Broadchurch: Who Is your Week 3 Suspect?




Episode three of Broadchurch screened on Monday and gave the armchair detectives among us some new clues to consider and some new revelations to mull over. Here’s your chance to shove detectives Hardy and Miller out of the way and let us know who you think did it. You may want to stick with your original guess. Or do you want to change your suspect? Read the clues and evidence below (contains spoilers) and point the finger!

We'll post a list of your top suspects before the next episode airs

Broadchurch continues on Monday 25th March at 9pm on ITV



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Mark Latimer

Played by Andrew Buchan
Mark was your number one suspect last week, and apparently the police agreed with you – for a while, anyway. This week he spent much of the episode confined to an interview room in Broadchurch Police Station while DI Hardy effortlessly pulled his shaky alibi apart. Mark had been at great pains to conceal his affair with Becca from the hotel. Is that all he has to hide? And while his whereabouts on the night of the murder has apparently been explained, we still have no explanation for his fingerprints being found at the murder scene – or so Susan Wright would have you believe. Most damning is the statement of young Tom Miller who reveals that Danny told him that Mark had a temper and would hit him sometimes.





Susan Wright 

Played by Pauline Quirke
Last week, Susan aroused much suspicion, and in this episode too her behaviour does nothing to show her in any better light. There’s still no explanation of the skateboard in the cupboard, although it does seem that skateboarding is a popular pastime among the kids of Broadchurch, so there’s no guarantee that it could even belong to Danny. Scary Susan denied vehemently that she had given Mark Latimer the keys to do an emergency job in the hut and claimed to have last cleaned there three weeks ago. Either she or Mark is lying, and SOCO Brian was convinced that someone cleaned thoroughly after the killing. Only Susan and the mysterious owner hold keys – so which set were used on the night of the murder?


DI Alec Hardy

Played by David Tennant
More information has emerged about Hardy’s background. Journalist Karen White is stepping up the smear campaign against him for his failure in the Sandbrook case, laying the blame for the collapse of the trial at his feet. He’s certainly come to town with his reputation in tatters and has something to prove. How far is this brooding loner prepared to go? Hardy’s attitude to others is no less abrasive, but is he detached enough from the rest of humanity to commit an act of random brutality as the basis on which to reconstruct his career? And what is the nature of the mysterious illness that threatens his life? Does it make him someone with nothing to lose?




Reverend Paul Coates

Played by Arthur Darvill
The vicar remains, at this moment, a seemingly unblemished character in a town where we know everyone has a dark secret. Paul, in his capacity as vicar, has visited Beth to offer support and to share his idea of a memorial service for Danny. It’s what we might expect of the town vicar, but is he perhaps over-compensating, showing a little too much interest in Beth’s wellbeing and in her pregnancy? We still don’t know much about Paul, but we do know that he’s struggling to build himself a good, loyal congregation in this, his first parish. We also know that Paul’s own secrets have yet to emerge.


  

Joe Miller

Played by Matthew Gravelle
Joe, like Paul, seems to be another upright character whose honesty has paradoxically brought him under suspicion, according to many viewers.  Ellie Miller's husband, stay-at-home dad and overall good, dependable bloke, has been nothing but supportive of Ellie during the investigation. This week he acted as appropriate adult to son Tom during his police interview. Were the awkward body language and sideways glances at the boy just signs of his discomfort at what he was hearing? Or had he in some way coached Tom? Is he really too good to be true?


Tom Miller

Played by Adam Wilson
Eleven year old Tom was murder victim Danny's best friend. Tom has revealed that Danny told him that his dad Mark sometimes hit him when he got angry. We still haven’t got to the bottom of why he deleted his phone messages and emails, but with the police now retrieving data from electronic devices, that can only be a matter of time. Tom worries that his mum, Ellie, thinks he killed Danny. Does he have reason to worry, or are his movements to cover up something else that the boys were involved in?




Dean Thomas

Played by Jacob Anderson
Dean is the secret boyfriend of Chloe, Danny's sister. There was no sight of him this week, but he and Chloe rowed over the discovery of the cocaine, so it could be all over between them. It’s still a fact though that Dean is quite a dodgy character who is probably mixed up in more than just drugs and who seems to have his own reasons for not wanting the police to get too close to him. Danny knew about the relationship between Chloe and Dean. It’s possible he may have discovered some other things too.


