The identities of the Dundair killings’ perpetrators were ultimately made public in the Vigil season 2 finale, and the conspiracy reached much higher levels than you may have imagined.
Between Vigil’s first series finale and Vigil’s second, a lot has changed—setting chief among them. Though the cramped submarine-based premise of season one was not revisited, the second installment featured a lot of equally stressful moments and deceitful moments that needed to be resolved by episode six.
Vigil season 2 included DCI Amy Silva and DI Kirsten Longacre exposing significant wrongdoing inside the Air Force; nevertheless, the intricate turns and turns may have misled viewers before the real story was revealed. The conclusion included personal developments for Amy and Kirsten’s story as well as tying up loose ends in politics and investigative reporting.
Vigil Season 2 Ending Explained
Wes Harper (Jonathan Ajayi) appears dead aboard the military plane returning to Scotland in the first twist of a pretzel-shaped episode, but squadron leader Eliza Russell (Romola Garai) is nearby and slightly hurt. In the meantime, hugely pregnant DI Kirsten Longacre (Rose Leslie) is back on the ground handling the Scottish end of the job. Following Ross Sutherland (David Elliot) to a covert meeting, she stumbles upon him only to see him shot by Derek McCabe (Steven Elder).
As Kirsten stumbles off with all the speed she can muster, McCabe discovers her very poorly hidden behind a nearby boulder and fires at her. You might be wondering how a blatantly cold-blooded murderer could have missed Kirsten, a slow-moving target, at such close range, but he does manage to nip her on the neck, sending her to the hospital in Vigil Season 2.
By now Amy has deduced that Russell fabricated her story on the plane about killing Wes, but it appears that McCabe and Russell have eluded the authorities. Politicians will soon vote on whether to send troops to Wudyan in reaction to the alleged terrorist attack on Dundair, as the situation in politics has become increasingly heated as things come to a head.
Aware that nothing is as it seems, DCI Silva tracks Ramsay (Amir El-Masry) using an Apple Watch that has been surreptitiously planted. When she storms the building by herself, she finds him questioning Russell after following him to some dubious hidden area. For once, Grainger backs DCI Silva despite the police and military’s competing interests, allowing them to detain Russell for interrogation. When we eventually find out who took over the RPAS that day, this will become crucial.
Who was controlling the Dundair drone?
The majority of the puzzle pieces come together during DCI Silva’s interrogation of Russell, thanks to the messages on Chapman’s recently found iPad. DCI Silva(Suranne Jones) teases us with a lingering question, though, as she describes how they now know Russell was the one who flew the drone and shot the seven troops on the army base, in between some amazing glasses-on and then glasses-off action.
“It had to look real!” Russell(Romola Garai) yells. “They would have covered it up if it had been anything else. Had they termed it an accident? They must have been unable to ignore it.” How come? While Silva pauses the recording, Russell claims McCabe was paying her, but she also states, unofficially, that they had assistance from British intelligence.
All the signs seem to lead to Grainger, who turns out to be working with Russell after Silva and her rival Ramsay conclude she must be covering for someone. To provoke Britain into war, he plotted to make the weapons test appear like a terrorist strike.
He continues his self-justification by telling Silva that Britain cannot afford to offend the Wudyan rulers. Says he: “I didn’t want anyone to pass away. Thousands upon thousands of lives make up the greater picture. That is defense by its very essence. You are willing to give up something, but only because you are focused on the essentials.” Even though Grainger and Russell are exactly correct, Kirsten and Amy are not pleased that their trials will take place in secret for the sake of national security, leaving the relatives of the victims without any closure.
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Vigil’s Contribution to Contemporary Societal Discourse
The episode concludes here, with DCI Silva observing the proceedings of their trial. In the end, Russell and Grainger receive life sentences in jail. Before that, though, Firas Zaman (Tommy Sim’aan), the journalist who was exposed as spying on the weapons test in the first episode, shows up to give a victim impact statement in which he explains how the UK will continue to benefit from the arms trade at the expense of the Middle East.
Rather than emphasizing claustrophobia in its second season, Vigil attempted to capitalize on our anxieties about technology growing beyond our control. But even though we may be obsessed with technology gone wild, this concluding monologue demonstrates that left to our ends, humans are more than capable of inflicting disaster.
Summary
Vigil Season 2 moves away from the claustrophobic setting of the first season, focusing on the theme of technology spiraling out of control. The concluding monologue emphasizes that, despite societal fears of unbridled technology, humans are ultimately capable of causing disaster. The episode closes with DCI Silva observing the trial proceedings, highlighting Vigil’s contribution to contemporary societal discourse on power, deception, and the consequences of unchecked actions.