The second episode of Criminal Record Season 2 finally answers what happened to Billy Fielding after he broke out of prison. The truth turns out to be much worse than DS June Lenker expected.
Billy did not hide alone after his escape. A rising criminal gang picked him up and forced him to join the violent Suffolk Square protest that ended with teenager Rohaan’s murder in the season premiere. What started as a simple chase for a fugitive now involves stolen military detonators, weapons trafficking, and a possible terror threat.
The episode also forces Lenker into a difficult moral choice. DCI Daniel Hegarty wants to turn Billy into an informant instead of sending him back to prison. By the end of the episode, Billy returns to Cosmo Thompson’s gang, but now he secretly works for the police.
Hegarty Keeps Billy Hidden After The Canal Chase Takes An Unexpected Turn
Episode 2 picks up right where the first episode ended. Everyone wonders whether Officer JP survived his fall into the canal. He did. Hegarty helps revive him after he passed out in the water, while Billy stays nearby.
What stands out is that Billy does not try to run again. He easily could have escaped while everyone was distracted. But he chooses to stay. This suggests something deeper exists between him and Hegarty, maybe a personal connection.
When Lenker arrives at the scene, Hegarty acts strangely secretive. He shuts everything down before proper procedures can happen. He clears the area, removes the police tape, and makes sure no one pays too much attention to what happened near the canal.
Then Hegarty puts Billy into an unmarked van that looks civilian. He does this instead of officially processing him through standard police channels. It becomes obvious Hegarty is trying to keep Billy off the radar from the rest of the force.
Inside that van, Hegarty privately questions Billy. The audience stays outside that conversation, just like Lenker, who clearly hates being excluded. The biggest question remains: why did Billy previously call Hegarty “Dan”? This keeps hinting they may have known each other before.
Billy Reveals How His Prison Escape Pushed Him Into The Suffolk Square Rally
Billy finally explains what happened after escaping prison, and his story changes the direction of the investigation. Escaping did not lead to freedom. Instead, a criminal gang found him and offered him protection while he was on the run. But that protection came with expectations.
The gang forced him to take part in the protest at Suffolk Square. Billy says he believed the protest clash would mostly involve intimidation and maybe a few fights. He says he never expected someone to be killed.
That is when Rohaan was stabbed to death in the middle of the violence in Episode 1. Billy strongly denies being Rohaan’s killer. He insists he has no idea who actually stabbed him. He also claims he barely knew anyone in the gang because he had only been with them for a few days.
But he does remember hearing one important clue. Someone in the gang mentioned “seven fire starters for Lanarkshire.”
This grabs Hegarty’s attention because he connects it to an old robbery. Seven military-grade detonators were stolen from a truck months earlier. Those detonators were originally being transported to Lanarkshire.
Now the police are no longer just looking at Rohaan’s murder. They may be dealing with a much larger operation that involves explosives. Lenker enters the episode trying to solve one brutal murder but realizes the entire case might be connected to something much bigger.
Cosmo Becomes Hegarty’s Real Target As Lenker Faces A Brutal Moral Choice
The biggest name introduced in Episode 2 is Cosmo Thompson. His real name is Gavin Woznyiak, but he operates publicly as Cosmo. He has a major history of weapons trafficking and has reportedly supplied firearms to far-right groups in the past.
Recently, Cosmo has been pretending to stay out of trouble by running online livestreams with very few viewers. But Hegarty believes that image is fake. He suspects Cosmo is slowly building something behind the scenes and believes the stolen detonators could be connected to him.
Since Billy was hiding with Cosmo’s people, Hegarty sees him as the perfect opportunity to infiltrate the gang. Billy agrees to help the police, but only under one condition: he does not want to go back to prison.
This demand shocks Lenker. Billy was already serving time for killing Cerys Jones. She immediately thinks about Cerys’ mother Ashley and how devastating this deal would feel for her. Lenker strongly believes criminals should face consequences for their actions.
But Hegarty sees things differently. He believes catching Cosmo matters more than anything else right now, even if it means reducing Billy’s sentence by six whole years. He pushes for approval from his superiors and brings Lenker into the conversation because he needs her statement to make the deal official.
Lenker struggles with the idea of letting Billy go free. She knows this decision is morally wrong. But she also desperately wants justice for Rohaan and his murder. After realizing Billy may help identify the real killer, Lenker reluctantly agrees to the deal.
Lenker ultimately supports Hegarty’s plan, solely because she wants to find Rohaan’s killer and have them punished for the crime.
Lenker’s Family Problems Grow While Billy Returns To Cosmo As An Undercover
While all this happens, Lenker’s own life continues to fall apart. Her relationship with Leo is still broken. The counseling sessions do not seem to fix anything.
Then she gets a call from her son Jacob. At first, she assumes Leo is trying to contact her through Jacob’s phone again. But that is not the case. Jacob is actually calling her himself. He tells Lenker that he wants to move in with Leo because his father’s home feels warmer and more exciting.
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This conversation hurts Lenker. She immediately wonders whether her demanding career pushed her son away. Episode 2 does not spend a lot of time on this story, but it adds pressure to everything Lenker is already dealing with at work.
Meanwhile, Billy’s undercover operation nearly fails before it even begins. One of Cosmo’s gang members, disguised as a delivery worker, tracks Billy’s phone and starts searching for him. The police accidentally leave the phone turned on, allowing the gang member to trace his location.
The situation becomes dangerous when the gang member reaches the apartment building where Billy is being hidden. Lenker steps in and saves the operation by pretending the apartment belongs to her. Her quick thinking convinces the gang member to leave.
After that close call, police help Billy create a fake story about how he escaped police near the canal and hid in an empty apartment. The lie seems to work. By the end of Episode 2, Billy returns to Cosmo’s hideout and gets welcomed back. Cosmo personally greets him, proving Billy is now fully embedded as an informant.
But all through the episode, we know that Hegarty clearly knows more than he is telling Lenker. That secret may become a huge problem later in the season.
Criminal Record Season 2 Episode 2 expands the story far beyond Rohaan’s murder at the rally. Billy’s prison escape leads directly to Cosmo’s network, and the police now race against a massive threat. At the same time, Lenker gets pushed to compromise her own ethics. With Billy now undercover inside Cosmo’s operation, Episode 3 has a lot of pressure to deliver.
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