Max may have vouched to bring Sophie’s killers to justice, but it’s a lot easier said than done, especially with Macklin, with all his influence, making sure that the cops never find out the truth. And he is doing it by manipulating the truth itself. It is up to Max and Meg to figure out who to ask the questions and how. Let’s see how things turn out in Episodes 5 and 6 of North Shore.
Spoilers Ahead
Ties
Meg’s new partner for the night (of the Boab Ball) reveals shocking details about Macklin’s patio, which seems to contain the same stone as the one recovered from Sophie’s wound. But one needs to confirm it. When she informs Max about this, he is having a conversation about his marriage with Tori, and we cannot help but notice that they are slowly getting closer to each other emotionally. While Max’s divorce is confirmed, the distance between Tori and her husband is increasing every day. She and Max have found a window in each other that each of them has been longing for for a long time. On the other hand, Abigail wants Simon to break ties with Macklin because she doesn’t want to compromise her chance of becoming the next PM. Macklin’s name is making the rounds at the police department, and it’s only a matter of time before the press finds out about it and links him with Abigail. That cannot be allowed.
Truths And Lies
Meg and Max are at Macklin’s place with the forensic guys when, as expected, Macklin’s lawyer Gary Weaver comes in. But he is a minute too late because it’s a match, i.e., the stone from Sophie’s gash is indeed the same as that in Macklin’s patio. All they need now is a drop of blood, which, if it turns out to be Sophie’s, will prove that she was killed there. There’s also cleaning fluid, which proves that someone might have tried to rid the place of evidence. Macklin cannot say no to the examination because it will only add to the suspicion. So he needs a plan—a better one—so that he can save his son from going to prison. And it is ludicrous how he is breaking his head to save the two boys while the boys themselves have no idea how serious their situation is. A typical spoiled brat and his partner-in-crime, who think that Macklin can take care of everything. In other words, they are idiots. But Macklin has to make do with them and cooks up a false story that the boys present to the cops. However, the story that they tell the cops is bizarre.
We learn that the two boys got into a fight, and then either of them lashed out at Sophie, and she fell. Now, neither of them knows whose because they were both drunk. Sophie’s death was an accident. They then took her body and threw it into the water. But what follows is even more bizarre, and yet it feels only natural. On the one hand, Tom is ready to offer crucial information to the police only under the condition that it cannot be used against him. On the other hand, Macklin offers Oscar $50,000 to accept the charges. Gary also assures him that the police won’t be able to send him to prison. Basically, Oscar will serve as the scapegoat. This is the best Macklin can do to save himself a little bit, as he has already lost Simon’s support for the deal. Once he takes care of his son’s case, he needs to think of something to greenlight the deal that Abigail is overlooking.
Compromises
Abigail is waiting for Greg for another makeout session in her room when Macklin arrives and shows her something on his laptop that takes her by surprise. Simon is currently away with Greg. The expression on Abigail’s face as Macklin leaves the room proves that he has some kind of highly compromising information about her that can pretty much end her political career. We see her hands shaking later on. Whatever Macklin had on his laptop must have scared her a lot. The next day, we see her accept the possibility that the truth behind her daughter’s death will forever be a secret. This is the first time we’ve seen her in this state. All this while, she had been positive that there was more to Sophie’s death than what everyone was saying. But after what Macklin showed her, she changed her mind. To add to it are the statements of Tom and Oscar, which are basically the same. And since these are the only statements the cops have, they have to consider them, which thus proves that Sophie’s death was indeed an accident. Max pays a visit to Marjorie, who is glad to have her second guest of the day. This meeting is out of Max’s kindness for her, but his next one proves his wit when he hits the spot by meeting Oscar and telling him that he made a mistake by agreeing to Macklin’s assurance and to get it in writing next time.
North Shore Episode 5 ends on a crucial note. On the one hand, Abigail publicly announces, to Greg’s shock and Macklin’s satisfaction, that she has agreed to the terms of the trade deal with her Australian counterpart. The delay in this deal would have increased the chances of Greg winning the elections, but that won’t happen. Macklin, on the other hand, celebrates Abigail’s move with her husband Simon, who too wanted this to happen for his own reasons. Now, he won’t have to lose his $2 million. On the other hand, Oscar returns to the cops and reveals that the disappearance of Sophie’s body was not their (his and Sam’s) doing. It was Macklin’s. So is this why Macklin is desperately trying to hide any kind of evidence by twisting facts? It makes sense because he knew that Sophie had evidence that could compromise him (her laptop). But then, who is the one who hit Sophie? It has to be either Tom or Oscar.
