In Black Snow season 2’s ending, a town finally finds closure regarding a cold case that was starved of the truth for two decades. Zoe Jacobs’ death opened a can of worms that was hard for Moorevale to contain. The cabal, composed of corporate cronies, politicians, and the Jacobs family, has consistently bound Moorevale to a culture of longstanding exploitation. If Season 1 sheds light on the experience of exploitation in the lower rungs of Australian society, Black Snow season 2 makes us acquainted with the power imbalance that pervades the supposedly upscale community.
Spoilers Ahead
What does James find out from Gita?
In the previous episode, we found out that Sam had learned about the locations of the phone calls she had been receiving. While almost all of them were made from within Moorevale, the location of the call in 2019 could be traced back to Canberra. Sam suspected that, on account of being a senator, Julie would have had cause to frequent Canberra. In the next episode, James pays Julie a visit while she is golfing. Julie says she came home with Sean after Zoe’s 21st birthday party. At midnight, Gita joined them. She says that, stressed by Zoe’s discovery of their affair, Gita called off her relationship with Leo.
In a flashback, we see that just when Zoe started to pack to leave, Will arrived with her birthday present. Zoe and Will had a little chat about Leo’s affair. Will felt Nadja was aware of the affair but kept it to herself. Zoe, on the other hand, was infuriated by her mother’s subservient nature and her tolerance of the cheating. Zoe clearly felt an odd sense of loneliness at her 21st birthday party. Leo had forever taken issue with Zoe’s proximity to the much older Joseph. He threw Joseph out on account of their friendship being inappropriate. It was then that Zoe confronted him about his infidelity and his logic behind inviting Gita to the party. When Julie and Sean turned up and interrupted their heated exchange, Zoe was furious to see them and asked them to get out of their house. Leo bypassed his daughter’s concerns about the Cosgrove duo being the murderers of Cody and called them in.
Is Leo Jacobs guilty of the murder?
Soon, questions start piling up regarding the nature of Leo’s involvement in Zoe’s murder. As James heads back towards ‘Xanadu,’ Sam informs him that Julie was not in Canberra during the time she received the unknown phone call. However, during that time, there was a corporate construction industry event where Leo was invited as the keynote speaker. James finds Leo swimming in the dam water of ‘Xanadu.’ Leo is a little taken aback by James’ arrival. When Leo tries to get out of the water, James pushes him back into it with an oar. James asks him to spill the beans on his lie about his whereabouts after the party ended. Leo, who had maintained for all these years that he was in the office after the party, confesses to James that he did so to cover up his affair with Gita. However, he seems puzzled when James charges him with calling Samara every year on Zoe’s death anniversary. Leo lets out one important detail that almost solves the crime; he never made it to the conference after calling in sick and sent Will to take his place instead.
How did the last few hours of Zoe’s life look?
After leaving home for good following the party, Zoe arrived at a convenience store. The cashier advised her to keep off the road for a few hours as there were cops on the road to Brisbane. So, she crashed at her radio station office to have a good sleep before heading out again. While rummaging through her backpack, she pulled out Will’s birthday gift to her. Zoe unwrapped it and found a note from Will; the note read that it was some extra cash that would help her on her travels. When she opened the box, she found an envelope containing wads of cash. The envelope looked familiar, and Zoe knew instantly what she was dealing with. She headed out with her car, refueled, and took a turn on the road towards the State Forest. Turns out, ‘Xanadu’ is not the only place on the radar that falls on the way to the State Forest. Zoe arrives at Will’s house, as she has learned of his secret.
Will owned Sapphire Futures, and he was the one who bribed Julie and the councillors. He was that mystery friend of Julie Cosgrove for whom Sean had set up the company. That one single envelope that she spotted with the councilor on the night she sneaked into the Cosgrove house incriminated Sean. Julie bought the council votes with the cash, but she was only the messenger. The real player had always been Will Jacobs. Will gleefully admitted that he set up Sapphire Futures when the family construction company of the Jacobs was struggling desperately to stay afloat. When LGV Developments could not find a suitable site for their ambitious project, Mont Vista, Will and Julie took matters into their own hands and created a place for them. Will claimed that the crime, though murky, was acceptable as it was victimless. This infuriated Zoe further, as Will blatantly disregarded the fact that Cody laid down his life as a victim to this project. The Jacobs men ruined the family forever, one with cheating and one with lying, and Zoe was adamant that Nadja should know about this. When Zoe got in her car, Will begged her to settle the matter calmly. Realizing that Zoe would not listen to him, he went to his own car and started it. However, due to the car stereo system automatically turning on, a blaring loud music started playing inside the car. Will could not hear Zoe’s screams, directed towards him. Therefore, he could not sense that Zoe was standing right behind the car. When he reversed, he unintentionally crushed Zoe under the wheels.
