Here’s our spoiler-filled review of Rellik, episode 2.

I said it last week, I’ll say it this week. I think Paterson Joseph’s character, Isaac Taylor, is the acid attack killer. I have nothing to prove that belief, but this is the Internet. These days you can spout any old nonsense without proof.

Joseph was a thoroughly enjoyable guest on Channel 4’s awkward man-hug of a magazine show, Sunday Brunch this weekend, talking about the reversey-worsey drama and describing it as a ‘bog-standard detective drama seen backwards’. That sounds a bit damning with faint praise, but is so far spot on. Rellik’s rewinding gimmick is all that keeps it from being ‘bog-standard’, but so far it’s working, with some carefully crafted surprises.

I do worry the novelty will have worn away by the time Episode 6 arrives. Even now you can start to see Rellik’s trick of putting the answer before the question, only then to change what you think the answer is.

After a busy first episode that had to introduce both the time-rewinding premise and a large number of characters – and which just about got away with it – Episode 2 smartly plays for a simpler layout, splitting the story between DCI Gabriel Markham (Richard Dormer) working on finding the acid attacker, and his colleague and casual sex partner DI Elaine Shepard (Jodi Balfour) working through some daddy issues that we’re yet to find out about.

Elaine also has some serious dietary issues. Tomato ketchup on pasta? That might be the most disgusting thing I’ve seen in this show, and last week a man got his throat cut. For her, though, it’s a celebratory meal; a punctuation mark after writing a big ‘SCREW YOU, DAD’, across the day. The choice of The Jam at his cremation, and her selling his car for a twelfth of its price seems odd, until time spools back and we find he was a real shit (although crucially not why – perhaps there are enough rewinds left in the show to discover) and this is her getting the last laugh.Elaine is not a woman to cross. She’s the one who mails pictures of her and Gabriel having sex to Gabriel’s wife, further complicating a relationship that was already complicated when we were introduced to it two days later (are you used to the timey-wimeyness of Rellik yet?).

Gabriel’s wife knows he’s been shagging about but he’s got some leverage against her. Something to do with a Hannah. In developing its lead characters, Rellik is also dropping big hints for future episodes, like an annoying friend who tells you they have a big secret that they can’t tell you about, and keeps telling you they have a big secret they can’t tell you about.

Gabriel’s on the trail of fellow acid-attack victim Christine (Rosalind Eleazar), a suspect in the acid attacks. He wants to know what was on the burned laptop she took from therapist Isaac, but there isn’t a great deal of case progression. Instead Episode 2 makes Christine the voice of Gabriel’s insecurities first and a suspect second.

Throughout she’s constantly talking about his face and acting as a mirror to his disfigurement. She’s used as the tool to probe Gabriel’s insecurities over his deformity, which as we see later/earlier, are more deep-set than he lets on. She gets deep enough under his damaged skin to push him to the reckless action of driving at high speed down the wrong side of the road, in what is an exhilarating spike in the hour.

It’s a crazy act, a suicidal act, but as Rellik unfolds you see the reasoning behind it. Gabriel is a man skirting on the edges of suicide; contemplating the theory of no longer being around. The scene where he articulates it to a therapist is a beautiful, terrifying moment, and one that Richard Dormer absolutely nails.

Christine may be more than a voice pricking Gabriel’s subconscious, as the information on the laptop she stole details her admitting to killing people. I don’t believe she’s the big bad of Rellik though, and only two episodes in neither should you. My money’s still on Paterson Joseph.

Still, it’s enough of a twist to hold your attention for the next week. It’s bizarre coming at an episode of a crime drama from the death-end and still being flummoxed. It’s odd to say, but it’s enjoyably vexing.

And oddly, that’s what keeps Rellik watchable and, so far, well above bog-standard.