The Footage
There is no telling if it was indeed Macklin who killed Sophie, and that’s only if she was alive by the time he came. The only way to confirm this is through the security footage that Macklin must have kept hidden. The footage will be his final leverage in case his son is convicted of the crime. If he has killed Sophie, he will use it to give himself up and save Tom. But all of this is conjecture that Max and Meg make after listening to Tom, thanks to the bug that Oscar agreed to be fitted with. This proves that Oscar is now on the side of the law, no matter how much he dislikes it. Abigail meets Greg and gives him the news that she is the foreign secretary. She doesn’t tell him why she agreed to sign the deal. No one knows the reason. Not even us. As for Max’s personal life, he decides to take Marjorie’s advice (North Shore Episode 5) seriously and move out of his home. He mails Anna about it, and what follows is him and Tori kissing.
Now that Max has decided to move on, he can make peace with his feelings for Tori even though he knows he cannot be with her, and so does she. She has feelings for him, but she knows she can’t have him. But this doesn’t mean she has to continue living the boring life she has with Hamish. Naturally, she wants a divorce. Max finds Tori’s behavior weird the next day, but a dinosaur inside a piano takes his mind away from Tori and back to the case at hand. He realizes where Macklin must have hidden the security footage tape. Macklin was Marjorie’s first guest (North Shore Episode 5), while Max was her second. Max is correct to assume that Macklin put a small red box inside the piano, but Marjorie’s age doesn’t let her remember where she moved it.
Who Killed Sophie Chalcott?
Thanks to Marjorie’s bad memory, she has been using the red box, aka the security footage drive, as a coaster. The footage, which Max, Meg, and their team watch by skipping to multiple moments, reveals Sam hitting Sophie, she hitting the patio, blood coming out of her head, her death, the boys leaving, and finally, Macklin pulling her body away. That’s the only evidence Max and Meg need to send Sam and Macklin to prison. But here too, there is a catch. There is a difference between the position of Sophie’s body when the boys arrived and when Macklin arrived. Her body has moved. This means she was alive, at least for some time, but died before Macklin came. Did she die due to the injury and bloodloss, or was there someone else involved? They find that Simon had arrived, and he was the one who killed Sophie.
Meanwhile, Greg informs Abigail that the British PM is about to resign, which means that she is about to become the next PM of England. This is exactly what she wanted, but that’s not what she is thinking about at the moment. Macklin showed her that footage, and that is what rocked her to the core. Her husband killed her daughter. Why? It was Simon’s rage. Sophie was not only not Simon’s daughter, but she was also going to compromise his million-dollar deal by releasing Macklin’s fake documents to the press. He felt betrayed, and for Sophie to call him “dad” was the worst way in which she could hurt him. In a fit of rage, Simon choked her to death. And to make things more complex, we find out that the reason Macklin hasn’t given his name to the cops is that he wanted to use the tape to his advantage when the time came. As for Abigail, she couldn’t risk the position of PM and hence kept quiet about her husband’s crime. Be that as it may, all that remains now is for Max and Meg to bring Simon, Sam, Oscar, and Macklin to justice. But before that, Max has to inform Abigail. What he doesn’t know is that she knew about her daughter’s killer long before he did. However, she doesn’t say this to him. Maybe she keeps quiet because she is glad to have someone who has left no stone unturned to find her daughter’s killer. Her silence is also a way to protect herself because if word gets out that she kept quiet about the truth of her daughter’s death, she will be facing charges too. And she cannot afford that, not when she is this close to being the British PM. Simon, Oscar, Tom, and Macklin are all arrested. The case of Sophie Chalcott’s murder has come to an end.
While watching Abigail speak to the press about how she will resume her work for her government, the possibility dawns on Max that Abigail knew that her husband killed her daughter before he told her about it. He meets Abigail and tells her that if she indeed did what he thinks she did, she will be going to prison for subverting the course of an investigation. What follows is another cliché dialogue by Abigail about why she wanted to get into politics, i.e., so that she could take the country in a new direction and help those less fortunate. And for that, becoming PM was the only way. This doesn’t justify what she did. If Max wants, he can get her arrested. But he doesn’t do that. Abigail returns to England with Sophie’s body. Max has been offered a job in Sydney for a year. This is good news, as he will be able to be with Tori, who clearly wants him to stay as well. At the end of North Shore Episode 6, everything seems to have been sorted out when Anna arrives. She is finally ready to give her relationship with Max another chance. But is Max ready for it? He didn’t get a second chance with her, despite trying again and again. But now that he has one with Tori, doesn’t he deserve to take it? Abigail got her second chance too. And he was the one to give it to her. Should he not give himself one too? In my humble opinion, he should.
