BBC One’s Annika, the masterful maritime mystery that mesmerized 5.2 million viewers in its 2021 debut with a 94% Rotten Tomatoes rapture, has resurfaced from a two-year silence with a Season 2 drop on September 30, 2025, plunging DI Annika Strandhed (Nicola Walker, Unforgotten‘s unflinching unfolder) into a “colder, sharper, darker” abyss of Glaswegian waters and whispered wrongs that’s got fans gasping, “Better than Broadchurch’s bite!” Created by Nick Walker (Shetland‘s scribe) and produced by Black Camel Pictures, the four-part follow-up – filmed January-July 2025 in Glasgow’s grimy docks and Clyde’s churning currents – sees Annika’s Marine Homicide Unit grappling with a “not meant to be found” case: a diver’s dredged corpse clutching a locket etched with “Forgive Me,” unspooling a web of “unforgivable” family feuds and fatal falls. “It’s Broadchurch on the briny – theories that twist like tides,” Walker tells Radio Times, her Annika a “razor-sharp” relic of wit and weariness, her “divorced detective” dynamic with DS Morgan (Jamie Sives) a powder keg of professional peril and personal pull.
The saga’s sinister surge? Spellbinding: Episode 1’s “Diver’s Descent” catapults Annika into the fray, a Clyde dredge hauling a body with lungs full of “fresh water” – drowned in a loch miles inland – and a locket’s “forgive me” a siren for sins long sunk. Walker’s Annika? A “masterclass in minimalism,” her wry quips (“Bodies don’t lie – people do”) a balm for the brutality, unraveling a ripple of regrets where a sister’s “suicide” surfaces as sabotage. Sives’ Morgan? A “brooding buoy,” his “estranged” edge a echo of Annika’s own “awkward” home life with teen daughter Meg (Silas Carson) and ex Nick (Stephen McCole). Co-stars carve the chaos: Kate Dickie as the “suspicious sibling” with a sting, Paul Ready as the “haunted husband” with a grudge, and Indira Varma as the “calculating” colleague with secrets. Walker’s script quivers with quips – “The Clyde keeps what it kills” – but the “brutal” brutality bites: A botched boat burial buries a body, a VVIP viper’s venom turns ally to assassin.
The “sharper than Shetland”? Seismic: Walker’s adaptation amps the “pacy” probe with “spooky” soundscapes and “authentic” accents, Dolan’s direction a “gripping” gasp of “grim themes” in Glasgow’s “eerie charm.” The Guardian‘s Lucy Mangan raves “very well-made, pacy drama” with Walker’s “reliably likeable” levity; The Independent‘s Ed Power hails Sives’ “Icily Glamorous” iciness and the “understated and spooky” score. Evening Standard‘s Vicky Jessop praises the “overall confidence, style and authenticity.” Skeptics? “Mired in darkness,” but the 1-in-2 clue-to-cliff ratio hooks, BARB metrics outgunning The Jetty.
This isn’t whodunit wallpaper; it’s a web-weaving whirlwind, Annika‘s S2 a scalpel to the soul where the Clyde’s current conceals the heart’s currents. Annika’s acuity? Audacious. Morgan’s menace? Mesmerizing. September 30? Not a drop – a deluge. Binge it; the dredges disturb, the discoveries devastate. Walker’s wit? Wry, winning. The obsession? Overnight, unquenchable.
