This Cleddau/The One That Got Away episode 3 recap contains spoilers... There's a nerve-shredding moment when Mel Owen breaks into Mati's school brandishing a gun, yet when police discover something about his past in his burned out cabin, they wonder if he's the man they're looking for. Elsewhere Ryan Moss is released and Ffion and Rick share a kiss...
As Ryan Moss (Gywdion Rhys) is charged with murder, Ffion (Elen Rhys) wakes up after spending the night sleeping in Rick’s spare room and leaves, although Helen (Rhian Blythe) who’s popping back after staying with her parents, sees her depart. It’s certainly not a good look for Rick (Richard Harrington), despite his explanations.
At the station, the team begins preparing the case against Ryan Moss, with finding Abbi’s scarf, the presumed murder weapon, their first priority. Yet there’s a small glitch when they discover Ryan made deliveries for a pharmacist who works outside the hospital, which isn’t helpful in linking him to Paul Harvey (Ian Puleston-Davies) and the historic murders.
Moss’ call to Lisa Redwood (Hannah Daniel) also comes to light, yet Ffion admits she has no idea what the murder suspect and her sister discussed. Meanwhile, in the woods, Rick and Helen’s daughter Mati and her pals are exploring the camp of the man who lives in the forest. They’re joking about him being the killer, but we think that could well be no laughing matter. When they discover pictures of kids, they assume he’s a paedophile and set fire to his cabin.
However the man finds Mati’s school tie and retrieves his gun from its hiding place. Is he now hellbent on getting revenge for the torching of his home? When the police get to his cabin, they find his photos and an army dog tag that reveals him to be Mel Owen (Matthew Aubrey).
Shots fired at the school
As they head to Lisa’s school, Ffion wonders why her sister is so unwilling to tell her why Ryan Moss called her. Yet she and Rick share something of a heart-to-heart on their past when he stops to pick up flowers for Helen.
When they arrive at Bontwerdd High, Lisa begs them to meet her around the corner, while Mel Owen sneaks through the gates as she leaves. At the coffee shop, Lisa tells Ffion and Rick that Ryan is her cocaine dealer and when they spoke on the phone that day, he told her he needed money to get away from Pembroke.
She went to his caravan to score some coke at 4.30, but with Abbi dying between 4pm and 6pm, this throws a spanner in the works as far as the murder timeline is concerned.
Yet Rick and Ffion don’t have much time to process that, because there’s a disturbance at Bontwerdd High School. After gaining access, Owen stalked the halls looking for Rick's daughter Mati, before pulling a gun on a teacher and demanding he take him to her. The teacher bravely pushed the fire alarm. But after being sent out of the classroom for texting, Mati is alone wandering the corridors and locked out of all the locked down classrooms.
As Rick rushes to the Head's office, Mati and Ffion enter the school hall and hide, followed by Owen. With Rick watching the horror unfold on the school’s CCTV system, it's a nerve-shredding moment. “I want to talk to the kids who destroyed my home!” Owen shouts, firing his gun into the air. “Come out or I’ll shoot!” Mati emerges, only for Ffion to also step forward. She’s winged by a bullet in the arm, but it's safe to say she’s saved Mati’s life.
Ryan released
Meanwhile, the police have recovered Abbi’s scarf from Owen’s burned out cabin in the woods, very much undermining the charges against Ryan Moss. Yet that’s not all they’ve found. The photos of children in his possession show Owen when he was a young boy. Ffion thinks they’re actually of a boy called Robert Jenkins, who lived with Paul Harvey at the time of the killings, however it seems Robert Jenkins is the same person as Mel Owen. “Was he Paul Harvey’s accomplice?” wonders Ffion.
The detectives don't know this, but we're very much aware that Owen was also the last person Abbi saw at the seafront before she disappeared off to see Ryan on the night she died. Could he have followed her and killed her in the woods?
Outside, the widower of the second nurse murdered 12 years ago has come to the station to tell Rick he now can’t be sure it was Paul Harvey that killed his wife. Was it Harvey or someone else he saw that night?
In prison, Ryan is released after the charges are dropped, yet Paul Harvey is now claiming Mel Owen was the man who killed both nurses back then. Ffion wonders if they got the wrong man and if Owen was responsible for at least one murder, however Rick can’t bring himself to even countenance that thought.
On the edge of a panic attack, he pulls their car over to the side of the road, where he and Ffion kiss...
