‘Guilt’ free: Scottish crime dramedy returns for its final season
Two brothers whose guilty consciences have chased them through two seasons of dark hijinks finally face their past. The third and final season of the darkly funny Scottish crime drama “Guilt” premieres Sunday, April 28, on PBS. Mark Bonnar (“Catastrophe”) and Jamie Sives (“Annika”) star as brothers Max and Jake Mccall, whose lethal accident and subsequent cover-up have sent them on a twisted journey through Edinburgh’s seedy underbelly.
“Guilt” kicked off in Season 1 with the Mccall brothers trying to keep their heads above deep, troubling waters following a hit and run. Jake was at the wheel on their drive home from a wedding when they hit and killed a man. Keen to keep their involvement in the death a secret between only the two of them, Max and Jake think they’re out of the woods when they manage to cover up any evidence of a car accident and frame it all as the natural death of an already sick man.
The scheme catches up with them, and to save himself, Jake turns on his brother, saddling Max with a prison sentence. Jake left behind everything in Scotland to flee to Chicago to run a dive bar. Season 2 of “Guilt” saw Max a free man again, motivated by his time behind bars. Max stepped back into society looking not for forgiveness but for revenge on an old foe: mobster Roy Lynch (Stuart Bowman, “Grantchester”), who had his claws in the Mccalls because Max used to work for him before his life as a lawyer.
Now a loose screw in his machine, Roy moved to take out Max for having informed on him in prison in exchange for an early release
after two years locked up. Although Max managed to stay a step ahead of Roy the whole time, this season he has another arm of the Lynch family to contend with.
Last season revealed that the real brains behind the Lynch operation was Roy’s wife, Maggie, portrayed by Phyllis Logan (“Shetland”). For years, Roy and Maggie had been playing the long game in order to avoid suspicion. It was all meant to lead to a future together with Roy, Maggie and daughter Erin (Sara Vickers, “Endeavour”) living as a happy family afforded through an elaborately crafted life of crime.
It wasn’t meant to be in the end, and now Maggie and Max are engaged in psychological warfare for his hand in upending the Lynches’ dreams. With his brother back from Chicago and right by his side, Max and Jake get tangled up in the city’s crime world yet again.
“Guilt” sells Edinburgh as a place vastly smaller than it looks at first glance, where everyone is connected whether you know it or not. Logan, who grew up in Scotland, spoke with Masterpiece before the second season about how the series uses its setting: “You do get to see a sort of secret world. It’s like going down into the tunnels underneath what you see on top. It’s like burrowing down deep into the innards of a city.”
“Guilt” is written and created by Neil Forsyth (“The Gold”). Patrick Harkins (“Happy Valley”) returned to direct the show’s final season.
Don’t miss the first of the final four episodes of “Guilt” when the new season premieres Sunday, April 28, on PBS.