The British Columbo (Brenda Blethyn) starts every episode with her DS Aiden Healey (Kenny Douthy) putting on her booties as she rests her hand on his head like he is her golden retriever. He also brings her coffee and scones for breakfast, because he is a good boy. Hardly more than that.
The previous DS, Joe AShworth (David Leon) had a lot more credibility and seemed to be more involved in active detecive work. Kenny Doughty by comaparison is treated more like a gofer, and Vera just orders him around like he was an intern.
Inabo Jack, who plays Jac, seems to get a lot more detective work done, than what DS Aiden does. She also has a more professional attitude. The other DS, Kenny, played by Jon Morrison seems like he would be a good detective, but his role is very limited.
In this episode, we get the main victim, Angela, played by Karlina Grace-Pasada. She is on briefly, and boom she is rolling down a hill and found dead the next day.
The coroner, played by Paul Kaye, is probably the most credible and competent of the four coroners on the show up to now. He finds some interesting info on the body of Angela, and adds a lot to the show because he is the only character that is not verbally abused by Vera.
The total weirdo park ranger that found her is played by Cayvan Coates, who eventually admits that he was using a bothy to make tea out of psychedelic mushrooms and was stoned when he found Angela.
The other weirdo park ranger is played by Mark Benton, who claims he barely knows Angela and later admits that he was having an affair with her, and was in love with her. This guy is barely articulate, and round like a bouncy ball. It is hard to imagine him in a relationship with another human being.
The rest of the characters are the usual selection of nasty friends and relatives who all have some level of motives for murder.
Beth is Angela's best friend, played by Sian Reese Williams. She is an addict who gets approved for a home by Angela, and then flakes out and turns it down. That choice becomes the catalyst for a lot of bad things.
Beth's daughter, played by Mia McKenna-Bruce, is told that her Mom turned down the home, and goes and punches Beth in the eye and gives her a shiner. She is tired of living with her uncle (Jamie Ballrd) and aunt (Natasha Aldeslade).
It turns out that her uncle is even more tired of his nasty diva neice, and wants her gone.
Eventually Vera and her team peal all the layers off this nasty onion.
Jamie Ballard gets about ten minutes of screen time to whine, complain, and cry about what an incredible drag it was to deal with his scumbag druggie sister-in-law Beth, and her nasty piece of trash daughter, Mia. This was probably the most entertaining scene in a while.
Afterwards, Vera acts like she just put the family back together, when Mia hugs her Mom instead of punching her face. Seemed anticlimactic to me.