her. When the case was reopened in 2016, the post-mortem examination – the one confirming Britt was killed with a bolt gun – was indeed false. It actually turns out that she was suffocated and shot to make it look like a cattle farmer conducted the murder. This is where the Chief Prosecutor steps up and claims that Fri was the one who lured the officers away from the scene given the police claimed a female voice enticed them over. Back then Donald failed to check the attic which, upon closer inspection all those years later, happened to have dried blood between the planks of wood which matched that of Britt. She deduces that Fri hid the body there and confirms a bolt gun was found at Fri’s grandfather’s house – the same one that was used to shoot her. After these statements, the jury contemplate just why the officers left that day while simultaneously Holly’s secret surname being attached to a millionaire leaks out courtesy of Noah spying her phone. Back in the court-room the defence hit back at the prosecution claims, asking incredulously just how they could contradict 30 witnesses that Fri was at the party and come up with such a wild accusation. On the back of this, Donald admits he doesn’t know for sure whether Fri really did murder Britt or whether it was a cattle farmer.
After Court – Day 2
Court adjourns for the day and Noel meets his contact Fabrice, revealing the truth about Holly’s surname actually being Meester not Ceusters. Delphine returns home to find Mike cooking for everyone. Yuri meanwhile, returns to the construction site and finds one of the workers lying unconscious on the ground. Overcome with shock, he and Bjorn drive together and dump the body on a bench while Holly heads to the bar and starts drinking. Back home, Carl fires up the computer and sees an article regarding Holly’s real name and what happened to her in the past in relation to the murder of her parents.
5 Years Earlier
Donald and Marc sit together in the police station drinking. Donald admits the police don’t have substantial evidence to go on but Marc offers to pay him off with a lot of money to see this man go to prison.
The Review Write-Up
With the second episode comes a lot more depth to the case now and plenty of interesting characterisation for the supporting players. This allows us to get to know a lot of the jury members and understand their walks of life while allowing Fri to take a back-seat to the various different subplot dramas unfolding. While most of these story angles are interesting, the whole Yuri plot involving the unconscious body does feel a bit contrived and an attempt to drum up some additional drama alongside the court case. Whether the show actually needs this though is another matter given how interesting the case is at the moment. It seems clear that there’s more going on behind the scenes than we’re being led to believe with Fri but at the same time the prosecution are making some pretty wild allegations to link these two cases together by pinning them on Fri. We’ll have to wait and see how this develops over time but for now, The Twelve delivers another absorbing and engrossing episode.
