The Silence - Episode guide
A deaf girl witnesses a murder and finds herself thrust into the unfamiliar and uncomfortable hearing world and, unwittingly, into the police investigation, in BBC One's The Silence.
The four-part series is about an ordinary family where something extraordinary happens. The teenagers' partying lifestyles and casual drug-taking collide with Jim's investigation, and all their lives are hurled into a cacophony of police corruption, betrayal, drugs and murder.
> Watch our interview with Genevieve Barr.
Amelia Edwards is played by Genevieve Barr, her parents by Gina McKee and Hugh Bonneville, Tom by Harry Ferrier, Sophie by Rebecca Oldfield, Joel by Tom Kane, Jim by Douglas Henshall and Maggie by Dervla Kirwan.
Episode 1
Monday 12th July 2010
> Read our review.
Eighteen-year-old Amelia Edwards has recently been fitted with a cochlear implant, enabling her to hear, but she struggles to accept that she has a place in the hearing world.
Amelia breaks free from her over-protective parents when she goes to stay with her party-loving cousins Tom, Sophie and Joel, her homicide detective uncle, Jim, and her vibrant Aunt Maggie.
Amelia witnesses the audacious murder of a policewoman and is reluctantly propelled further into a loud and frightening world. Jim is assigned the homicide investigation, unaware that his niece is the key witness to the murder.
Traumatised, Amelia wants to retreat back into her silent world but realises she has to tell her uncle what she has seen. Jim wants to protect her because she is his niece and vulnerable - but by doing so he will jeopardise his own position in the force and put his whole family at risk.
Episode 2
Tuesday 13th July 2010
The Drugs Squad led by DCI Peter MacKinnon, better known as Mac, is very successful, but homicide detective Jim, who is also Amelia's uncle, is increasingly suspicious that the squad is riddled with corruption on a large scale. He also suspects a connection with the murder of Jane Shilliday, who was romantically involved with Drug Squad copper Rocky.
But Jim's position on Shilliday's murder investigation becomes increasingly compromised as his own team on the Murder Squad close in on the very witness he is trying to protect, his niece Amelia.
When Amelia offers to lip read surveillance DVDs for Jim, she reveals from her interpretation of a conversation between Rocky and a recently murdered informant, that the Drug Squad are on the take. With the evidence stacking up, it is only a matter of time before both the Murder Squad and the Drug Squad discover the identity of the key witness to the murder.
Episode 3
Wednesday 14th July 2010
Jim and his family are terrified about the repercussions of Amelia having been identified by the corrupt police officers in the Drugs Squad as the key witness to the murder of policewoman Jane Shilliday. How can the family protect her now? Amelia realises that while the killers are at large she will never be safe.
Jim takes Terry, his trusted police partner, into his confidence. Astonished at the revelations of the corrupt Drug Squad, he agrees to covertly help Jim. The family is subjected to intimidation tactics by the Drugs Squad in an attempt to thwart the investigation, including physical threats to Maggie and son Tom being fitted up by Mac and charged with conspiracy to supply controlled drugs.
When corrupt copper and murderer Lee Griggson turns up at her parents' house, Amelia runs away. Without taking her cochlear implant, she seeks refuge with her deaf friends, too scared to go home. But without her implant she once again has no access to sound and is terrified in her sudden and imposed silence.
Episode 4
Thursday 15th July 2010
Amelia finds an inner strength and takes matters into her own hands. She heads to a rural police station and, even though she refuses to reveal her identity (worried that the corrupt Drugs Squad might track her down), an understanding Detective Paul Begley agrees to put her into police protection overnight. But when Begley brings in a sign interpreter things rapidly spiral out of control and Amelia does not know who to trust.
When Jim realises that his boss, Frank Evans, is not going to back his allegations of corruption against the Drugs Squad, he makes the momentous decision to call in Professional Standards. Squealing on his own patch will jeopardise his position in the force and put his own life at risk.
