As the first episode of Whitstable Pearl begins, Pearl Nolan (Kerry Godliman) calls Vinnie’s Oysters while riding in her boat. She makes it to another boat and calls Vinnie’s name. She searches the boat but doesn’t find anyone. She tries the phone again only to find it sitting nearby. She messes with the anchor and the chain brings a body to the water’s surface. After the discovery, she recollects herself and uses Vinnie’s boat to pull her boat back to land. When she makes it back, someone watches the scene with a pair of binoculars. After the intro, DCI Mike McGuire (Howard Charles) gets a call from DS Nikki Martel and learns they’re holding a woman who pulled her friend out of the water and that he was found entangled in the anchor. Mike says he is on his way but had to take a detour because the road was closed.
He is stopped by another vehicle in front of him. He tries to convince the man to back up but he isn’t willing to cooperate. He eventually convinces the man to back up before continuing on his way. Meanwhile, Pearl remembers everything that has happened and Tony asks her about his financial situation. We hear someone saying I’m Stroud and he owes me money. Mike joins Pearl seconds later and tells her that it is already morning. Pearl is ready to leave but Mike wants to question her first. She is asked about Vinnie Row so she explains she called him several times and he didn’t answer. She goes on to say that Mike’s colleagues think it was an accident but she doesn’t. She knew Vinnie her whole life and doesn’t believe he would’ve got tangled up in his net. Pearl admits she doesn’t know what happened or what she is still doing at the police station.
She explains that Vinnie delivers oysters to her restaurant. He didn’t answer his phone and she needed a batch so she decided to go search for him. When asked why she drug the body back to land, she says she couldn’t pull him back up or drop him into the sea. Pearl says he has two small kids so she drove the boat with his body wrapped around the anchor. Mike finishes listening to her statement. He thanks her for her time, gives her a card, and tells her she can go. When Pearl steps outside, she finds her mom, Dolly (Frances Barber), waiting for her. Dolly explains that Charlie is awake and he told her where Pearl was at. Pearl learns that half of the town knows because someone saw her in a police car. They leave after Pearl admits she can’t stop thinking about Vinnie’s face.
On their way home, Dolly tells Pearl about the many times she has been arrested before. They enter the room and find Charlie using the computer. Charlie learns what Pearl saw and that she didn’t tell them about the bloke who hired her to investigate Vinnie. She says they’re a bunch of idiots before finding out Charlie is looking at a college in Manchester. Later, Mike gets a call from Nikki and tells her he is bleaching his teeth. He learns that they’ve received the preliminary forensics report. Pearl goes to her restaurant and notices two young people heading inside. Pearl goes inside and says hello to Ruby Williams (Isobelle Molloy). Ruby says Max (Oliver Dench) was only helping her. Max tells Pear he is sorry for her loss. When Max leaves, Pearl tries to make sure everything is okay with Ruby. She tries to find out if they’ve had a falling out or something but Ruby only says she is all right.
Pearl tells her mother she thinks they’ve had a falling out or something. Her mother changes the conversation to Charlie going to college and says ignoring it won’t make it go away. Dolly believes it would be the perfect chance for Pearl to live a little. Dolly thinks it might be time to start dating again. They talk a bit more before Ruby joins them and begins working. Later, Pearl visits Connie Rowe (Nicola Stephenson) to talk about Vinnie’s death. She says Vinnie was a dreamer and he was talking about turning something around. She mentioned him working at Freewater and laying new seeds. As Connie talks about Vinnie and his career, Pearl looks at their keys nearby. Connie says it means nothing now except debt and that Vinnie went to the bank but couldn’t manage the repayments.
He borrowed money from a shady bloke to cover the debt and fix the boat. Connie could hear them fighting about the money Vinnie owned him. When Pearl asks about the fight, Connie tells her that the man’s name is Stroud. During their conversation, Pearl takes one of the keys. She leaves a short time after that and calls Tony Stroud. He doesn’t answer so she encourages him to call her back. Back at the restaurant, Pearl takes the orders for Max and his family. Max’s father, Arzeni (Georg Nikoloff), gives her condolences. He goes on to say it is not good to dwell on things. Dolly interrupts and takes over so Pearl can deal with her visitor who just arrived. She goes over to Mike and learns he isn’t enjoying his visit. He explains he doesn’t like small towns because you have to talk to people.
