* This post contains spoilers for Payback episode 6. It’s been quite a fortnight for Lexie Noble (Morven Christie). She’s gone from having a seemingly perfect life and a good-looking husband, to being widowed and working for one of Scotland’s most notorious gangsters. …Oh and the police are threatening to send her to jail for fraud and she’s terrified that her kids might be killed.
It all started when her husband, Jared, was murdered as he tried to sign off a business deal for his boss, crime lord Cal Morris (Peter Mullan). It later transpired that Jared had siphoned off nearly £28m of Morris’ cash and now the gangster wanted Lexie to help him get it back.
Threatening her kids seemed the best way of getting her to play ball, but what Morris didn’t know was that Lexie was also being threatened with jail time by Scotland’s financial crimes unit. Meanwhile, another set of detectives suspected her of murdering her husband!
In recent weeks she’s been getting on with the task of finding Morris’ missing millions and discovering that Jared had spent almost all of the cash at a set of upmarket auction houses. Mysterious.
By the end of the fifth episode, she’d tracked down the broker who’d arranged those sales and also discovered Aaron Morris’ shipping container, which was filled with cash-lined puffer jackets!
But who killed Jared? Where is the stolen money? And most importantly, who was the blonde woman Jared was suspected of having an affair with? Here’s how the final episode played out…
Who was the blonde woman seen with Jared?
The finale opens with Lexie telling Cal Morris she’s found the antiques dealer who handled the purchases Jared made with the cash he syphoned away from the crime lord’s accounts. He approves of her work, but isn’t so keen on her going off on her own. Nevertheless he has more business he needs her to sort. Who doesn’t?
The next day she puts Aaron off when he asks how she’s doing on his missing shipping container, before he picks up his girlfriend Manda, who gives Lexie a look like she’s seen her before somewhere.
They’re all off for a family trip to the Isle of Eris and Lexie has to come to sort out the accounts (naturally), but as they get on the helicopter Manda offers her heartfelt consolidations over Jared’s death. But how did she know he was a “nice man”?
Later on, Lexie bumps into Manda in the toilets, where the redhead reveals that she used to be blonde and accidentally shows off her sapphire earrings. Lexie realises that Manda was the woman Jared was spotted with and demands to know if she was having an affair with her husband. Manda says she can explain everything, but seems terrified of Aaron hearing what she has to say. As soon as she says that Aaron bursts in, but mercifully seems not to have heard their discussion.
When Lexie meets Manda the next day she has a nasty shiner, revealing quite vividly why she was scared of Aaron overhearing them. Although it turns out he hit her due to “work stress”.
Manda then goes on to tell Lexie that Jared had been helping her with the books for her boutique and after seeing Aaron’s nasty side, he said she shouldn’t be in a relationship where she felt scared. She then explains that Aaron gave her the earrings, but she lost one and was terrified of Aaron finding out so Jared bought her replacements. Then a month ago Aaron began smashing up her flat, so she called Jared who agreed to come and pick her up and take her to a hotel so she’d be safe.
This clears up the mystery over whether Jared was having an affair - he wasn’t - but it does leave us wondering if Aaron was behind Jared’s murder.
Did Aaron Morris have Jared killed?
Jared warned her not to go back to Aaron, but when he persuaded her to take him back the following day. However, Lexie wonders if Aaron found out about all of this and had Jared killed because he suspected him of having an affair with his girlfriend. Manda says Aaron isn’t capable of that, but Lexie decides to report it to the police.
Yet proving that will be difficult because of the murder suspects, one is dead, one is missing and the other two can’t be identified by police. As such, it looks like if Aaron’s going to be brought to justice, then it will have to be Lexie who does it.
The next day, Lexie tells Aaron his shipping container is lost and he swears her to secrecy over that information. She the reveals the truth about the shipping container to DCI Guthrie, hoping he can help her trap Aaron.
DCI Guthrie finally makes good on his promise to protect Lexie and her family (we’d check that piece of paper was legit Lexie) however the shady copper then tells her there’s one more thing he needs from her. He wants her to wear a wire and get Cal Morris to admit that he knows what’s in the container.
Lexie reluctantly agrees and armed with a recording device she sets off to trap Morris, before calling Aaron with the location of the shipping container and letting the police know so they can swoop in and catch them both red-handed. However she doesn’t spring the trap just yet.
It sounds like a great plan, but unfortunately for Lexie, her meeting with Cal takes place in a building with walls thicker than an underground bomb shelter, which block the bug’s signal.
Who killed Aaron Morris?
Meanwhile, in the next room Mr Beaumont the antiques dealer is having seven bells kicked out of him by Morris’ henchman, who bought a range of precious jewellery under Jared’s instruction. What did Jared do with the jewellry? He donated them to charity, making it very tricky to get back. We bet Mr Beaumont wishes he’d just told Lexie the truth in the first place now!
However this doesn’t prevent Lexie from getting Cal to incriminate himself on tape and she does it in a way that also makes the crime boss believe that Aaron knew where the shipping container was all along, implying he was stealing from his uncle.
As far as Cal is concerned, the evidence against Aaron is mounting up and when he discovers that Manda was meeting with Jared and that he knew one of the lads who stabbed his moneyman, that’s three strikes.
She had promised DCI Guthrie she’d let him know when Aaron and Cal would be at the shipping container, but she purposefully waits until it’s too late before texting him the codeword ‘delivered’, which signifies everything is in place. As such, Aaron arrives before the police, allowing Cal - or probably Billy - the chance to kill him for his treacherous behaviour.
So what happened to the missing money?
The police then move in on the container, arrest Cal Morris and charge him with money-laundering offences that should see him spend a long time in prison. DCI Guthrie says this means Lexie is safe, but we’re not so sure, after all powerful criminals usually have no issue ordering hits from inside jail.
However at Jared’s funeral, his father reveals that the accountant set up a number of charitable trusts for his kids before he died and he also posted his dad a parcel with a sapphire necklace inside. The piece of jewellery was intended for Lexie to mark the start of their new lives in America. So rather than giving the £28m to the Samaritans, Jared had actually entrusted it to his kids! Let’s hope they don’t have Farmville accounts.
Yet there’s another sting in the tale for Lexie, because DC Khan has discovered the address of the house Jared bought in Washington DC. Will he stop Lexie leaving? Thankfully he doesn’t, watching them get in a taxi - along with Doris - before throwing the address down the drain. We suppose he figures they deserve a new life in America away from Cal Morris.
…Until he possibly gets parole on a technicality and comes looking for her in Payback season 2…
