At an Archive NZ research room Lomas gets to snoop through the boxes of files pertaining to the case. He got special permission because "usually there's a 100 year restriction on access to the files." This also allows for a bit of chin stroking and iPad touching (there's a lot of tech in the show) before jumping on another plane and hooking up with Sam and Alicia and taking them to scene of the crime in Hokianga. "I have a photo here and it does show the body, are you happy to see that?" he asks gingerly. Naturally we have to wait till after the break, but the women are up for it.
There's unintentional comedy too as Alicia and Sam read out a statement from the dead man's young wife, who was kicked out of his home by an "overbearing housekeeper" and shacked up in a nearby hotel where she seemed to be sleeping around on the soon-to-be dead man. Speaking of another lover she wrote;
"He had a sexual connection with me which means he gave me a poke." Alicia begins to lose it as she reads this and completely cracks up when she reads the next line, "After a while he gave me another poke." Alicia and Sam understandably found this amusing as Lomas loomed, stony faced, though no doubt realising he had TV gold on his hands.
The show is somewhat in the style of Who Do You Think You Are, with facts seemingly revealed as the journey unfolds. There's no shortage of padding but here it's done in the best possible way because it never bores us. Reality show sound cues are possibly over used. When cold-case author Scott Bainbridge comes on the scene to pass on his research the line "the real twist in the case came when they found out Jane was pregnant" is met with a DONG, like on The Block when the bench top doesn't quite fit.
Another statement from the dead man's child bride is discovered, and implicates one of her lovers, a man called Pape.
"This night I was asking Pape when he was going to kill my Nelson."
But he was never charged as the cops reckoned his alibi held up. Seems he was at home playing his mandolin with some mates. The 1930s in Hokianga was an intriguing place.
This is primetime TV so we always know where we are, recaps are frequent and it has to be said, welcome.
"The 1936 murder of Ernest Nelson not only involves sex and the inheritance of a farm but also race."
Jane, Maori to Ernest's Pakeha, was the 18-year old beneficiary of the dead man's estate, worth millions in todays money. She was undoubtedly involved, but her granddaughter was cagey when confronted by the man who had turned up to make an entertainment out of her family history. Her answer was illuminating.
"The police didn't understand that the elders normally sorted it out and they decided what was to happen and not anyone else." Lomas replied with a tabloid headline.
"So this is still a valley of secrets?" The woman, who looked as if she was not used to being talked to by a headline, muttered "possibly."
If it had ended here it still would have been an ok show, but there was more to come, and it was solid stuff. Lomas had a text from the daughter of Jane. Ringa was her name and she was here with her daughter and another relative, standing at the far end of the graveyard Lomas had taken Sam to for the big reveal. "They believe that Jane had wronged your family and it's been haunting them for years."
The show ended with one of the most emotionally affecting moments I've seen on TV for quite some time, as Ringa hugged it out with the grand niece of the man killed by her mum's boyfriend all those years ago. And because Ringa had no idea who her dad was, it's possible, that he was the killer. Finally I had found the sublime to match the ridiculousness of Danny Morrison.
Family Secrets, TV3, Wednesdays 7.30pm