He tells her that the preliminary report has come in and they believe Vinnie Rowe’s death was likely an accident. She quickly disagrees so Mike says he wants to know why. She takes him outside and says a man named Stroud came and saw her yesterday. He said Vinnie owed him money and he wanted Pearl to do a check on Vinnie’s finances for him. Now, she can’t get in touch with Stroud and Connie hear the couple fighting outside of the house. Mike asks why Stroud would come to her for a background check. She reveals she runs a small business that does that kind of thing. Mike warns her that she is the only one they can place on the boat. Mike walks away and Pearl quickly has a flashback and remembers seeing Vinnie’s body.
She grabs Mike’s card, calls him, and explains herself. Then, she says Vinnie had finished for the day and had boxed up his oysters. He wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t already been at anchor or the boat would’ve gone adrift. She explains that the anchor was already down cause Vinnie couldn’t have sorted his oysters unless he’d dropped it already. She believes there is something she is missing but Mike doesn’t seem interested in listening to what she had to say. After the call ends, Pearl gets a call from Dolly asking her where she is because she is cleaning up on her own. Pearl notices a jet ski on the water nearby. She watches as Max stops and hugs Ruby when he gets off of the jet ski. Later, Pearl runs into Tina who admits she has been waiting for her. Tina (Cathy Tyson) tells her not to keep a spare key in the flower pot.
Tina says her husband is dead and her divorce was never finalized. They talk about Vinnie getting caught in the anchor chain before Tina admits she knows Stroud and he used to be nice. She blames herself for Vinnie’s death because she convinced Stroud to invest in Vinnie’s project. Then, he found out that they were still married. She can’t find him anywhere and she saw Pearl’s name scribbled on a notepad. When Pearl asks if she thinks Stroud is capable of murder, Tina says yes. Pearl gives her Mike’s card and encourages her to go and see him. Before Tina goes, she says about Connie. Tina claims Connie won’t struggle financially because Vinnie paid his life insurance even when he was broke. In the morning, Pearl calls and tries to find out where Stroud is staying. She manages to get his room number before visiting the motel.
She pretends to be delivering food and finds the room unlocked. She enters and discovers a pair of binoculars on a nearby table. She soon finds something hanging from a door and hears a loud thud when opening it. Once the door is opened, she finds Stroud dead on the ground. It appears he hung himself or someone hung him. Mike arrives at the scene a short time later and confronts Pearl about finding two bodies in just a few days. She says Vinnie owed Stroud money so Stroud confronted Connie and that is why she was searching the paperwork. Pearl believes Connie found out about Vinnie’s life insurance and thought Stroud would come for that money. However, she isn’t sure if Connie could’ve killed him or she hired someone to do it.
Then, she begins telling him about Vinnie’s ex Tina. Mike learns more about Tina Rowe and the fact she thinks Stroud was capable of murdering someone. When asked why she didn’t tell him she was with the police, she says it was a long time ago and was another life. She says she got pregnant and had to leave the force. Before she goes, she tells him about the binoculars and says he asked for the room because he could see where Vinnie died from the room. Pearl asks him how he handles seeing this stuff. Mike says he doesn’t know the guy so he is only one less person in the world. That night, Mike spends time alone and thinks about his ex. He gets out of bed and calls Nikki to see if she has found Tina but they haven’t yet.
The next day, Pearl heads outside and the keys drop out of her jacket along the way. She heads to Connie’s trailer park and waits for Connie to leave. She follows Connie and watches as she meets with a man on the street. She meets Mike near the water and tells him she taught her son to swim there. Mike admits he doesn’t have kids but he doesn’t want to talk about being married. Pearl explains she just saw Connie with Vinnie’s old boss, Frank Matheson (Michael Higgs), coming out of a lawyer’s office. She suggests they’re having an affair and Connie didn’t need to hire a killer. Pearl wonders if Frank was angry because Vinnie was leaving the company. She tells Mike that Vinnie might’ve been worth more to both of them dead. Mike says they’ve been seeing each other for almost a year and Frank has a conviction for GBH.