In the present day, when Sam arrives at Will’s house, Will tearfully confesses to the accident. Zoe’s death was instant, he says, but was completely unintentional. Sam reminds him that everything that followed Zoe’s death was in no measure an accident. The carefully conducted destruction of evidence for a sustained period of 20 years not only hid Zoe’s murder but also covered up the murky workings of Sapphire Futures.
Will is the one who has been calling Samara consistently for eight years on the day of Zoe’s death anniversary. He explains that he wanted to confess to Samara about what he did but could never muster up the courage. Will wanted the townspeople to live with the hope that his niece was off to a new life away from this place for which she was too good. Therefore, despite calling Samara every year, the hope in her voice silenced him. Once he falls silent, he picks up the gun hidden under his chair and points it at Sam. By the time James arrives, a gun has gone off. James worries, but the worry dissipates when he meets Samara sitting unharmed; it is her gun that fired. Will is now dead. Justice has been delivered by perhaps the only one in the town who was gravely affected by Zoe’s death. In the end, Leo, Nadja, and Seb scatter Zoe’s ashes all over the State Forest.
What does the future hold for James?
After solving the case of Zoe Jacobs, James understands that the time has come for him to step back and reassess his purpose. He resigns from his job as he decides to devote all his time to searching for his missing brother, Richie. The episode also hints at a possible future romantic union between James and Nina. James proposes to Nina and says that since he is no longer serving as a detective, he would not be requiring therapy and therefore could start a relationship with her without it being inappropriate. James arrives at the motel where Richie was lodged again. From the written message on a copy of “Great Expectations” and a photograph, James realizes that Richie has a partner. He takes the photograph with him to ask the people around the motel about it. No one seems to have spotted Richie.
While Richie is out, James watches a home video that captures the two boys on a fishing trip with their mother. The video is full of joyful exchanges between the boys and their mother. It ends with their mother calling the lake a place of ‘blessed waters.’ James takes a peek inside Richie’s parked car and finds a bill from a hotel. He arrives at the hotel and asks the girl at the bar about Richie. The bartender recognizes Richie and says that the girl in the photograph is Richie’s partner, Jade. She refuses to let on any more details and does not pass Jade’s phone number on to James. Instead, she calls Jade herself and informs her of James’ presence. Soon, James figures out that the woman held him up cunningly with the drinks to call up some burly figures. Richie owes 90 grand to these men.
James knows exactly where he will find the money. He arrives at the Moorevale Police Station on the pretext of examining the evidence room for the Zoe Jacobs case. Upon entering the evidence room, he steals the money recovered from Zoe’s car. The next day, he clears Richie’s pending debts. In turn, the bartender tells him where to find Jade. Jade is happy to meet James and talks fondly of Richie. She fears that Richie might have disappeared due to getting cold feet about the future of their relationship. James assures her that his disappearance is not linked to her. Jade realizes that Richie is under the influence of gambling again. Jade says that Richie prefers to disappear for a while during the rough days; she adds that the cure for him is to be in ‘the blessed waters.’ For James, the phrase that Jade utters rings as a cue as he knows exactly where his brother might have gone.
James immediately leaves for the lake where they went fishing in their childhood. When he arrives at the lake, Richie is not too happy to see him and grows hostile. Richie has clearly remembered every detail from the violent episode in their childhood. This has made his resentment towards James snowball over time. He blames James for locking him in the cupboard, without realizing that James only did that to save him. Richie admits to having panic attacks ever since he heard his mother’s cry for help.
In Black Snow season 2’s ending, James strikes a chord with Richie when he tells him that he has paid off his debts. He expresses his love for his brother and adds that he is here to support his brother forever. Just when the two boys finally settle and enjoy their tranquil time at the lake, a fleet of police cars pulls up. It is James’ boss, who has come to arrest Richard Vogel. Richie blames James for betraying his trust yet again. James’ boss informs him that the DNA sample that James lodged for Richie was already in the police records as one belonging to Richard Vogel. Richie’s sample matched the sample found on a victim in an unsolved case. The police suspect that Richie killed a kid. The episode ends with a bewildered James looking on helplessly as his brother is taken away by the police. With Richie now ending up as the prime suspect of an unsolved homicide case, we can anticipate James Cormack’s return as a detective. This time the two quests, one professional and one personal, to search for truth are not parallel quests but converge into one.