Jack Marshall

Played by David Bradley
Jack runs the paper shop where Danny had his paper round, and helps out at the Sea Brigade where Danny was a member. He seems to have reasons for not wanting any contact with the press, and sends Karen White on her way leaving her with no doubt as to what he thinks of her profession. Later Karen questioned the sort of man he was – an elderly, unmarried man who employed young boys in his shop and who ran an organisation also aimed at young people. Karen’s inference was clear, though time will tell whether her theories have basis or whether they are the product of her own spite. There is still also the question over Jack’s account of Danny’s alleged argument with the postman, an argument that was found never to have occurred


Kevin Green (The postman)

Played by Jack Ashton
The police seem satisfied that Kevin’s alibi, corroborated by four other people, checks out. He didn’t appear tonight, but you still have to question Jack’s account.


Beth Latimer

Played by Jodie Whittaker
Grieving mum Beth is more victim than suspect this week, as she is betrayed by husband Mark and targeted by psychic Steve. She still won’t reveal her own pregnancy to her family, and gives daughter Chloe a good talking to about the importance of sticking together and not knowing where this will all end. Steve has told Beth that the killer is someone close to her whom she knows very well.




Steve Connelly

Played by Will Mellor
The scenes of phone engineer and alleged psychic stalking Beth Latimer across town were undoubtedly intended to seem menacing. His messages to Beth are so vague as to be meaningless and Steve spent enough time in the police station fitting phone lines that he could have stumbled across any amount of information. Could he be trying to divert attention away from clues he knows to be fact? Strangely, the only one of Steve’s messages to have made sense to anyone is the one he delivered to hardy. And it also looks like he was right about the boat.




Nige Carter

Played by Joe Sims
Nige’s paper thin alibi for boss Mark was ripped to shreds within seconds by DS Miller’s cunning strategy of asking his mum. On the surface, Nige seems a good, affable bloke, perhaps not the brightest of guys but decent enough, loyal enough to Mark to lie to the police for him, lives with his mum, hardworking and friendly. So why the crossbow in the back of his van? And why did the visit from the two reporters spook him so much?




Olly Stevens

Played by Jonathan Bailey
Was Olly behind the killing to further his own career? With the national press starting to focus on the town he has a chance to build a name for himself as the journalist who broke the Broadchurch case. Yet, he did seem to wobble a bit when Nige asked about his mum. What is he hiding in his private world? And remember, his mum is either going to be Ellie’s sister or sister-in-law.



Becca Fisher

Played by Simone McAullay
Several of you thought last week that the hotelier might be having an affair with Danny's dad – and you were right! Did Danny discover and confront Simone? Was he trying to blackmail her? Is that where the money under Danny’s bed came from? And was Mark involved?



Karen White

Played by Vicky McClure
Karen has really got it in for DI Hardy, confronting him about his part in the collapse of the Sandbrook trial, and is outraged that he seems to have got away with letting the relatives in that case down. Could she engineer another case in order to destroy his career or his health? She was adamant that she was going to cover the case for her paper. We learn this week that she’s down in Broadchurch without the knowledge of or permission from her boss. Why has she put so much on the line?




Maggie Radcliffe

Played by Carolyn Pickles
Maggie has resented Karen being in town from the moment she set eyes on her. This week she checked up on her and discovered she shouldn’t even be in town. Maggie is a once respected journalist who reported on a major crime, but is now running out her career in a town where they ‘celebrate the ordinary’. Has she taken the chance to make something extraordinary happen so she can go out with a bang? It turns out that Beth Latimer works in the same office as Carolyn, so she will have had plenty of opportunity to get to know about her victim.




Chloe Latimer

Played by Charlotte Beaumont
Danny’s sister Chloe was mixed up with drug dealing last week through the unscrupulous Dean. This week it turns out that she was aware of Mark’s liaison with Becca, enough to persuade Becca to step in and save her dad. What other secrets is she keeping for him? And how far would she do to protect him if Danny was about to reveal all?


Liz Roper

Played by Susan Brown
Grandma Liz has done nothing more sinister this week than glower at hapless Police Family Liaison Officer Pete. Is she going to be playing a bigger part as the drama progresses?


DS Ellie Miller

Played by Olivia Colman
Ellie seems only guilty at the moment of smothering her victims with kindness, as husband Joe has it. But she’s no pushover, with strength of character enough to bring down the rude and sulky Hardy a peg or two when she thinks he needs it. And in spite of herself she finds herself actually looking out for him, bringing him a flask and even inviting him to dinner. But is the niceness a mere cover? Does the heart of a ruthless killer beat under that soft and fluffy exterior? What might she do to protect Tom?





So what of the other unresolved questions. Who owns that hut? Who does the skateboard belong to? Where is Danny’s phone? Whose boat was ablaze? And, if it wasn’t the postman that Jack saw in the distance, who else might it have been out and about in a fluorescent jacket?

Once again it’s over to you. Who do you now think killed Danny Latimer?





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