When he was in his late 20s, he had a fight with a fellow fisherman over a lobster contract and beat him into a coma with a crowbar. He left the man in a ditch with a foot-long live lobster down his crotch. Mike tells her about Tina being missing. Next, Pearl works with Ruby and suspects something is wrong with her, but Ruby says she is fine. Pearl serves drinks while Frank talks to Arzeni. Before long, Arzeni begins telling everyone about their conceptual basis for the redesign of Red Sands and their desire to create a unique hotel. He introduces everyone to his son Max and says he is the future of the company. Max tells everyone what they wish to do with the hotel. Frank follows Pearl when she returns to the food table and admits he didn’t know it was her who found both bodies. She doesn’t hide the fact that she knows he has been sleeping with Vinnie’s wife.
When the event ends, Arzeni thanks Pearl and says everyone loved the food. She steps back inside and spots Arzeni arguing with Max in Russian. She records them and tries to translate their conversation when she returns home. She gets a call from Mike asking her to come to the hospital because there is a situation with Ruby. She meets with Mike and learns she had a high concentration of amphetamines in her system. However, the opiates caused her to collapse. The nurse confirms she is stable and she’ll be okay. Pearl follows Mike into the hallway and says Ruby wouldn’t do that to herself since he passed out when she got her tetanus. Mike thinks she is saying that because she knows her. He warns her that they do not know people as well as they think. The next day, Pearl goes to the pier and checks Max’s jet ski. He watches her as she finds damage on the side of it. She calls the hospital and learns that Ruby has already discharged herself.
She agrees to meet Ruby down by the Neptune after calling her. As Pearl heads down there, she calls Mike and tells him that there was a scratch in the paint of the boat and it matched the mark on Max’s jet ski. She insists Ruby was forced to take the drugs and she is meeting her at the Old Neptune. She approaches Ruby and says she knows Max killed Vinnie. Ruby admits Max called her from the pier and he was crying. When he came to her place, he had blood all over his clothes and she let him stay to get cleaned up. She claims Max killed Vinnie because of Red Sands Fort. He picks the drugs up there and sells them. Pearl doesn’t understand that since Max is rich but Ruby explains he doesn’t want anything from his father and hates him.
Then, Ruby says Max went out on the jet ski but misjudged the tide and Vinnie tried to rescue him. He threatened to call the coast guard if he didn’t board the boat. Max had the bags in his hand so he had to do something. Pearl comforts Ruby until Max arrives and attacks her. He throws Pearl in the water and tries to drown her. Ruby attempts to stop him before Max’s father arrives and hits him in the back of the head with a rock. Mike and the police arrive a few seconds later. Arzeni tries to stop them from arresting his son and admits to killing Stroud because he was Max on the boat. Both are taken away.
Later, Mike sits down with Pearl on the beach and checks on her. Mike says he had decided to stay around a bit longer. They joke about small towns and bleached teeth. Charlie comes outside so Pearl leaves Mike.
Whitstable Pearl Review
I was really hoping I’d find something worth watching, but I don’t think Whitstable Pearl is what I am looking for. Some people may enjoy it but I think they’ll be the minority. I just couldn’t get into the show or the characters and didn’t appreciate the cliches. It was a bit cheesy to have a detective who doesn’t like talking to people.
Plus, the show didn’t do a good job of setting up Kerry Godliman’s character. It jumped right into it and only provided a few pieces of the backstory. I am only judging the show based on the first episode but it didn’t feel authentic, original, or interesting. I might watch a few more episodes but I won’t rush to do so.
I also felt that some of the casting choices were odd but predictable. Sometimes, you just get tired of the nonsense and want to watch something worthwhile. Sadly, I don’t see Whitstable Pearl satisfying my urge. I’d give the opening episode a 6 out of 10. Future recaps of Whitstable Pearl may be available on Reel Mockery here.
